Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio

Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio is a language service extension for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 allowing us to work on classic Visual Basic projects within Visual Studio. Its intention is to provide better development tools for teams that have to maintain legacy code or working on migration projects. Right now the toolset is still under development and some valuable features are not available yet, but it could already worth it to try.

This is pre-release software that is not intended to be used in a live operating environment. The software is licensed "as-is" and you bear the risk of using it.

This toolset is still under development...

and does not claim to be a feature-complete replacement for the classic VB6 IDE. Please use the UserVoice forum at http://vbvs.uservoice.com/ to leave feature requests or report any bugs. Your feedback is appreciated! License keys can be obtained via the product website at http://vbvs.cloudapp.net/

The download for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 can be found here: /vsgallery/00cc8ff8-beb3-4f08-8aa6-59eefba3bb40

What´s in the box?

The extension adds the VB-CLASSIC menu item to the development environment; this menu allows us to load classic VB workspace- and project-files and offers quick access to the extension´s options. This is not a converter nor another VB6 upgrade wizard. The import tool creates a new solution and MSBuild compatible projects. The project system synchronizes all changes made to a project with the corresponding VBP file; this allows us to use this toolset in parallel with the Visual Basic 6 IDE.

Project System and Editor

The package registers a new language service supporting Visual Basic 6 projects and code files. It integrates with the solution explorer and the code editor having support for syntax highlighting, basic outlining (allows to expand/collapse methods, properties, and types) as well as navigation bar support.

Project Properties Designer

The project properties designer works directly on VBP files (MSBuild project files have only been introduced due to compatibility issues). The current version allows us to display and edit a subset of classic VBP project settings (will probably be extended in future versions).

New: Symbol Browsing (Object Browser, Class View)

The latest version registers loaded VB6 projects with the Object Manager. Classes, Types, Modules, Forms, and Controls can be inspected using the Object Browser and Class View.