Visual Studio (not Code) Continue extension?

[pcuci]

Validations

• I believe this is a way to improve. I'll try to join the Continue Discord for questions
• I'm not able to find an open issue that requests the same enhancement

Problem

Continue not accessible to the Visual Studio C#/.NET community (GitHub Copilot is)

Solution

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/extensibility/starting-to-develop-visual-studio-extensions?view=vs-2022

Seems to require a full rework, different stack than Visual Studio Code

[sestinj]

Not probably in the extremely near future, but undoubtedly we will do this eventually. If the urge arises for anyone and they'd like to learn what it might take to contribute such an extension, please feel free to ask!

[pcuci]

Workaround:

Use VS Code Live Share in conjunction with Visual Studio Live Share to collaborate with yourself locally on the same project.

This way I can ask Continue for assist in VS Code 😎, and changes show up in Visual Studio where I build and run things. Yes it's wonky, but it works 🤣

In my case, I also installed the C# Dev Kit extension in VS Code

And while you're at it, why not also invite your humans, a la: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_programming#Mob_programming

[sestinj]

Use VS Code Live Share in conjunction with Visual Studio Live Share to collaborate with yourself locally on the same project.

lol this is actually brilliant. Nice find!

[etaxi341]

Would totally love it in VS 2022 because C# Solutions really are no fun in VS Code

[pcuci]

Actually, the Live Share thing doesn't keep track of git code diffs, so I found it annoying not knowing what I'm changing. Though, it's still good for, you know, live-sharing with other humans :-)

Simply open up the same C# code in VS Code for use with only Continue, and as you save the diff-recommendations, the diffs simply show up in Visual Studio (I have autosave turned on in VS Code). Pretty seamless experience of Visual Studio + Continue <3

[visagansanthanam-unisys]

Not probably in the extremely near future, but undoubtedly we will do this eventually. If the urge arises for anyone and they'd like to learn what it might take to contribute such an extension, please feel free to ask!

I would like to contribute on the development of visual studio plugin, can you help me get started with it?

[sinand99]

+1 for Visual Studio. The real IDE, made for professionals, unlike vscode crap.

[d00m4ace]

+1 for Visual Studio 2022!
+1 for CLion

[AbdulBasitKhaleeq]

+1 for Visual Studio 2022!

[blackout1471]

Is there any projects for it? or can i contribute with one?

[pcuci]

@blackout1471 - you want to create the continue visual studio extension?

If I remember correctly, @sestinj mentioned in their discord that they don't have bandwidth for a 3rd integration at the moment, but that they totally welcome any contributions. Which is why they are building 2 integrations in parallel, i.e.: vscode and jet brains (to validate that the system would work for multiple other IDEs)

Just drop in the discord whenever you get stuck? I'm not an every day C#/C++ developer, so can't help much, but I'd definitely use the extension if it were available, plus it would help me a lot to have continue read-assist all the C# code I need to look at every once in a while :-)

Good luck!

[sestinj]

@blackout1471 @visagansanthanam-unisys glad to hear of the excitement! if you're still interested in working on this, the best place to start would be autocomplete. We are still going to hold off from officially accepting a full extension with sidebar and everything, but autocomplete is likely to be more straightforward. I'm assuming that VS extensions are written in .NET, so we would have to take the same approach as with JetBrains by shipping a binary along with the extension.

The biggest todos to make this happen would be
a) package and ship with a continue core binary, as is done in the JetBrains extension (source code for the binary is in the binary directory of the repository)
b) implement all of the basic required protocol functions that will allow the binary to communicate with the IDE
c) build the UI that displays inline ghost text. This may be easier if they have a nice API like VSCode, but if it's more like JetBrains you'll have to almost literally draw everything yourself

As of now this would likely still fall under experimental, as we want to focus on providing the best possible experience in a smaller number of IDEs

[Cuzano]

+1
I would really appreciate VS2022 to be supported too :)