How to attach images to a vsix file? - vsix

Question

I'm trying to customize the startpage for the Visual Studio 2010. I have download the Custom Start Page Project Template from Microsoft to do it.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/f655a5dc-1a2d-4eca-b774-76c352c03b87
Now on the my customized start page project, there are a couple of images that I want to embed in the project, so that I can give someone else my vsix file and they can install it along with all the images. That way they don't have to download all the images, and link them to the location of all the images on their computers. I have tried all the suggestions here and on the msdn forum, but none of them are working for me. Here is what I have tried:
Create a folder called Images on the root folder
Add all the images in there
Set the build action of each image to Resource (I even tried Embedded Resource with no luck)
Rebuild the project
One more thing, I could see the image on the design process. However, when I run the project by hitting F5 (it will run on the experimental instance), the images do not show up at all.
I'm at my wit's end now, I don't know what to do or what I should do. Do anyone have this problem before and find a way how to fix it ? Thank you.

Answer 1

Right click on the Image and setInclude in VSIX to True. You'll also need to make sure the Build Action is set to Content. This will cause the image to get installed into the Visual Studio plugin folder.
To get the path to the installed image, let's assume you have a file, a.jpg and it's in the folder images, which is at the root level of your Package project.
public string GetImageFullPath(string filename){
return Path.Combine(
//Get the location of your package dll
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location,
//reference your 'images' folder
"/images/",
filename
);
}
Then to get the full path to your image:
GetImageFullPath("a.jpg");