Hello,
I am developing an extension that lets our end user write and debug programs (in c# or VB.Net) that interact with hardware (or software simulating the hardware). There are also separate software tools (that we develop) external to Visual Studio that interact with the same hardware and can change its state. The issue I have has to do with synchronization between the view of the hardware state between the program being debugged in Visual Studio and other tools.
If I set a watch in the debugger on a variable that represents a value in the hardware, such as a voltage, then while I am at a breakpoint in the program, I go to another tool and change the value of the voltage, when I look at the watch window, the variable still shows the old value. If I then take another step in the code, the watch value updates, since taking the step in the code indicates to the watch window that it needs to refresh its state.
What I would like to do is to be able to programmatically signal to the watch window that it needs to refresh. That way, when one of the tools changes a value in the hardware, it could send a signal that the watch window needs to be updated.
However, I have not found a way to accomplish this. I don't see any way to affect the watch window, either by the VS automation interfaces or by the API available to my VS Package -- I don't even see a way
to manually refresh the watch window, other than closing it and reopening it. Is there any way to do this?
Thanks,
Sherri