Changing the F# tools Visual Studio 2010 uses

Question

I rebuilt F# with few syntax additions. I was able to tell VS2010 to use them for F# Interactive and for building, but the code editor still claims I'm making errors (even though the project builds just fine).

Is it even possible to change this? If it is - how?

Answer 1

As far as I know, there is no way to change the IntelliSense service used by F# in Visual Studio. The Visual Studio component isn't a part of the open-source release and it has a reference to strongly-signed FSharp.Compiler.dll. I'm not sure if there is some way to trick .NET to load a different assembly instead (specifying bindingRedirect in app.config requires the same strong name). If you find some way, let me know :-) I'd like to use it with my modified version of F# too.

If you want to get some IntelliSense for your modified F#, you can use the F# MonoDevelop plugin. The plugin is open-source and you can change the F# version used in the Services/FSharpCompiler.fs file (see the source on GitHub).