How can I put messages or warnings into the VS error window?

Question

The Obsolete attribute, and a few other things I've seen are able to have custom warnings or messages show in the Visual Studio IDE Error window. Is this possible with a custom attribute, preprocessor directive in C# or something else?

using Reflector to look at the Obsolete attribute didn't have any clues.

Answer 1

You can use the System.Diagnostics namespace.

And then call Debug.WriteLine("Some text ");

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815788

Answer 2

#warning DEBUG is defined - link

works for warnings

Answer 3

This may not be exactly what you're looking for. But I use

// TODO: Blah.

That will put a todo item in your task list (not the output window) without running the solution.