I hope this doesn't sound like a stupid question, as I do not exactly know what terms and technologies are involved.
When you open a .cs file in Visual Studio, the code editor opens and displays the content in the main window (Code Editor) with syntax highlighting and stuff. When you open a .txt file, the same thing happens, except without any fancy extras because it's a plain text.
But now, there are several files that open a whole custom UI that enables you to edit the base file .xxx with the help of dialogs etc.
As an example, a ftp client: In the project, there's a file something.ftp with the following content:
connection = [
server: 192.168.1.52
port: 21
startdir: "C:\dasdasd\asdasd"
]
So a UI pops up where you can edit the base file window based, connect to a remote server, view its remote directory contents etc.
Are those so called Shell Extensions? Or Add-ins? Or Project Types?