I have been playing with the Command Window in Visual Studio (View->Other Windows->Command Window). It is great for several mouse-free scenarios. (The autocompleting file "Open" command rocks in a non-trivial solution.) That success got me thinking and experimenting:

• Possibility 1.1: You can use the Alias commands to create custom commands
• Possibility 1.2: You can use the Shell command to run arbitrary executables and specify parameters (and pipe the result to the output or command windows)
• Possibility 2: A previously setup external tool definition (with project-relative path variables) could be run from the command window

What I am stuck on is:

1. There doesn't appear to be a way to send parameters to an aliased command (and thus the underlying Shell call)
2. There doesn't appear to be a way to use project/solution relative paths ($SolutionDir/$ProjectDir) on a Shell call
3. Using absolute paths in Shell works, but is fragile and high-maintenance (one alias for each needed use case). Typically you want the command to run against a file relative to your project/solution.
4. It seems you can't run the traditional external tools (Tools->External Tools...) in the command window

Ultimately I want the external tool functionality in the command window in some way. Can anyone see a way to do this? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

So my questions:

1. Can an "external tool" of some sort (using relative project/solution path parameters) be used in the Command Window?
2. If yes, How?
3. If no, what might be a suitable alternative?