Organizing project files in Visual Studio for better explorer view - visual-studio

I have a project in visual studio where there are several files arranged in folders (filters). Inside the project, everything is well organized, but as soon as I go to the explorer, I see that all the project files are in the same folder. How can I properly organize my project so that the repository doesn't look like a bunch of files in one folder?
I use Visual Studio 2022
I tried to manually decompose the files into folders, but when I did this, visual studio began to swear that it could not find the files

Can you share a screenshot of what you have and what you want?
I ask because there are two aspects to this.
The arrangement of projects within Solution Explorer
The arrangement of files within projects within Solution Explorer
The first can be controlled by adding solution folders. The structure is stored within the .sln file.
The second is generally a representation of the file system, depending upon your project type.
Also, make sure you're using the Solution Explorer view. Does this button appear clicked for you?
If so, you should unclick it. Solution Explorer can show you either the solution view (default, and what I refer to above) or the file system view.

Related

How to set up folder structure in Visual Studio

I am working on a project and I can see lots of folders which are dimmed and have dotted outline. I can expand them and each usually contains several projects inside. These are not hidden folders. Also, when I try to open projects into windows explorer, it opens up in a differently named folder than what it appears in Visual Studio.
I want to know what is it and how can this be done?
They are called Solution Folders and they are not bound to the folder structure on the disk. If you open your solution file with a text editor, you can see how they reference the projects.

how to share a folder between two projects in Visual studio 2010

If I have a project called 'testing' in project A.
How can I share that folder 'testing' for project B in visual studio 2010?
The reason I would like to achieve about this is because when I change something in the folder testing of project A, I dont want to change the same things in project B.
Thanks in advance.
Maybe too late for the person who asked the question, but this is for people with similar problems. You can share folder contents with an extention 'Project Linker':
This builds upon the concept of linked files where you refer to the same file from two projects. This extention handles the management of that for an entire project. If you add a file to the project, it will be added too to the other project as a linked file. Same for deletes...
Attention: you need to have both projects in the same solution for this to work of coarse...
Extention VS2015
I used it in VS2010 and it's also availible for later versions.
You can't share folders in Visual Studio - they are logical constructs that are part of a solution or project.
The closest you can get is to add folders to the projects you need to share on and add all the files that you want to share as links. You will still need to manually synchronize all adds/deletes of files, but updates will come across all projects.
To make things easier, you may want to write a Visual Studio macro that synchronizes these folders for you (you can bind these to keyboard shortcuts and/or menu items).
If you put your solution (*.sln) files in the same directory they can share files in sub directories.

adding multiple existing folders and multiple existing files to Visual Studio project in single step

Does anyone have a way to add multiple folders and (existing) files within those folders to a Visual Studio project in a single step (or via macro)? Let's assume all of the folders and files were copied/pasted into the project folder where they need to reside relative to the project folder, but are not actually stored in the .csproj or .vbproj file, which I believe is a requirement to compile those files into the solution/project.
This works great if you have a web application project in your solution, but not so well if you have a .csproj or .vbproj. In that case, you must manually add folders (and nested folders), and add existing files and browse to each one individually, which can take a long time.
In the solution explorer, select the project, click the "Show All Files" button - .
This will show all the files, even those not part of the project. You can now select all of these in the solution explorer (using Ctrl + Click) then right click and go to "Include In Project".
In Visual Studio 2013 (and possibly earlier) you drag the folder from windows explorer and drop it on the project in the solution explorer.
Other answer given in this thread wouldn't work for me as the files I want to add (DTSX files) are in a different folder, and copying/moving them causes other problems. Here is what worked for me:
Using Visual Studio 2015, use Windows Explorer to locate the files you want to add to your project. Copy those files to the clipboard. If DTSX files are what you are dealing with, in the Solution Explorer right-click on SSIS Packages, and then click on Paste.

TFS View History in VS2010 for all files under a Solution

I'm trying to view history in Visual Studio 2010 for all files included in a given Solution file via the Solution Explorer View. I use TFS 2010 for source control, and I'm aware that I can get history for a folder recursively in Source Control Explorer. My issue is that we have multiple projects in a root directory, all of which are included in a variety of solution files in that same directory (each solution file represents a deploy-able component, including some "shared code" between them). I just want to view history on all of the files included in a given solution file, and not everything in this root directory. When I right click on a solution or project in Solution Explorer and "View History", I just get history for that solution file or project file, nothing more.
Alas, this cannot be done with TFS as it is.
TFS Source control does not know if a file is a solution file or a text document. It just stores it for you. There is no parsing at all. I can (and do) store Delphi project files in TFS. There is no way for TFS to be able to understand and be smart about every file type that exists.
It would be nice if Solution explorer did this for you (as it is specific to your project). But it does not.
You could create a custom plugin to TFS and Visual Studio to do what you are asking, but it would probably take longer than just manually checking the history of all the files in your solution.
This might help, it's an add-in extension
VS 2010 and VS 2012

Make Visual Studio's Find in Files default to the project directory?

I have many different branches/checkouts of the same project code on my development machine. Each one is virtually the same except for various maintenance bug fixes or improvements I'm working on within each project.
The problem comes when I use Find in Files inside Visual Studio to search through my code. VS2005 stores the last search directory that was used in its Find in Files dialog ... this may or may not be the project directory I'm working on. Since my projects are so similar, it's easy to accidentally search through a similar project, change some code, and only realize later that I've edited the wrong project. (Argh!!)
Is there a way to make VS default its Find in Files search to the project directory? Obviously a properties setting would be wonderful, but an add-in would be fine too.
This drives me nuts too. But in "Look In:" dropdown on the find in files dlg you will find items for Solution and project. I think that should work for you.
In VS2008, with no files open, when I select 'Current Project' it searches whatever project is currently selected in the Solution Explorer. When I switch between files in different projects, it correctly searches the project of the currently selected file. I don't see any options for changing this behavior.

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