I am creating a Visual Studio extension and have added a custom configuration-specific property to an existing Microsoft Visual C++ (vcxproj) project using the IVsBuildPropertyStorage interface.
I would like to have that custom property show up in the Project Designer's property pages, as part of a new property page. There is some information on how to achieve that for a custom project type but the approach relies on reimplementing the project system which is not appropriate for all situations. Is there a way to extend the Project Designer for an existing project type?
One way to customise the Project Designer pages for a vcxproj is to include an additional property schema by adding the following:
<ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets" />
<ItemGroup>
<PropertyPageSchema Include="proppage.xml">
<Context>Project</Context>
</PropertyPageSchema>
</ItemGroup>
to a project which can be done by either copying this snippet into the project file directly or by putting it into a custom props file and including that into the project. Details on the structure of a property page schema are available here.
The main issue with this approach is that it requires manual intervention or an explicit step for setting up a project to use the custom property page, making it unsuitable for my use case.
It is also bit cumbersome as it requires shipping one-two additional files with the extension and it leaves a footprint in the project file. I would like to come across a more minimalistic solution that automatically applies to all MS VC++ projects but does not modify the project files unless the user inputs a property into the custom property page.
Related
I have a solution with many projects in it. I have added a new one, but it doesn't seem to share the same build configurations as the others. I want to copy the build configuration from another project and make it available to the new project.
As you can see in the image below, all my other projects have net462-source, but not the one for which I have lowered the drop down. It only has Debug and Release.
How do I copy the build configuration over?
I was unable to find an answer to your copy question but for future projects you can utilize Project Templates and Property Sheets to apply shared configuration across multiple projects.
Use custom Project Template for new projects:
Create a new empty project.
Apply the net462-source configuration to the new project.
Export a new project template by following https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/how-to-create-project-templates.
When creating a new project select the new project template and it will automatically apply the correct configuration settings.
Add Custom Project Template
Use shared Property Sheets for multiple projects:
Create a property sheet in the solution folder by following https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/create-reusable-property-configurations#to-create-a-property-sheet.
Apply your shared properties settings to the .props file either manually or through the Property Manager window and click save.
In the Property Manager select all the projects that you want to apply the property sheet to and right click->Add Existing Property Sheet...
Add Existing Property Sheet
Note: Property sheets can also contain "Conditions" like .vcxproj files.
<ItemDefinitionGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='net462-source|Win32'">
<ClCompile>
<WarningLevel>Level4</WarningLevel>
</ClCompile>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>
I'm working on a unique project in that I would like to be able to have CSHTML Razor Views, Windows Forms, and various other "non project type crossing" project item templates in one single project in visual studio.
Is there a way I can override the project type so that it compiles as a Windows Form's project but still allows me to add CSHTML files and other template types to it?
When you edit the .csproj using notepad or an xml editor you'll find that <ProjectTypeGuids> element.
You can then edit it to have an entry like below
<ProjectTypeGuids>{786C830F-07A1-408B-BD7F-6EE04809D6DB};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>
Note: these are Guids from a portable class library project. You need to find correct ProjectTypeGuids for your requirements and add it.
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/d9d05cdc-96a1-4044-95d8-a4f8885a660a/what-is-the-significance-of-projecttypeguids-tag-in-the-visual-studio-project-file?forum=vsx
I have "DOM like" data structure in c# (parent, childNodes, properties, enums...) and I want to use xml\xaml file to some of the initializing. I already wrote a tool that transform my xaml to c# and inject them in the right place.
I want the exact Intellisense behavior of WPF except that my classes doesn't inherits from WPF base classes and my project in not wpf application on library and doesn't reference wpf assemblies. i also don't want to use xsd schema because classes are added and edited very frequently.
I'm using visual studio 2010
Is it possible?
Create a xaml (start by creating a resource dictionary and delete the content).
Add your own assembly as the default namespace and start using your types. I have created a test for sample data recently, here's how it looks like:
<MainViewModel xmlns="clr-namespace:MvvmTest.ViewModels.DesignTime"
Name="The design time main view model">
<MainViewModel.SubViewModels>
<FirstSubViewModel Name="The design time first sub-view model" />
<SecondSubViewModel Name="The design time second sub-view model" />
</MainViewModel.SubViewModels>
</MainViewModel>
You can load the file using the XamlReader class. As a bonus compared to xml, the file will be compiled and run time loading will be much faster.
I have a solution that contains several projects, lets call them ProjectA and ProjectB. I need ProjectA to have a reference to ProjectB, however when I "Export Template" I can't seem to keep the reference. What I am trying to do is to have it create the reference for me when I create a new project and then automatically name it to what I entered.
This is slightly out of scope for pure Visual Studio templates.
Visual Studio templates supports replacements parameters for templates, so what you could do is:
Inside your ProjectA.zip template file you will find ProjectA.csproj, which is the template for the project
In ProjectA.csproj you will find an <ItemGroup> containing <Reference> entries
Among them should be an entry like <Reference Include="ProjectB">
When you create a project from your ProjectB-template, it's name will be user-specified, so you want to replace ProjectB with a replacement parameter like $Foo$.
This is where it gets out of scope for pure templates: How do you tell visual studio to replace $Foo$? And what would the replacement be?
Your only choice here it to use a custom wizard, which either looks for the ProjectB-type project or asks the user for it.
Here's an outline for how to get the template and custom wizard to get along:
Create a VSIX package project.
Be sure to add the [ProvideBindingPath] attribute to your package. This is required to get the custom wizard registered (otherwise you would need to install it to the GAC, so VS can find it)
Create your wizard, it should implement Microsoft.VisualStudio.TemplateWizard.IWizard
Add your template to the solution and add it as a ProjectTemplate asset in your package's vsixmanifest
In the .vstemplate file of your template, add the following snippet below the <TemplateContent> block:
<WizardExtension>
<Assembly>Your.Packages.Assembly</Assembly>
<FullClassName>Your.Wizard</FullClassName>
</WizardExtension>
That will bring up your wizard when the project is created. You could, in the RunStarted method bring up a dialog which asks for the reference or you could use the automationObject parameter (which actually is a EnvDTE.DTE instance) to try and find the ProjectB project and supply it's name in the replacementsDictionary.
In a visual studio project I have three layers, Data Layer, Business Layer and Presentation Layer.
In the Data Layer I have a few XSLT's that transform some objects into an email, all works fine but I have discovered that the XSLTs do not get built/copied when building.
I have currently, created a folder in the deploy location and placed the XSLT's there but I am concerned about relying on a manual process to update these.
Has anyone encountered a similar issue and if so how did they get around it.
It smacks of changing the MSBuild script to copy the build artifacts to the required location, does anyone have examples of this?
Thaks
If you are using Visual Studio 2005/2008, the easiest way to do this is by including your XSLT files as project resources.
Open the Properties for your project.
Select the Resources tab. You will probably see a link that says "This project does not contain a default resources file. Click here to create one." Go ahead and click on that.
Click the Add Resource drop-down near the top and select Add Existing File.
Browse to your XSLT files and select them.
After you have done this, you can easily access the resources in the following manner:
// To get the contents of the resource as a string:
string xslt = global::MyNamespace.Properties.Resources.MyXsltFile;
// To get a Stream containing the resource:
Stream xsltStream = global::MyNamespace.Properties.Resources.ResourceManager.GetStream("MyXsltFile");
If you are using Visual Studio 2003, your best bet is to include those XSLT files as embedded resources for the DLL. In Visual Studio, select the file(s) in Solution Explorer, open the Properties pane, and change the Build Type to "Embedded Resource". You can then use the GetManifestResourceStream method to get a Stream containing the XSLT(s). The name to pass will be based on the default namespace of your assembly, the folder containing the file, and the name of the file.
For example, say your data layer assembly has a default namespace of My.DataLayer. Within your data layer project you have a folder named Templates which contains a file called Transform.xslt. The code to get your XSLT would look like this:
// There are numerous ways to get a reference to the Assembly ... this way works
// when called from a class that is in your data layer. Have a look also at the
// static methods available on the Assembly class.
System.Reflection.Assembly assembly = (GetType()).Assembly;
System.IO.Stream xsltStream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("My.DataLayer.Templates.Transform.xslt");
For more information check out this article on CodeProject.
Obvious question maybe, but still has to be asked, did you include the folder containing the XSLT's in the project itself? Is this a web or forms app?
In VS, it is easy to set the properties of the XSLT files in the project to copy on build, by default they do not.
I may have explained myself poorly.
THe Data layer is a class library that a the presentation layer references.
On building the DataLayer I can get the XSLTs to output to the Bin directory of the DataLayer. However when I build and publish the presentation layer, it correctly grabs the DLL but not the XSLTs