How do I let Visual studio know about web root different from wwwroot? - visual-studio

Visual Studio shows nice icon and customised context menu for wwwroot directory as a web root.
I am curious, is there any option to let VS know that another directory was designed as a web root with UseWebRoot method and treat it appropriately instead of just showing it as a regular folder?

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TFS Map Team Projects to different folders

I'm using the TFS Server offered by Visual Studio Online and Visual Studio 2013.
I've mapped the DefaultCollection to C:\Users\xy\Source\TFS and the first Team Project TP1 to C:\Users\xy\Source\TFS\TP1.
Now I have a second Team Project TP2 which would automatically be mapped to C:\Users\xy\Source\TFS\TP2. Is it possible to change the path for TP2 to a completely different folder?
Yes, this is possible, but not really straight-forward. I'd advise to have a clean workspace without any pending changes, especially in the team project that you want to map differently.
Open Source Control Explorer.
In the toolbar of the window you can see a drop down box with your workspace. Choose Workspaces....
Select your workspace and click Edit....
The dialog contains a grid Working folders that you can use to add special mappings. A picker dialog for the TFS side and the local file system structure support you in this task.
Leave all the dialogs with Ok.

Visual Studio 2013 - Open .aspx and .cs files from other project at the current project

Probably it's a stupid question but i would like to open aspx and cs files from the windows explorer without opening a new instance of visual studio, is this possible?
Greets,
Firmino
There are several ways you can improve your experience opening files in VS.
You can use drag and drop
Troubleshooting: You can't drag and drop between apps in Windows if one of them is running with admin rights and another is not. Normally, you don't need either of Explorer or VS to run with admin privileges.
Visual studio running with no admin rights will most likely will be reused to open a file when you doubleclick in the Explorer (sometimes it still opens new instance with no sensible reason)
You can use File_Menu->Open->File (Ctrl+O). This will basically open an Explorer instance for you.
You can use File_Menu->Recent files if you have opened desired file recently
You can just add file to the project (and then get rid of it when it's no longer needed) (Shift+Alt+A)
You can use Show All Files feature (a toggle button in Solution Explorer) to view all the files under project folder (recursively), even if they are not included in the project. You cannot see folders higher in hierarchy, but you could make for example a symlink or just a dumb copy
You can file a feature request or a bug report (it can be done from VS itself) to make developers know about this situation
Hope any of those solutions will work for you.
Right Click On The File
Click Open With
And Select Notepad..
It Would Do The JOB

Sync Visual Studio folder/filename structure with file system structure/filenames

I've made a lot of changes (a.k.a refactoring) to my (big) visual studio solution and it appears now that vs solution structure is very different in visual studio from what it is on the disk and TFS.
Is there a way to make file system (and TFS) have the same folder names and file names as in visual studio solution with some tool or script/program/helper add-in?
This is the list of main issues:
- when I rename project visual studio does not rename folder where this project is located
- if I move project, file to different vs folder, it just happens in visual studio, but not on the disk
You can switch between logical or physical folders in the solution by clicking the "Show all files" icon (2nd top left icon in the solution pane). When not activated, you are viewing logical folders in the solution, drag and drop simply re arrange files virtually. When activated, you are viewing physical folders, drag and drop moves files on disk, using the source controller.
No there are no tools that can help you do this automatically.
There is a two step approach to solve it, made easier by installing two add-ons. I prefer to use the Team Foundation Power Tools and the Source Control Explorer Extensions.
From the Source Control Window inside Visual Studio:
Close the open solution in Visual Studio
open the Source Control window in TFS
Move the folders around to match the structure you prefer, with the mentioned add-ons you should be able to drag/drop and rename them more easily
Alternatively, do the changes on file system with the Team Foundation Power Tools explorer extensions installed:
Close the solution in Visual Studio
navigate to your workspace folder using Windows Explorer
use the TFS context menu on the folders to check-out/rename/move the items ans folders
Then re-load the solution in Visual Studio and:
Open the solution and see that a lot of projects don't load.
Highlight a project that couldn't be found
On the project properties window (ctrl-w, p) find the file path item and click the little [...] button to navigate to the new project file location for each project.
Rightclick the projects you've updated this way in the solution explorer and reload them
Rebuild your solution to verify all changes went as expected
Check-in your changes

Expression Web 4: Open visual studio 2010 CSPROJ ? or SLN?

I have recently started to use Web Expression 4. I was under the impression that you can open CSPROJ / SLN in Expression web 4.
When i click File Open I can see both the SLN and the CSPROJ ... but if i choose either it autoamtically loads visual studio 2010.
I thought you could open both??
I want to use expression web 4 for designing my html pages that are in my VS 2010 project.
But of course i want to open the project so i can see all my CSS files and create new ones etc..
Any ideas what i am doing wrong?
The folder list (on the left) in expression web 4 is empty.
The only thing you could in your Expression Web are the ASP.NET web pages (.aspx) and the like.
According to Jim Chesire:
A solution file is simply a "pointer"
to your content. Expression Web has no
understanding of solution files. When
you open the site in Expression Web,
you need to open the location of your
content, not the location of the
solution file.

How do I "Add Existing Item" an entire directory structure in Visual Studio?

I have a free standing set of files not affiliated with any C# project at all that reside in a complicated nested directory structure.
I want to add them in that format to a different directory in an ASP.NET web application I am working on; while retaining the same structure. So, I copied the folder into the target location of my project and I tried to “add existing item” only to lose the previous folder hierarchy.
Usually I have re-created the directories by hand, copied across on a one-to-one basis, and then added existing items. There are simply too many directories/items in this case.
So how do you add existing directories and files in Visual Studio 2008?
Drag the files / folders from Windows Explorer into the Solution Explorer. It will add them all. Note this doesn't work if Visual Studio is in Administrator Mode, because Windows Explorer is a User Mode process.
Enable "Show All Files" for the specific project (you might need to hit "Refresh" to see them)**.
The folders/files that are not part of your project appear slightly "lighter" in the project tree.
Right click the folders/files you want to add and click "Include In Project". It will recursively add folders/files to the project.
** These buttons are located on the mini Solution Explorer toolbar.
** Make sure you are NOT in debug mode.
In Solution Explorer:
Click Show All Files (second icon from the left at the top of Solution Explorer).
Locate the folder you want to add.
Right-click and select "Include in Project"
I use this to install add-ons like HTML editors and third-party file browsers.
I just want to point out that two of the solutions offered previously,
Drag and drop from Windows Explorer
Show All Files and then include in project.
do not do what the question asked for:
Include in project while preserving the directory structure.
At least not in my case (C++/CLI project Visual Studio 2013 on Windows 7).
In Visual Studio, once you are back in the normal view (not Show All Files), the files you added are all listed at the top level of the project.
Yes, on disk they still reside where they were, but in Solution Explorer they are loose.
I did not find a way around it except recreating the directory structure in Solution Explorer and then doing Add Existing Items at the right location.
I didn't immediately understand this based upon these descriptions but here is what I finally stumbled on:
Turn on "Show All Files" - there is an icon on the Solution Explorer toolbar
Using Windows Explorer (not solution explorer), move your files into the directory structure where you want them to reside
Click "Refresh" also on the Solution Explorer toolbar
The files that you've moved should be visible "ghosted" in the Solution Explorer tree structure where you've placed them
Right click on your ghosted files or folders and click "Include in Project". All the contents of a folder will be included
Below is the icon for the 'Show All Files', just for easy reference.
Click above in the red circle. Your folder will appear in Solution Explorer.
Right click on your folder -> Include in project.
You can change your project XML to add existing subfolders and structures automatically into your project like "node_modules" from NPM:
This is for older MSBuild / Visual Studio versions
<ItemGroup>
<Item Include="$([System.IO.Directory]::GetFiles("$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\node_modules","*",SearchOption.AllDirectories))"></Item>
</ItemGroup>
For the current MSBuild / Visual Studio versions:
Just put it in the nodes of the xml:
<Project>
</Project>
In this case just change $(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\node_modules to your folder name.
You need to put your directory structure in your project directory. And then click "Show All Files" icon in the top of Solution Explorer toolbox. After that, the added directory will be shown up. You will then need to select this directory, right click, and choose "Include in Project."
This is what I do:
Right click on solution -> Add -> Existing Website...
Choose the folder where your website is. Just the root folder of the site.
Then everything will be added on your solution from folders to files, and files inside those folders.
At last, Visual Studio 2017 allows the user to import an entire directory with a single click. Visual Studio 2017 has a new functionality "Open Folder" that allows opening the entire folder, even without the need to save it as solution. The source code can be imported using the following methods.
Menu File → Open → *Folder (Ctrl + Shift + O)
devenv.exe <source folder>
It even supports building and debugging CMake projects.
Bring your C++ codebase to Visual Studio with “Open Folder”
There is now an open-source extension in the Marketplace that seems to do what the OP was asking for:
Folder To Solution Folder
If it doesn't do exactly what you want, the code is available, so you can modify it to suit your scenario.
HTH
A neat trick I discovered is that if you go to "Add existing...", you can drag the folder from the open dialog to your solution.
I have my Visual Studio to open in Admin Mode automatically, so this was a good workaround for me as I didn't want to have to undo that just to get this to work.
What worked for me was to drag the folder into Visual Studio, then right click the folder and select "Open Folder in File Explorer". Then select all and drag them into the folder in Visual Studio.
In Windows 7 you could do the following:
Right click on your project and select "Add->Existing Item". In the dialog which appears, browse to the root of the directory you want to add. In the upper right corner you have a search box. Type *.cs or *.cpp, whatever the type of files you want to add. After the search finishes, select all files, click Add and wait for a while...
The cleanest way that I've found to do this is to create a new Class Library project in the target folder, and redirect all of its build output elsewhere. It still leaves a .csproj file sitting in that folder, but it does let you see it in Visual Studio and pick which files to include in your project.
It has been a while since this was originally posted, but here is an alternative answer.
If you only care to be able to look at the physical files from inside visual studio and do not necessarily require to see them in the solution explorer default view, then click on the switch view button and choose the folder view and any physical directory/directories that are under your solution root folder will appear here even if they do not appear in the solution explorer default view.
If however, you want to add a folder tree that isn't too large as a virtual solution directory/directories to match your existing tree structure, do that and and then "add the existing" physical files to the virtual directory/directories. If the physical directory exists in your solution directory it will not copy the files - it will link directly to the physical files but they will appear as part of the solution virtual directories.
It's annoying that Visual Studio doesn't support this natively, but CMake could generate the Visual Studio project as a work around.
Other than that, just use Qt Creator. It can then export a Visual Studio project.

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