I have a solution in Visual Studio 2017 which includes several C# projects.
However, the application I'm developing also requires an additional component which is not written in a language supported by Visual Studio (it's a custom javascript library with its own custom compilation/code generation script).
I would like to include this component (it's just a bunch of text files, mainly .js and some others) in my Visual Studio solution, so I have everything in one place. Also, if I include it as a VS project, I can leverage the Pre-Build / Post-Build events to run the component's compilation script, without having to manually run a batch file like I'm doing now.
My question is: which Visual Studio "project type" (i.e.: template) is best for this scenario? I don't need to compile anything, the project only needs to be a "file container" basically...
Related
How does Visual Studio (2015) work with external tools like NPM and Typescript compiler (tsc.exe) etc.? I guess, at the time of building the solution or project, something must be telling MSBuild to run these extra tools. I want to understand this under the hood operation.
It all depends...
Visual studio has multiple services and features that interlink here:
Language Services - Visual Studio can be extended with so called language services, these provide intellisense, syntax analysis, highlighting etc. For Javascript and Typescript Microsoft provides a Language service that provides such information.
MsBuild - Underneath most of Visual Studio projects lives an MsBuild project. If you search your Program files directory you'll find an MsBuild folder and underneath that there are a number of target files. This includes one for Typescript which will transform your .ts files during build. These targets files either directly use the exec MsBuild task to run tools or provide a custom MsBuild task in the form of a .NET Assembly that implements specific interfaces. These tasks can either implement the required action themselves or shell out to a tool to have it perform the action.
Roslyn - For C# and VB.NET the parsing of the projects and the background compilation of the sources is handled by a new compiler called Roslyn. This actually runs in the background while you type and has a very powerful in-memory model of all your code in your project. Roslyn supports add-ins as well in the form of analyzers and refactor action that either provide the user with feedback on common errors or provide ways to automatically rewrite/change the code.
Task Runner - The Visual Studio Task Runner is a plugin for Visual Studio that first shipped as an extension and is now part of Visual Studio. It reacts to events in the IDE (build, test, etc) and can associate actions in your package.json or grunt or bower etc scripts. The plugin will make sure your script commands are executed at the right point in time during the builds.
Test Runners - The Visual Studio Test Window has support for extensions as well, so the Mocha and the Chutzpah extension in your project will be picked up and during the test execution these plugins will be asked to first list and later execute the tests. These runners act as a kind of proxy, feeding back the list of tests and their status after execution.
Custom extensions - There are many other ways in which some vendors extend Visual Studio by providing a generic extension. These extensions may contain any of the above elements or may just listen to the events generated by Visual Studio while you do your work and react on them.
You can see the references to the typescript items if you open the .csproj
with a text editor (or from visual studio : unload the project, right-click on the project and choose edit myproject.csproj )
You'll see the typescript resources :
<ItemGroup>
<TypeScriptCompile Include="src\config.ts" />
the target for the build :
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\TypeScript\Microsoft.TypeScript.targets" Condition="Exists('$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\TypeScript\Microsoft.TypeScript.targets')" />
The external tools, are configured in Tools/Options :
Working on a project using Visual Studio as my IDE. It has an API component written in C#, and a webserver component that uses TypeScript.
I am using webpack to deal with the typescript compilation and would like to remove the Visual Studio build step from the typescript files.
Normally I wouldn't care if it was building them, but I am using Typescript > 1.8.4 which has language features that Visual Studio cannot understand which is making Visual Studio throw errors and prevent compilation. I found a workaround for this in this github issue thread but I have other developers cross team who are working on this and trying to coordinate a hack to make code among them will not work.
I have also tried removing the typescript imports line from the .csproj file, but whenever I add a new ts file, it adds the line back in.
Is there a way to completely shut down the typescript compilation/parsing step in Visual Studio and prevent it from coming back?
This in in VS 2015.
You can disable typescript compilation by editing the .csproj file to contain the following:
<TypeScriptCompileBlocked>true</TypeScriptCompileBlocked>
That should disable all typescript compilation within VS 2015.
To disable TypeScript compilation altogether for Visual Studio, edit:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\TypeScript\Microsoft.TypeScript.targets
(Your path might be slightly different depending on your OS/VS version, in that case just search for Microsoft.TypeScript.targets)
And add:
<PropertyGroup>
<TypeScriptCompileBlocked>True</TypeScriptCompileBlocked>
</PropertyGroup>
This works for .NET Core projects as well.
It seems that the errors are triggered by IntelliSense and one can remove IntelliSense errors by simply filtering the list.
In case that other solutions doesn't help this is the key to clean up the error list, at least temporarily.
Sam Storie's answer is a great start and it will stop typescript errors from preventing compilation, but Visual Studio will still report the parsing errors which will prevent the ability to use the built in publishing tools.
To completely remove error reporting in ts, find all import lines in the csproj that reference typescript and set the Condition property to false, make sure to restart VS afterwards:
Example:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\TypeScript\Microsoft.TypeScript.targets" Condition="false" />
Remove / Uncheck Test Javascript Content Files from the Project filter.
Context
I am using TypeScript in my ASP.NET (MVC) projects. Changing .js / and .ts files then try the new version without executing a build is cool. (just make sure browser cache invalidated).
I also debug the typescript code in the browser (Chrome currently) and it works great in TypeScript level using the generated map file.
So I had set the "Compile on save" in "Project properties"/"TypeScript build".
Issue:
Unfortunately the map file is not generated "on save". I had to rebuild the whole project to have the up to date map file. This is extremely painful, and effectively zeros the advantage of Compile on save setting. (Note: In case I was debugging the ASP.NET app serverside C# code too, then for having a rebuild I also must stop the debugger. This iteration is a great candidate to be a productivity killer.)
So the question remains:
How to generate TypeScript map files also on save in Visual Studio 2015?
I am new to Visual Studio Extensibility and want to make an addin/extension which shall do the following:
It should read all the files with a specific file extension (assume "*.ump").
It should process the text/code/whatever in the files.
It should create new Class/Code file with some code in it. [The code will be produced in step 2, just need to know how to do it?]
Yet, I have been racking my brains through extensibility, saw the single file generators .... and addins which go through ProjectItems and can detect the file extension,
BUT I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND a complete tutorial, guide or explanation as to how or what to do!!
Please help...
You don't want to read all files with a specific file extension in Visual C++ project nor standard Visual C# project. You may do that with hand-made MSBuild project (included in the solution).
In Visual C++ projects, there is a way to define custom tools. They are run as separate processes, so you can implement them in anything you want. Studio will ask you whether you want to define a tool (they are defined in special xml files; studio has dialog for editing them) when you add a file with extension unknown to it. In Visual C# projects, just manually write a MSBuild tasks and insert them into the project.
Do whatever you want. IIRC the generated files will have to be included in the project though. Well, for MSBuild, just tweak the project to your heart's desire, but in Visual C++ they have to.
You can combine MSBuild (csproj,vbproj) and VisualC++ projects in a single solution, so I recommend using separate.
If you ever find out you need to compile for different target where you can't use Visual Studio, you'll be glad that you have stand-alone tool you were just calling from Studio and not something that embeds in it.
I want to start the develop of a custom project type for Visual Studio that builds a BPR project with Visual Studio.
I need some hints to beginning with this project. Where can I find a template for this type of projects?
My target is to remove the Borland C++Builder's ugly and unstable interface from the development process and work enterely from Visual Studio.
Edit: Oops, I didn't really see that you're about to create a new project type for C++ Builder files. In that case, you have to build a language package. The Visual Studio Extensibility site should get you started. Also have a look at this more specific link.
I'll leave my old answer here for reference, because it might help people who just want to build C++Builder projects without creating a whole new project type :)
You didn't specify the version of Visual Studio, but I'll assume a recent one. In Visual Studio 8 and 9, most project files (all popular ones except Visual C++) are actually MSBuild files and can therefore be built by MSBuild. You can add a simple command line task (Exec) to build your bpr on the command line, or you can create a custom task for this (if you don't find one already available - the search terms should be MSBuild and custom task). This way, both Visual Studio and MSBuild can build anything you like. If you don't have an MSBuild file to start with or want to dive into developing a task, the MSBuild project template for Visual Studio will help you.
Oh, and other than that, if you don't actually need C++Builder things, you might as well export the BPR as a solution (or create a new solution and add the files).
Integrating C++Builder projects into a build process should be a lot easier with C++Builder 2007 or 2009 as both use MSBuild as build system. But then, I think that upgrading to a recent version of C++Builder solves your problem the other way :)