Creating custom Task List Option Visual Studio 2013 - visual-studio-2013

I am trying to add a Task List item in Visual Studio 2013 (Tools --> Options --> Task List. The standard TODO, HACK, UNDONE and UnresolvedMergeConflict are present.
I'm creating a task item REFACTOR. I add it per the (very simple) instructions and I see all of the items in my list as I expect. However, whenever I close the solution and then reopen it, the task is gone from both the Options and of course the View Task List.
I've checked the settings file and this value is persisted after I close the solution, but at reload it appears that the settings file is not loaded. I can't find any documentation on this issue, and, the few articles on creating a new Task Item are so blatantly straight forward that I don't think it's a PEBCAK issue. TIA.

In the event anyone else has this issue (but it doesn't appear that they will, since I've had 0 response), I found that making the settings in TFS 2015, which I also have installed, solved the disappearing problem. Don't know whether it needed to be in both instances of TFS, or whether the newer version ruled, but it solved my problem.

Related

MSI Installer error 2810 interrupts installation, but still let's it finish with no problems

I have a setup created that installs an application, and still does, but it started giving a strange warning at the end out of the blue. So, when the installation process finishes, the following appears:
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2810.
So I checked 2810, and it says:
On the dialog [2] the next control pointers do not form a cycle. There is a pointer from both [3] and [5] to [4].
I was not changing anything in the "User interface" or "Custom actions" so this came unexpected. Also the installation completes if you just click ok and everything works fine, it just doesn't look good from a user perspective. Any help or similar issues encountered?
Control_Next: This is probably just the tab-order for the controls on the dialog. See the Control_Next column of the Control Table. You need to find a way to visit each control of the dialog in sequence and sort out so there are no loops or double links.
TAB Order: In the dialog in question (launch the setup and get yourself to the FinishedForm dialog), try hitting TAB repeatedly to see what happens. It might work, but you might see the control order being messed up so TAB unexpectedly moves around the dialog haphazardly going in "reverse" selecting a control already visited or similar.
Fix: Fixing this depends on what tool you are using. You can "test fix" directly in the final MSI using ORCA or a similar tool to edit the Control Table directly (just open the MSI and do it). The real, lasting fix will be in the sources used to compile the setup. WiX, Installshield, Advanced Installer, Visual Studio Installer, or whatever tool you are using. Exact fix depends on tool. A screen shot of the Control Table content could give us the clue we need.
(combining comments into an actual solution)
If you're using the common script EnableLaunchApplication.js within a Visual Studio Installer project, then the 2810 error code is most likely caused by a single line within that script, along with a recent Visual Studio update.
The fix, as mentioned by user Olaf:
in the EnableLaunchApplication.js I changed the line INSERT INTO 'Control' ... and replaced the value 'CloseButton' with 'Line1'. – Olaf Jan 9 at 14:16
With the entire corrected script linked by user Shangwu:
Here is the latest JavaScript without causing error 2810. stackoverflow.com/a/59888956/6079057 – Shangwu Jan 24 at 0:49
The underlying reason can be found in answers by Adam cosby and Stein Åsmul.
I actually had the same problem and my Control Table was over populated just as you mentioned above. I beleive it was related or at least co-incided with the Visual Studio update from 16.3 to 16.4.2. For me I used the Visual Studio Installer too and on the older version of VS it compiles fine but the same commit number on a different machine with the new version it causes the same issue and the Control Table has a lot more Control_Next entries populated. Still not sure how to fix yet though in the source.
Edit:
Ok I discovered the problem. The issue with it now populating more of the Control_Next I can only put down to a the update. However, the automatic entries put in by Visual Studio would have been fine but I realised we had the MSI launch the exe after install using this: Visual Studio Installer > How To Launch App at End of Installer technique.
That meant I was injecting and modifying the Control_Next and thus caused the loop of Control_Next to be non circular. It is worth noting that the Control_Next is basically the tab order of the MSI screen and it must always be closed (imagine the tab without anywhere to go).. Anyway, it was ultimately caused by us modifying on the post build process the Control_Next to add in the checkbox. After working out the last entry on a build without our code running i just modified the original last entry and then slotted in out one there. Now it works fine.
Hope this helps

Microsoft visual studio screen problem

I am having a problem thats not about the code, it's about the screen in Microsoft visual studio 2008.
Actually problem is i created one utility from couple of weeks i didn't opened that utility today i opened (in Microsoft visual studio the screen appearing blank no controls are visible in that.But all the controls properties are there. I tried a lot but i didn't get solution. Last when the same thing happened i created the controls again. Now i don't want to go to create all the controls again. If any one have the solution please help me.
Before screen is like this:
Now its blank (like new page)
From your description I'm not sure if this is a application/code build issue or an IDE issue, what you could try is to reset the settings in visual studio and see if this helps.
You can do this by going to Tools -> Import/Export settings and then following the wizard to reset the settings, you may also want to perform a backup before resetting them (this is also part of the wizard) then they can be restored if this causes you further issues.
I don't have a copy of 2008 available at the moment so some menu entries may be slightly named different.
Hope this helps!
EDIT:
Now there is more information, this looks like there may be a problem with the code in the
InitializeComponent
method of the form.designer file (e.g. if you are using c# this would be something like Form1.Designer.cs and can be found by expanding the corresponding form in the solution explorer), if you remove/comment the lines that say
this.Controls.Add(this.NameOfControl)
(NameOfControl is where you would see your declared controls name)
then you get the behaviour that you are seeing, the controls do not render as they are never added to the forms controls collection but as they are declared you will still see them in the properties drop down and wont be able to add another control with the same name.

Stop Visual Studio asking for each project: has been modified outside the environment. Do you wish to reload?

Do you wish to reload the project? Where's the Reload All option.
Vote for this question and hopefully MS will implement a fix in VS2020.
With pleany of projects in a solution I for one dread doing an svn update.
This has been an issue from VS2003 but after a decade of clicking mindlessly on buttons it's getting on my wick.
Does anyone have a hack / registry entry / secret way of saying yes short of saying ignore (quick), closing and reloading the solution?
There are a couple of options you can tweak for this scenario. Both are under the Documents Options
Tools -> Options
Environment -> Documents
The first option is to just uncheck "Detect when files changed outside the environment". This will stop the reload dialog but will force you to manually reload.
The second option just below it is a bit better "Auto-load changes, if saved". This will just automatically load the changes without prompting you for every project.
Personally though I would go a slightly different route here. The problem is occuring because your managing your source code control outside of Visual Studio. If you switched to using an addin to manage within Visual Studio it would remove these problems altogether. For svn there are several free packages available including Ankhsvn which is fairly popular
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165643(VS.80).aspx
DetectFileChangesOutsideIDE
Get/Set (Boolean)
Determines whether the environment automatically reloads files opened in the IDE when the operating system notifies the IDE that the files have been modified on disk.
EDIT:
Some clarification, as that page isn't immediately obvious.
Tools Menu->Options -> Environment->Documents->Uncheck Detect when file is changed outside the Environment

TFS and working with multiple solutions

How do people generally deal with TFS when you've got to work with multiple solution files? If you've got one instance it's easy because you can always go to that window for the source control explorer, pending changes, check on builds or work items. But when you have 4-5 solutions, it becomes tricky to deal with. You might expand some folders or check some pending items on one VS instance but you have to remember which one you did it on.
Having a separate instance dedicated just to TFS tasks is tempting, but there's only one window state for the whole program. If that instance is closed last, all instances will come up with all the TFS windows open.
How do other people deal with this? Can you use separate profiles somehow and cordon off a "TFS" instance of Visual Studio?
Use the Pending Changes window. View -> Other Windows -> Pending Changes. This has a toolbar option to show only those changes pending for the current solution also. It's the last toolbar button in the Pending Changes window. I usually make this a full document in VS and then memorize the keyboard shortcut to it: ALT+V, E, H. Obviously you could bind your own shortcut, but what fun is that.
Eclipse has a similar perspective/view to Pending Changes, but it's name escapes me and I don't have my Ubuntu VM up at the moment.
Solution Explorer and Source Control Explorer are definitely not my recommendation for check-in activities. I personally like to clear out all of the checkboxes on Pending Changes and then Diff each file. This keeps me from A) waiting too long before a checkin (it sucks to compare 20 files 1 by 1) and B) avoids checking in a change I didn't intend.
If you have multiple instances of Visual Studio open at one time (which I'm not quite sure why you would need to do this), your changes are "synchronized" across all instances of Visual Studio. Don't do your check-in from the solution explorer, do it from the Source Control explorer, then you're sure to get all your updates in a single check-in.
You might find VSCommands useful when working with VS/TFS - it can be configured to display the Solution and TFS Branch name in the title bar, this indication is invaluable when working with multiple instances of VS (or multiple branches of the same project).

Silly Visual Studio Pending Changes Question

I recently switched from a Java based project to a C#/.net project. I previously used IntelliJ which had the concept of change lists where you could group your pending changes together and check each group in individually.
I have two problems with the pending changes window in visual studio.
1) Every time I check anything in, visual studio checks the checkbox beside Every pending change in the list forcing me to uncheck each and every one of them so I don't accidentally check something in. This is extremely frustrating because there are several files that I need to keep changed to correctly run my code locally. Is there any way to change this default behavior to not check any pending changes on check-in?
2) Is there any way to group changes into lists as opposed one big bucket of changes? Again this becomes frustrating when I need to check something in, but I have to search through the files and check the pertinent changes. I understand that shelve sets exist using TFS, but that doesn't cut it for me, especially since I have several changed files that I need to keep altered in order to correctly deploy locally, and I rarely ever want to check in.
Thanks in advance!
I have to manage lots of changes every day in Visual Studio, and I've got a few tips for you, but no silver bullet:
Use Ctrl+A to select all items and then press a checkbox to toggle the checkboxes for all items. This can be useful when performing changes to only a few items -- just uncheck everything, then make sure you have only the items checked that you'd like to update.
Use Ctrl+Click (then right-click) to 'Undo' selected changes. By default, the undo action will only apply to the selected items.
You might want to experiment with using multiple Workspaces -- and then filtering changes by workspace or by solution.
No, I don't know of a way to fix your problems. It sounds like the best answer would be to refactor your configuration settings or code so that you can check in all of your changes.
If your changes are in different projects you can partition what you check in using the Source Control Explorer by right clicking on the project folder and checking in that way. It will auto check only the files in the folder you right click on. Just keep in mind the Source Control Explorer gives you some other options. Otherwise, I do not know of a way to manually control your change sets file-by-file thought if this exists I would like to know about it too.
You can also use Ctrl+A to select all items and then press Spacebar to toggle the checkedboxes as checked/unchecked.

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