Visual Studio Hide selected files - visual-studio

In the solution explorer I have a large number of .dlls that I would rather not have shown in the Solution Explorer - just to tidy up the display and allow me to focus on the files I need to.
Q) Is there a way to hide selected files from displaying in the Solution Explorer?

First delete the references of the dlls that you want to move.
Create a new folder in your project and put all those dlls into that new folder (from Windows explorer). Then by right clicking on them in VS, select Include In Project to be sure that they are included. (If they are included successfully, Exclude From Project should be written when you right click.)
Then if you add them as reference (by right clicking References>Add) again from that new folder, you should be able to use these dlls now without any problems.
Now you can minimize the new folder to tidy up the display.

Related

Visual Studio, Copy files to project directory problem

I have Visual Studio community 2017. coming from eclipse it was just enough to copy file to project directory and hit refresh then files were appearing in project explorer.
In VS, however when I copy some i.e. *.cpp or *.h in windows explorer to project directory, in VS solution explorer I can not see them. switching to folder view I see but can not include them into project.
via drag&drop to solution explorer (project view) I see them but are not part of project and in folder view and actual directory there is nothing.
what is going on with VS? How can I manually copy paste some files into project while they become part of project?
I will note that there's nothing "going on" with Visual Studio in the sense that something is actually wrong with it, it's just that adding files to your project just requires you to actually add them to your solution. Essentially, it allows you to add miscellaneous files to your folders without automatically including them in your build project (for example, if you're working with some test images/files).
To add files/folders to your project you simply right click on your project in the Solution Explorer and then go to Add > Existing Item.... Then, it's just a matter of selecting one (or Ctrl + A/Shift Clicking to select all/multiple files) and then it will add them to your solution.
In the solution explorer pane, click on the show all files button,
it will reveal all files including your pasted file,
Right click on your file and select "include in project".

How can I use files in one project to create a library in another project in Visual Studio?

I have a standalone project that contains some code I'd like to re-used. I created a library project in order to contain that code. There does not appear to be a way to move files from the one project to the other. (cut/paste in solution explorer did not work)
I then manually copied the files in Windows explorer (outside of VS) into the library's main "folder" but they didn't show up in solution explorer either.
Anyone know of a way to do this without having to manually create each file in the library and then copying/pasting the code into the files?
You need to copy the files and paste them into your solution/project folder(s). Once the files physically exist within your solution/project folder structure (Windows FileSystem / Explorer), then you right-click on your project within Visual Studio, select Add then Existing Item. Browse to the location of that file and open it. It will now exist within your project as a code file.
If you have two projects within the same solution, you can simply drag the file from one project to the other within Visual Studio Solution Explorer. That will create a copy of the class in the new project. You can then remove the old one and clean up any code references in the first project.

How to add folders structure in VS2015?

In older versions of VS when you dragged a folder from windows file explorer into your VS solution, it would make a reference to that folder including all the sub folders' structure and files.
In VS2015 when I drag a folder into the solution it simpley makes a reference to all the files in that folder and sub folder but ignore the folder structure.
So it dumps all the files reference under one filter.
Is there a way to get the former behavior in VS2015?
The way that I do this is to add the folders to the project structure (i.e. underneath the .sln file) and then enable "Show All Files" (you may need a "Refresh").
Right click the folders you want to add and click "Include In Project".
(I didn't know about the drag and drop!)
The answer is as follows:
the reason you don't see the "include in project" is : either you created the solution externally to visual studio community or the solution got corrupt
to resolve this:
make a backup the solution (just in case)
in solution explorer - right click the project name , and choose "Rebuil solution"
Press the "show all files" (if not pressed already)
go to the folder you want to include, and now you should see the "include in project" option. Choose it
press again the "show all files" button (on top of the "solution explorer") to once again hide irrelevant files/folders from your solution explorer
Working with VS2015 and SSIS Solution:
Miscellaneous Folder - When I created a Sub-Folder in VS2015 and then Added the files contained therein it added them but not with the Name I Had but the name "Miscellaneous". Not how it worked in previous versions!
I was able to Add a Custom-Named Folder to the Solution but not the Project. When adding existing files to the Project it put them under the aforementioned Miscellaneous Folder.

Creating an installer for Visual Studio 2010 solutions (one or more projects)

I ran into some troubles when creating an installer for my Visual Studio 2010 solution (which has multiple projects) so I thought I'd make a quick guide to how I got it working...
Here is how I did it:
Create a new Visual Studio Installer project which is located under
Installed Templates/Other Project Types/Setup and Deployment/Visual Studio Installer.
Make sure you add it to you current solution, you can do this by right clicking on the solution name in the solution explorer and clicking Add>New Project
From there select Setup Wizard, give it a name and click OK
A wizard will open, click Next
then select Create a setup for a Windows application
then click Next again. Select all of the groups you want to include, namely: Content Files, Source Files, Primary Output
Then click Finish
In the solution explorer you will see a bunch of buttons find the one that's tool tip says File System Editor and click it. You will see three folders in the file system editor, the only one we really care about is the Application Folder. That folder is where your projects build output should be.
To add files to it if they are not already there right click > Add > File...
Note: You cannot add entire folders (which sucks) and the folder structure in the Application Folder should be identical to that in your projects build.
You should create each folder and then add the files to it.
If you have multiple projects you should set the build directory to the same folder under the release build settings. To do this, open your solution, and for each project, right click/Properties go to the Compile tab, set it's configuration to Releaseand its Build output path to some folder (same for each project) (If you have an XNA project make sure its Content Build/Configuration is also set to Release).
Now select Release from the drop down menu on the tool bar (it most likely says Debug now)
Right click on your solution on the solution explorer and click Build Solution
Now all of your solutions built files will appear in the folder you chose in the compile tab. All of these files are what needs to be added to the Setup Projects Application Folder (in the same structure)
Customise the installer: click on the project name in the solution explorer and look through it's properties, change what you want (i.e Author, Manufacturer, Title - these make a difference to the installers output directory and text)
Build the installer project (same way as mentioned above) and you are done.
Feel free to comment with questions

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.

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