Visual Studio: Defining File Type Regardless of File Extension - visual-studio-2010

Where to define, what kind of type a particular file within Visual Studio solution is?
I have observed that file extensions do not necessarily have to relate to the actual file types within VS.(observed within Visual Studio 2010, 2012).
For example: I have an existing Visual Studio solution. In another tool, I have created an HTML file with .html extension. After importing it into Visual Studio solution, the file does not gain HTML Intellisense and Code Completion.
On the other hand, I can create an HTML file within Visual Studio through: Visual Studio -> FILE -> New File -> HTML Page
This file will gain all its HTML related Code Highlight, Intellisense, and Code Completion features. I can then rename its extension to, say, .txt. The file will still keep its HTML properties such as code highlight, intellisense, etc..
My question therefore is, where can I define/change, what kind of file type (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) the particular file is, regardless of its extension? This is important, to be able to assign appropriate Intellisense, Code Highlight, Code Completion features.

Related

Cant save BIML file in Visual Studio

I have just started trying to use BIML to generate my SSIS packages. Im currently using VIsual studio 2015 to do everything.
When I add a new BIML file to the project it appears in the Solution explore and I can open the file and edit it. But when I save and close and reopen none of the changes where saved. Is there a setting that i need to change in Visual Studio? Currently I have to edit this file through the use of Notepad++ or something similar.
Visual Studio ScreenShot
As a work around to this issue, you could right click on the file you wish to edit and choose XML (Text) Editor.
Sadly you'll loose intellisence for the C# code
If you open a file twice, once in the BIML editor and once in the XML editor then you can view side by side making your changes in XML but viewing nice formatting in BIML...

How does Visual Studio choose which editor to use for a file?

My project stores html code fragments for use in templating in files with a custom extension (*.phtml). I find that Visual Studio is inconsistent in its use of editors when I edit these files. Sometimes it provides no intellisense, sometimes it treats the files as XML (which is better than nothing), and sometimes I get lucky and it provides me with the HTML editor.
I've configured Visual Studio to treat *.phtml files as HTML, but that doesn't seem to make any difference.
What more can I do to convince Visual Studio to always use the HTML Editor for *.phtml files?
Right-clicking a file in solution explorer shows an "Open with ..." option, the window that it opens has a choice of editors plus a "Set as default" option.

Custom syntax highlighting in Visual Studio 2010 in a html file

Is it possible to create syntax highlighting for custom defined words in known file type?
For example I want to have VS text editor color the tags <# and #> a specified color when viewed in a html file.
Can you do this, and if so then how is it possible?
Yes, well, certainly this is possible for C++ files and files that Visual Studio recognises; so if VS is set up to recognise your HTML as C++ files you should be good.
You will need to create a usertype.dat file and place it in your
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE
folder (or equivalent for VS2010, this is for VS2008)
This file should have the keywords you want listed separately on each line;
for example; I develop with Qt and I have a usertype.dat file as:
signal
slots
Q_OBJECT
(and so on)
Restart VS and your keywords will be highlighted.
I got the info from here and verified it on my system.

Can Visual Studio 2010 do ".inc" file syntax highlighting?

Can Visual Studio 2010 be configured to do syntax highlighting on ".inc" files? We have numerous large projects with tons of these ".inc" files (asp files) and so changing the file extension to ".asp" is not an option. All I want Visual Studio 2010 to do is treat these ".inc" files just like ".asp" files when it comes to syntax highlighting.
I've tried "Open With..." and selected the HTML Editor, which is the ".asp" default, but that did not work. I tried about every other editor in the list and none of them worked.
I know Notepad++ (among others) can do this, but I would prefer this be done in Visual Studio 2010 - using another IDE or text editor is not the answer I'm looking for here.
In Visual Studio...go to Options -> Text Editor -> File Extension. Type in 'inc' as extension and editor as 'Web Form Editor'. You may need to close then re-open your currently open .Inc pages...Hope this helps
I found both the 'Web Form Editor' and 'HTML Editor' to be less than ideal for me. Both of them appeared to highlight the syntax of the HTML ok, but the VBScript keywords were left in standard black text along with everything else.
While not ideal, I followed the instructions from the other answers, but substitude Visual Basic as the editor type and that worked much more to my liking (as they were include files, there is little HTML in them).
Options -> Text Editor -> File
Extension. Type in 'inc' as extension and set editor as 'Visual Basic'.
Close and re-open any '.inc' files and highlighting should be visible.
Antonio's solution worked for me. I did have to close and reopen files, but after I re-opened them the highlighting was visible. Thanks!
Options -> Text Editor -> File Extension.
Type in 'inc' as extension and set editor as 'Web Form Editor'.
Close and re-open any '.inc' files and highlighting should be visible.
Incidentally, this also works in Visual Studio 2005.
Use the File Extension, Text Editor, Options Dialog Box.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/4k7w5e5s.aspx
-update-
I see the same behavior :-( Will let you know if I find anything.
As a workaround, could you rename all your .inc files to .asp?
This has the added advantage that if a request is made for the inc file directly (highly unlikely but possible; and assuming you have the incs in the web directory), your code will be exposed unlike .asp where it is processed and rendered.
I really wanted to add a comment, because this is not a direct answer, but apparently you need 50 reputation for that.
I've found that in Visual Studio 2005 (again, in Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> File Extension), both "Web Form Editor" and "User Control Editor" highlight both the HTML and the VBScript.
Amadiere mentioned that "Web Form Editor" doesn't highlight the VBScript in 2010, but maybe it's worth trying "User Control Editor", if that's an option in 2010.
In Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 Express it best works for me when I use "Microsoft Visual Basic" with my .inc files. Nevertheless, it's still not the same as with .asp files as there's no Autocomplete nor IntelliSense (Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+Shift+Space etc.) with the .inc files.
It should be made possible defining that .inc files are to be treated just as .asp files.
I agree with Purple Coder:
You should not name the files containing ASP code as .inc. It is a security risk. Anyone who knows/can guess the filename can open it in a browser and view the actual code inside the file.
But, first of all in my case this is an intranet page and therefore not very risky, as most people there would somehow find the files on the server anyway. I'm also not sure where this naming convention came from. It was there before I started. This was started on Visual Studio 6.
But, to avoid this risk there's a simple solution: add .inc in the Application Mapping of the IIS in the same manner as .asp.
You should not name the files containing ASP code as .inc. It is a security risk. Anyone who knows/can guess the filename can open it in a browser and view the actual code inside the file.

Automatically adding specified text at beginning of files in VS 2008

Is there a way to have Visual Studio 2008 automatically add heading information to files? For example, "Copyright 2008" or something along those lines. I've been digging through the options, but nothing seems to be jumping out at me.
I assume you'd like to modify the class file templates. They're in:
%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Code\1033
More specific details here
I found a better solution than modifying the template file directly. This utility allows you to create and save header/footer templates and apply them to entire source trees.
C# Header Designer from MSDN Code Gallery

Resources