I am trying to create a VISX extension for Visual Studio 2010 that contains a few project templates. These templates aren't very complex, but I want to expose some additional configuration for them during creation via a wizard. I have successfully set up my VISX package to deploy the templates to the directory structure I want in VS2010, but as soon as I try to configure and run a wizard, I receive an error when I create the template along the lines of:
Error: this template attempted to load component assembly
'My.Assembly, Version 1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=...
My current configuration is as follows:
All the projects live in the same solution.
The VISX project includes project references to the project containing the wizards and to each template.
Each template is built from a project template template (...confusing terminology).
They are added through the .vsixmanifest designer as content, referencing the projects.
Each .vstemplate file has a WizardExtension element pointing to the IWizard implementation and containing assembly.
The wizard assembly is signed.
The .vstemplate files point to their wizards like this:
<WizardExtension>
<Assembly>My.Assembly, Version=1.0.0.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=a494da9e6e53f845, Custom=null
</Assembly>
<FullClassName>My.Assembly.Wizard</FullClassName>
</WizardExtension>
This, as far as I can tell, is how I'm supposed to do it. What exactly is going wrong? It looks like it can't find the assembly. Are there any other steps I need to take in order to get the assembly visible to the templates? The assembly is deployed to the extension folder when it is installed (I verified this), so it is at least making it out. Is there something special I need to do to the .vstemplate files to tell them to look in the extensions folder vs the GAC? Did I just miss something?
Note that I have found several pages on the internet stating that I have to GAC the assembly manually or with a script. However, few had my exact scenario (Project template templates being referenced by a VISX project, most examples are using a regular project exported via the project template wizard and having their packages dumped into the VISX folder structure). The only one I found that matched my scenario was an example from Microsoft. I tried to match that, but alas it still does not work. I tried relocating the project I downloaded to reference in this question but I cannot find it again, though.
Using scripts is how we've done this before, but I want to try and make things a little cleaner using VISX packages. I would like to avoid this, but if it's mandatory to script the VISX to install the template to GAC, I can do that.
When deploy the wizard based project template by VSIX Extension, it is better to use Short-Named assembly in .vstemplate. This can avoid the GAC deployment.
In your case, it should be:
<WizardExtension>
<Assembly>My.Assembly</Assembly>
<FullClassName>My.Assembly.Wizard</FullClassName>
</WizardExtension>
I am using VS2015 and faced this issue on and off. When I started building VSIX project with Wizard implementation, everything worked fine for sometime (4-6 weeks) and suddenly it stopped working. After a couple of weeks it would start working again and stop working without notice. Took me long time to find a workaround (still don't know why it suddenly stops).
This is how my VSIX project is built
I have VSIX project, project template and Wizard implementation in
the same solution.
VSIX and Wizard implementation are in the same project.
Added VSIX project dll and project template as Assets in VSIX project source.extension.vsixmanifest.
Project template *.vstemplate has Wizard section which refers to VSIX project with strong name:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
<WizardExtension>
<Assembly>Test.Template.TemplateInstallerWizard, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=30ab381f68dc4f5e</Assembly>
<FullClassName>Test.Template.TemplateInstallerWizard.WizardImplementation</FullClassName>
</WizardExtension>
None of these worked for me
Uninstalled extension from VS regular instance via Tools->Extensions
and Updates..
Uninstalled extension from VS experimental instance by
launching VS exp instance from VS2015 command prompt as Administrator:
devenv.exe /rootsuffix exp
and then uninstalling the extension via Tools->Extensions and Updates..
Using short named assembly as explained by #Ethan Wu.
Installing templates via this command from VS2015 command prompt launched as administrator:
devenv /installvstemplates
Rebooting VS2015, my machine several times during this process.
This is what worked for me (thanks to #Ethan Wu)
Remove certificate from VSIX project.
Remove strong name from Project Template *.vstemplate
file
<WizardExtension>
<Assembly>Test.Template.TemplateInstallerWizard, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null</Assembly>
<FullClassName>Test.Template.TemplateInstallerWizard.WizardImplementation
Clean and build the project.
Remove extension from VS regular instance and close VS2015 (not
absolutely required)
Install the extension.
Open new VS2015 instance and try to create the project with
wizard.
Couple of things to help debug
When VSIX project is build, in bin\debug folder a file is
created -extension.vsixmanifest which has the assets type.
Look for Asset Type="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Assembly":
AssemblyName value is what is expected in project template's
*.vstemplate WizardExtension section - they should match exactly.
After installing extension, go to VS2015 extension location on
local box:
%appdata%\..\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\Extensions\<some_temp_folder>
open extension.vsixmanifest to ensure that Asset
Type="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Assembly" AssemblyName value is
correctly populated. If required, you can change this value and
restart VS2015 to make this in effect.
Hope this will help someone and save tons of time as there is very little help on Wizard and custom project templates.
Thanks,
RDV
I run into the same problem, but mine came to light when I updated the AssemblyVersion of my wizard project. I checked and the versions in the manifest files matched as they should.
I simply went into C:\Users\Albert\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\16.0_c340331cExp\Extensions, found my extension and deleted it there. Now it works again.
(Note that I did find a few others since I've since changed the company name etc, in the AssemblyInfo file, so it could be the old ones laying around that also caused this)
Related
First off, let me start by saying that Nuget is awesome. I love it. That being said, there is one thing about it that I have just discovered which is really getting very annoying.
We have an in-house framework which we use for almost all of our projects. So, I recently created a Visual Studio project template for it, along with the VSIX.. had a few problems along the way due to Nuget.. it wouldn't create the new project from a template when the template was referencing the framework.. because the framework was using Nuget and it couldn't find the nuget folders in the new project created from the template. So, solution was to remove nuget from the framework project and only use Nuget for the other projects (anything but the framework). Okay, great.. that solves the problem!
However, now with every Nuget managed project that I open, it automatically adds these 2 lines back into the .csproj of the framework:
<RestorePackages>true</RestorePackages>
and
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" />
This is frustrating because we now need to either stop using Nuget altogether OR to keep removing these lines from our framework's .csproj file every time we want to rebuild the template.
Is there any way I can tell Nuget to ignore one project in the solution? In my case, to ignore the framework project...
With a suggestion from Nailuj and also from what I found here: http://samritchie.net/2012/09/17/nuget-packages-in-vs2012-templates/, I tried something that I thought would work, but it didn't serve my needs; that method is just for including the packages in with the new project, which for me is not helpful and doesn't solve the problem (error about missing .nuget targets folders). So, I played with it a bit and came up with something that is not ideal, but is acceptable:
Remove anything and everything to do with Nuget from the project which is to serve as a template. This then causes a problem with the referenced framework, because the framework project is expecting to be managed by Nuget and from this solution it's not, so error occurs... so:
Remove the framework project from the solution and only reference the DLL so it will build, but not complain about missing nuget folders
Rebuild
Export to template
Build VSIX using exported template
Install template
Create a new project from the newly installed template
Enable Nuget package restore on solution of new project
Open Package Manager Console
Notice message about missing packages and agree to download and install them (about 1 minute)
Remove framework DLL reference and replace with actual project (Right-click, Add Existing Project)
Rebuild and run
Celebrate!
I hope this helps anyone else who may find themselves in this predicament. If anyone has a better idea, please let me know. The bounty is still open for another 6 days, so I won't mark this as answer yet.
I have created an extension for VS 2010 that deploys a project template. The project template uses a custom wizard (in a specific assembly) that is called when I create a new project based on this template.
I want to package the assembly containing the wizard within the VSIX, so that it gets deployed somewhere the template can find it (I know GAC is not an option with VSIX).
Basically if I deploy the assembly to the GAC, install the VSIX and then create the project the wizard is invoked successfully.
If I do the same without deploying the assembly first, the project templates does not find the assembly when I create the project.
My question is: how to deploy a project template and the assembly it needs using a VSIX package?
Thank you for your help
EDIT: I changed the VSIX Sub Path of the wizard assembly reference to "ProjectTemplates" in both the installer project and updated the vsixmanifest content assembly reference accordingly. It seems to work now.
You don't need to get your assembly containing the IWizard implementation in the GAC. You can simply declare it in your extension.vsixmanifest file as an Assembly element in the Content section.
Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be documented well anywhere.
The only tricky part is making sure that the AssemblyName attribute has the correct value.
I had no luck with the Assembly element technique to work, so in case anyone else runs into the same problem, here's another solution.
Visual Studio looks for wizard DLLs using the BindingPaths registry key. If you add the folder containing your DLL in a subkey of BindingPaths, then Visual Studio will find your DLL.
To do this from a VSIX, create a .pkgdef file in your VSIX project. Set its Include in VSIX property to True, and paste the following text into it:
[$RootKey$\BindingPaths\{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}]
"$PackageFolder$"=""
(where the Xs represent the package GUID, though I suspect any GUID will do).
This works for me:
[$RootKey$\BindingPaths\{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}]
"$PackageFolder$"=""
But assembly element doesn't work.
I have installed the strong named assembly TestReflection into the GAC (I am using .NET 4.0 and VS 2010).
Different versions of the TestReflection DLL are in GAC of .NET 4.0 (C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_32\TestReflection\), however, the assembly does not appear in the "Project" -> "Add reference" box of VS 2010.
How can I refer to my assembly deployed in GAC at design time from another project?
This page says that:
You cannot add references from the Global Assembly Cache (GAC), as it is strictly part of the run-time environment.
Referring to this statement, I would like to know how to make your project's DLL shared assembly for other consumers if it's the requirement?
The dll's shown in the .Net tab of the "Add references" dialog are not actually the ones registered in the GAC. They are found by searching a few paths on your filesystem.
The paths being searched are located by Visual Studio by looking up the following registry entries:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NetFramework\{Version}\AssemblyFoldersEx\
There should be some keys added there already, so if you want your own dll to show up on the .Net tab, you can add it to one of the folders defined there. You could also add a new registry key pointing to a custom folder, which would only contain your own dll's.
The GAC is only meant for loading assemblies at runtime after your application has been deployed, so I don't think you should use it while developing. When you deploy your app, make sure to set "Copy local" to false on your reference so the dll won't be copied to the bin folder, and then install it into the GAC and it will be loaded from there instead.
Another simple option would be to manually edit the project file as XML in visual studio (You will have to unload the project first), and simply add node <Reference Include="<name of dll>" /> in MSBuild project file. After reloading the project, VS will pick up the reference without problem.
If you want to add Global Assembly Cache references to your VS2010 project, there is an extension you can use: Muse.VSExtensions.
It has some quirks but does a decent job. Check it out...
The answer is the Reference Paths in the property windows, you have to set it with the GAC path
Please see my post here:
We have several external DLL files being referenced in our Web Application Project. We have a deployment project for installing on the hosting servers. When we were using .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 the DLL files were being copied to the bin folder. Since we have upgraded to .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 this no longer happens, and we are getting server errors since the references cannot be found.
CopyLocal is set to true, and I cannot find anything inside the web.config which suggests this is being set elsewhere.
There is a bug in Visual Studio 2010. By default the XML in the solution file looks like this:
<Reference Include="DevExpress.SpellChecker.v11.1.Core,
Version=11.1.5.0,
Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b88d1754d700e49a,
processorArchitecture=MSIL">
<HintPath>..\References\DevExpress.SpellChecker.v11.1.Core.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
Whereas MSBuild is expecting this below, so that the DLL file will be included in the deployment:
<Reference Include="DevExpress.SpellChecker.v11.1.Core,
Version=11.1.5.0,
Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b88d1754d700e49a,
processorArchitecture=MSIL">
<HintPath>..\References\DevExpress.SpellChecker.v11.1.Core.dll</HintPath>
<Private>True</Private>
</Reference>
The trick is to set Copy Local to False, save the project and then reset it to True - save again. This includes the Private node correctly, which MSBuild respects.
It appears that the default for no included private node (Copy Local) in Visual Studio 2010 is True, while MSBuild reads that missing node as False.
I was getting the same problem and rather than add a "BeforeBuild" step I created a test that simply did this
[TestMethod]
public void ReferenceAssemblyThatDoesNotCopyToBuildFolder()
{
Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.Logging.LoggingExceptionHandler referenceThisButDoNotUseIt = null;
}
And that fixed the error The type 'Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.Logging.LoggingExceptionHandler...' cannot be resolved
Something weird had happened to my deployment project. When I saw it had no detected dependencies, I removed the primary output and re-added it.
The dependencies are now showing up and being placed in the bin folder when installed.
I was getting exactly the same issue. We have a Visual Studio 2008 project which references the EnterpriseLibrary. When we run our integrated build using TFS and our Web deployment project, all the DLL files are copied over. When we upgraded to Visual Studio 2010, TFS 2010 and WDP 2010, some of the DLL file's were missing. Strangely, this only occurs to some DLL files and not others.
For example, we get the Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.dll copied in both cases, but not the Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.Logging.dll.
As a workaround I copied the files accross using a "BeforeBuild" step.
It now seems to build OK.
I just had the same issue and wanted to share what I found as it might help someone:
The reason in my case was that the assembly was installed in the GAC during an installation of some third-party application.
If the DLL file is in the GAC, the compiler won't bother to copy it to the destination folder, unless you specifically mark it for "copy local" using the "Private" node in the project file as mentioned by Junto.
The thing is that if you don't add that node, and you develop on one machine and build on a different one, and the DLL file is only in the GAC of the build machine, the default behavior without the private node will cause the file to be copied correctly on the development machine, but not on the build machine.
The bigger problem is if the DLL file is not referenced directly, but the project references a second project that in turn references the DLL file. In that case, you cannot mark the DLL file to be "copy local" in the project, as it is not referenced by it. So if the DLL file exists in the GAC - it won't get copied to your output folder.
Possible solutions to this case are:
Uninstall the DLL file from the GAC
Add a direct reference to the DLL file in the end project(s)
Re-sign the DLL file with a new strong name, which will differentiate it from the DLL file in the GAC.
I am not sure how it was set up in Visual Studio 2008, but I am almost positive that you might have been using the Post-Build event command line. In there you can tell to copy the DLL files you need for deployment. An example is given below:
mkdir $(SolutionDir)\Deployment
copy "$(SolutionDir)Your_Library_Name\Your_Dll_ForDeployement.dll"
$(SolutionDir)\Deployment\
I didn't meet the same problem but similar. I had WPF main project and referenced project where the referenced did not copy. I found that in my case the main project was set for NET 4.0 Client Profile and the referenced for NET 3.5. When I set the main project to 3.5 the compiled dll of the referenced project started to copy.
(I don't know why because I solved it by practice)
I too ran into a similar issue where referenced dlls were not copied into the bin in published folder. I was using a TFS checked out copy that didn't include the bin folder into the application.
-> So just included the bin folder.
-> Built the referenced applications
-> Published the website project
Now I see all the referenced dlls in bin in the published folder
I had a similar issue with VS 2012 Express. I used Tesseract libraries in my project. Everything worked well until I used this project in a solution where were more than one project. Problem was that some DLLs (liblept168.dll, libtesseract302.dll) that are normally placed in folders bin/debug/x86 or bin/debug/x64 were copied only when I rebuilt whole solution.
Changing a single line and building it again caused that the DLLs were deleted and not copied back.
I solved this issue by adding a reference of the project that creates missing DLLs to the startup project.
rzen and others, thanks - your comments led to a solution for us.
We have a project that targets version 10 of the Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common.dll and Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms.dll assemblies (separate "libs" folder we created at the 'src' level). But when we did a build, the output included version 12, which was recently installed on the build server.
Using comments here, we ensured that 'Copy Local' was set to True and that the flag was set in the project file. However, it was still deploying version 12. So what we found that did the trick was ensuring that the 'Specific Version' property was also set on the two references. Voila, version 10 of each file is now being deployed!
There was much rejoicing.
JH
If your project does not directly load the library, it won't always be deployed, even if it is referenced explicitly! I got confused because I could see it in a local Bin directory but not when deployed. The dll in the Bin directory was an old file that wasn't removed during Clean which is why I was confused.
A full clean and rebuild and it wasn't in my local Bin folder either which showed me the problem (I only use it in web.config). I then referenced the dll file itself in the project and set it to copy to output to make sure it gets deployed.
We can use the <Private>False</Private> to not to copy the referenced DLL files to the bin directory. This is useful when we are building applications in a separate TFS build server where we need to build the application and not to copy the DLL files to the bin directory.
Check the framework of the project in which the DLL file has been referenced. The framework should be .NET 4.0. Please correct it if the framework is Client Profile.
Adding the parameter
/deployonbuild=false
to the msbuild command line fixed the issue.
Got a similar issue when upgrading old WebSites into WebApplications.
The "Clean Solution" command would wipe out all external DLL files I purposely left in my bin folders.
Besides, it was not possible to bring those DLL back automatically simply by referencing them all, since many of them have the same file name (it happens when you work with many language specific resources)
Like stevie_c did, I took advantage of the Pre-Build command, but made it simpler:
I just used a xcopy command in the Pre-Build operation of the WebApplication project's properties. This way I could bring over the necessary external DLL files just before the build would start.
i have a debug and a release version of an assembly dll.
They are sitting is directories on my computer. For other developers they are sitting in directories on their computer.
For the debug version of the application i want to use the debug assembly. For the release version of the application i want to use the release assembly.
That's the question.
For those not paying attention, there are quite a few issues here. How to reference an assembly on my computer, which after the project is checked into source control becomes a valid path on someone elses computer.
How to have the "References" node be per solution type (Debug, Release).
i tried copying the debug assembly to
\bin\Debug
and the release assembly to
\bin\Release
and added the assembly dll's to source control in the
\bin\Debug
\bin\Release
folders. Then i hope that the assembly would be found in the executable's folder.
Problem with that is that other developer's machines get an error that the assembly dlls could not be overwritten - when CopyLocal is false.
Use a common structure for these DLLs (a common directory-name) and link to this relative.
Example from a .csproj-file:
<Reference Include="utils_xxx, Version=1.2.10.0, Culture=neutral, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
<SpecificVersion>False</SpecificVersion>
<HintPath>..\..\common_utils_dllproject_dir\utils\bin\$(Configuration)\utils_xxx.dll</HintPath>
</Reference>
You maybe have to enter this by hand, but once in the repo, it is the same for all. Now you just have to convince your developers to adjust to this directory-layout and -naming.
PS: If you overlooked it: $(Configuration) is the trick to use Release/Debug-DLLs.
Developers must have a folder somewhere on their machine structured like this...
[Parent Folder]
Debug
[Debug Assembly].dll
Release
[Release Assembly].dll
Open the project and add a reference to the Debug assembly from the first step. Check it in.
Have every developer open the project and add a reference path in the project properties. The path should be an absolute path to the Debug folder from the first step.
Have every developer close Visual Studio and edit the [project].user file that is now in the same folder as the project file. Change "Debug" to "$(Configuration)". Save and close.
This should now work. If you select the reference in the Solution Explorer and look at the Path property in the Property Grid, it may not be correct. It's just a VS issue. If you test building in Release and Debug, it should work.
This works because the reference paths that developers set are stored in a user file that never gets checked into source control. Therefore, the paths can be different for every dev. This solution is basically stolen from Leonidas' answer but uses reference paths.
Disclaimer
I don't know all the details of your situation, but I personally wouldn't do this. I would probably GAC the release version of the assembly on the developers' machines. Then I would have a build script that ran on a server that would take care of your complicated scenarios.
Include the project and link to the project? dont know if that does work in your situration...