Combing CoffeeScript output files and minimizing them in Visual Studio 2010 - visual-studio-2010

I am using WorkBench to create CoffeScript files in VS2010. IS there a way I can combine the compiled js files into 1 file and minimize that file to include in my view?

I had a quick look at WorkBench and found it to be much less appealing and functional than "Chirpy" which simply does the job. See http://chirpy.codeplex.com/

You might want to check this article http://mkramar.blogspot.com/2011/08/css-and-javascript-minify-and-combine.html
It is a hand-crafted solution but somehow I liked it. Could be improved more, as it uses a custom compressor but it simply concats and compresses the static files into a single one using an Html helper.

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Why can't I add a subfolder in a F# project?

In most .NET project I can use folder to organise the code files. In C++, I can't, but filters end up playing the same role. However, in F# with Visual Studio 2010, I can't. Every code file is shown directly in the project dir. Why is this feature not available?
And what is the optimal strategy for organizing a project with a lot of files?
Actually, you can add folders to F# projects but it's not supported directly through Visual Studio (you have to edit the project file yourself): http://fsprojectextender.codeplex.com/ (edit: old link was broken, updated to F# Project Extender home page which has links to the original blog posts which were moved) (which I found in this answer).
I do this myself, but it is cumbersome and you end up avoiding it until keeping sanity really demands it. I think the feature simply slipped, or perhaps there wasn't as much a culture for folder organization with the F# designers in the first place. You can see in the F# source code that they favor huge source files with no directories, with separate projects as an organization boundary.
I imagine the F# project template could be modified to support this, and it is certainly something I'd like to see happen. At the same time the linear compilation order F# enforces causes your code to be somewhat self-organized, and so folder grouping plays a less significant role.
Manually editing the .fsproj file as described in Stephen's answer is one option (and I used it when I wanted to organize one larger project).
However, you have to be a bit careful and I think you cannot add new files to the folders (creating a file by hand and then adding an existing file works). However, if you like to keep things organized (like I do), then it should work for you.
Additionally, there is also a tool called F# Project Extender that should make things a bit easier for you . I have not tried it yet, but it looks like it supports adding folders (and perhaps other useful things). See for example this blog post by the project author.

Visual Studio extensions for code generation...what's the best way

So we have this tool, it's a web page, we drop a large piece of text in textBox a (say sql) run the tool
and it generates the guts of a code file in TextBoxb (say a custom view class model).
it's written in C#.
I know there are several ways to create visual studio extensions.
What I'd like to know is, what's the best/easiest/fastest way to take a c# dll that has a method that takes text in and returns text out, and turn it into a VisualStudio extenson, that takes text in and creates a files, adds it to the project and puts the text into it.
We're using Vs2008 and VS2010, and I'm okay the best soloution only work on 2010.
The closest I've found by googling so far is this:
http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2009/03/01/generate-code-from-custom-file-formats.aspx
but they are for custom file formats only, i want to generate*.cs and *.rdlc and similar files.
I'd also like to be able to add methods to an existing class.
tutorial walkthroughs or better approaches woud be greatly appreicated.
VS package Builder is the answer. Lots easier.

How to store reusable code in Visual Studio 2010?

Is there any way I could save my block of code in Visual Studio 2010 and reuse it in my future web applications without having to "Add existing files"? Is there a feature in VS2010 that lets you globally store these blocks of code?
Thanks!
Oded pretty much covered it but I'll just reiterate here. There are three main ways you can do this depending on how much code you want to store.
For a little code just copy the code to your Toolbox:
Link
For a little code to very large blocks of code (with some intelligence for putting in values) you can use code snippets:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/zainnab/archive/tags/tips+and+tricks/snippet/
And for lots of custom files, resources, etc... that essentially make up a new project you should use project templates:
Link
Visual Studio has a feature called code snippets, which will allow you to do exactly that.
If you want a more advanced use - for whole files, sets of files and even whole projects, use templates.

.NET Solution Viewer

Does anyone know of a program which works like a Adobe PDF Reader except for .NET solutions?
I develop in a virtual machine but there are times when I just want to open a solution and browse the files. I have no intention of doing any development, I just want to view them.
Does this app exist, or is Notepad++ my best option?
Thanks!
You might want to consider making a simple XSL Transform that can read the SLN and create pretty little list of files for you.. if that's what you mean, otherwise the XML is probably the best you are going to get.
Never heard of a "solution reader." When viewing source files on a system without VS.NET I use Notepad.

How best to deal with gigantic source code files in Visual Studio

I'm working on a project which makes substantial use of code generation. Some of the files it generates contain >0.25 million lines of code. VS (2K5) doesn't cope too badly, but R# (4.01) throws an out of memory exception every two minutes or so.
Splitting them out into partial classes/separate files isn't an option in the immediate term, though it may be later.
Are there any clever IDE tricks to dealing with this?
EDIT: so people are immediately saying (very sensibly) 'don't have a file that big' and suggesting ways to break it out into smaller files.
That's fine, but I'm on a time-boxed task taking a look around and deciding what to optimise. My problem is very specifically 'how to view an insanely big file in an IDE without pain', not 'how to refactor the project'. For purposes of the question please imagine the file is read-only. :)
I would at least change huge files extention to something like .cpp_gen or .cpp_huge to remove syntax highlighting, outlining etc. and then reassign build tool back to C/C++ compiler tool for them.
Seems like this R# tool (is that Resharper?) is the problem. Can you disable it?
Otherwise, changing the file type for the generated code might make sense - presumably, you aren't going to be doing major editing on those files, so losing syntax coloring and other features specific to source files wouldn't be an issue.
WOW!
250 000 lines of code?
you should think not in a machine point of view, but in a human been point of view. Let's say that you want to pass that code to someone else, can you see the time to see what the code does?
Design Patterns were made to deal with this ind stuff, try to start small, refactoring it, then go deeper and start applying more D.P.
you will have less and less lines of code, and Yes, one of the best tricks is to separate into several files according to it's propose.
Assuming you're not hand-editing your generated code. (=BAD IDEA!!)
You could put the generated files in a separate solution that you compile from the command line and then reference those dll's from the project you're working in.
Is the problem when you open the file for editing in Visual Studio? I've noticed that VS editor can be quite slow and inefficient on large files. Also, you could try turning off certain options, e.g. word-wrapping kills my machine for some reason.
Otherwise you could use something else like Textpad with syntax highlighting installed to edit the problematic large source file... not as nice, for sure.
Don't use visual studio. There is too much going on in VS.
Since the file is read only, you wont be using any IDE features (Intellisense, Refactoring tools, formatting).
You will probably get better performance using a simpler application, such as notepad++ for simply viewing the file. Notepad++ will do standard language highlighting if you like color.
Can't you break up the files and use the preprocessor to bring them back together when you compile?
It must be possible somehow to group large chunks of those files in separate libraries. You'd then separate them into several projects. Tried this? What the is the current structure of your source code/ project?

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