Is there an alternate way to test VS 2010 extension projects? Right now I have to spin a new instance of VS 2010 and wait. This takes couple of minutes and would love to know if there's another way of doing it quickly.
Depending on the project type you used to create your package (empty VSIX container or one of the extension projects from the SDK like Editor Margin, Text Adornment, ViewPort Adornment, etc) It will ask you if you want to create unit/integration tests.
The integration tests provide all the methods simulate the shell and allow you to test without actually spinning up the UI. Of course this depends if you need to do any visual verification, but if you're testing package load, service calls, pretty much anything else it's great.
Let me know how it goes.
Related
I'm trying to develop my first custom SSIS task. I've got two instances of SSDT open -- one for building and debugging the task, and the other that uses the custom task. Then in the first instance, I use the Attach to Process function from the Debug menu to debug the code. That all works fine but my trouble is that each time I rebuild the task and register it in the GAC from the first instance, I have to close and reopen the second instance of SSDT. If I don't, the second instance seems to still use the previous build of my custom task. Is there some way besides closing/reopening Data Tools that will cause it to recognize the new build of the custom task? All the closing/reopening is getting exhausting.
While it has been a decade since I last built any custom components for SSIS, the work cycle is as you describe it.
The best bit of of advice I'd offer is to add post-build steps to your development process to GAC the DLL. Oh, and modify your Visual Studio shortcut to include /nosplash to eliminate the startup splash screen.
I would like to debug a same C# console project from two different instances of Visual Studio to increase my productivity, as the edit-and-continue mode is not always enough, to say the least.
I have no problem opening the solution twice, and debugging different projects concurrently, but when I try debugging the same project twice, it expectedly fails as it cannot replace the executables in the bin folders.
The possibility to debug twice from the same instance of the IDE as explained here is very welcome, but not good enough for me as I want to be able to completely edit my code when needed.
Is there any simple way to achieve this? Thanks!
Instead of clicking Debug or hitting F5, open a command prompt and start the number of instances you want from there. Now start as few or as many Visual Studio instances you want and go to the debug -> Attach... window.
In the Attach to process window, find the instance youw ant to debug and choose attach. This will allow you to attach to as many instances of your applciation as you'd want.
Now, if you want to be able to edit these application son the fly and spin up new instances, that isn't possible because, as you've found out, the executable will eb in use. Short of creating multuiple copies of your output directory and always starting a copy, never the original, you have no way to achieve that.
Just as a note for whoever stumbles upon this page, as it's ranked very high on Google:
If you want to debug two instances of the same program in Visual Studio, this is as simple as opening up two instances of visual studio and pressing f5 in each instance. This works remarkably well, although you want to wait until one program is up and running before you start the second - otherwise you may get conflicts in your bin folder (which is what it seems OP didn't do.)
I have a VS solution containing several projects. While debugging a particular project all the source files are locked by VS. I would like to unlock sources that the debugee doesn't have dependency on. Is there any way to do this within one solution?
UPDATE:
I'm using Win XP SP3 32bit. Visual Studio 2010, C#. Edit and Continue is enabled. The solution contains 6 projects (number in not important actually), 5 of them depend on the data access layer project which uses Entity Framework. None of the 5 have any mutual dependencies. They are WinForms and Console applications. I would like to be able to run one of the projects and make changes to others without stopping the first. The problem is starting and stopping the project take considerable amount of time.
The Edit and Continue feature is preventing you from editing files if the debugger hasn't stopped the program. The simple workaround is Debug + Break All, you should then be able to edit the files, your changes will be immediately effective provided your changes do not violate the restrictions imposed by E+C. This is the most efficient work flow.
The heavy-handed approach is to disable Edit and Continue. Tools + Options, Debugger, Edit and Continue, uncheck the Enable check box.
I don't think that there is a way to avoid that. While debugging Visual Studio lock all files to prevent any change on them, including those on other projects.
You can try to open the project which you are interested on with another Visual Studio instance to make changes to your files or open files singularly with another editor.
This doesn't quite answer the OP's question per se, but for anyone who has stumbled upon this page in the same (very frustrated) boat as I am, this might help.
The solution: start without debugging.
It was driving me absolutely crazy that Visual Studio would not let me edit files while the app was running. My typical workflow is:
Make some changes
Run the app to see the effects of those changes
Based on the results, make more changes, etc. etc.
The problem is Visual Studio was preventing me from step 3. It demands that you STOP running the app before you can even make any changes (including to a XAML file or adding a file to the project), which also means that you can't go back to the app to double-check something while you are actually programming it at the same time (which is how I work, bro).
Thank god I finally discovered if I run without debugging it doesn't impose this ridiculous limitation. It's still a pain in the butt if you actually need to debug something you have to re-run the app in debug mode, but it sure beats having to kill the app before it will even let you edit a file.
Are there any limitations that I might face when using VS Setup Projects?
I plan to use them, but am not sure if this would be a good idea.
Well, in a more advanced setting: VS Setup Projects cannot be automated, e.g. you cannot put your project and the VS Setup Project on a build server and have them built automatically. This might not be an issue for a smaller shop or a single developer, but for a larger enterprise-level development environment, this alone can be quite a killer criteria.
In order to get around this, we use WiX for our setups - more work once up front, but works nicely with continuous integration.
Marc
They are OK, if your starting from scratch I would say look into WIX, or even pony up the cash for Install Shield or one of the other commercial ones, would save you time and money in the long run.
Builds can be very slow, especially if you have a lot of binary files. I have a project with a lot of product images that get packed into the install package, this takes a LONG time, even on a fast machine.
Visual Studio Setup projects lacks a number of key features that Windows Installer Provides. Most notable of these is the 'Feature' feature that allows you to setup several tools that the user can choose to install or exclude. As already recommended, use WiX or a 3rd party full-featured installer tool.
It depends on your project I suppose. It used to be a pain to use to set up web projects, but I think there is an addin now that makes creating a web app setup a lot easier.
More limitations...
There is no way in setup project to perform validation on data that has
been provided by the user on the UI dialogs (acquisition phase).
There is no way to designate a custom action to run with elevated
privileges(System account).
There is no way to make your custom action execute during UI sequence.
I need to create an install for my app that executes the following actions:
Copies files
Writes registry settings
Registers a windows service
Writes an XML app.config file (based on user supplied info during install--a connection string)
Executes SQL scripts against a remote database (connection info obtained in #4)
Installs and registers a COM dll
Adds entry to Control Panel>Add/Remove programs for uninstall
I don't need any fancy logic to allow the user to customize these steps--I can hard-code them with user-supplied info injected where appropriate.
I looked at Wix but found the documentation and examples don't line up well with recent releases.
I also looked at NSIS but found support for writing XML to be too limited (the plugin for this can only handle strings up to 64 bytes).
I initially brushed off the VS2005 built in Setup project as incapable of handling these tasks but I'm ready to reconsider after stumbling with what I thought were better options.
Any suggestions?
I would still recommend looking into WiX a bit more. We use it to do everything but #6 on that list and while there is a small learning curve. We've been using WiX v3 for almost 3 years, and I haven't found too many places where the docs/tutorial is that far out of place. And usually where it is its because they cleaned up the syntax and made it better.
Also, as of the next release of Visual Studio (2010/Rosario) WiX is being build directly into Visual Studio, I'm not sure if in parallel with the current Setup Projects or replacing them completely.
A Visual Studio Installer project can do whatever custom code you want; wouldn't see why any of your requirements would be a problem.
I have used Visual Studio (2005) and Wise and can recommend both. You didn't mention if the tool had to be free, and if so that rules out Wise. Nevertheless Wise has a dead easy learning curve and is very powerful and well documented. I have had a few weird things happen to me with Visual Studio. One time I had to delete my project and start over (possibly due to stupidity on my part - never figured it out), but overall I have been using it for a couple years at my current job and it works for me.
You can use just Visual Studio and Windows without commercial tools to achieve what you need.
First, check out the answer to create a single installer file.
Then, you can research how to create a Custom Action class that can perform registry, read/write files and register COM dll's separately.