I have a VisualStudio project with a few sub folders like Accounting, Store etc. I need to make a duplicate of the "Accounting" folder and also rename all the Class Objects in that folder. Each object in that folder is prefixed with "Accounting".
Basically I want to name the duplicate "Customer" and change all the prefix of the Class Objects to Customer..
What's the fastest way in doing this?
The fastest way to do this is probably the Unix command line tools. (On Windows, you can install, e.g., MSys or Cygwin to use them.) If you haven't done this, however, it will take quite a while to set this up and get familiar with them.
Here on my Windows box I would probably use a combination of TotalCommander (for file copying and batch file renaming) and VS itself (for batch identifier replacement).
I have, however, never come into the situation to do this, since, in general, I shy away from code duplication. Have you asked yourself why you're doing this and whether there's a better way? If the code duplication is so massive that it's worth the time asking us how to do it the fastest way, this isn't just a code smell. That's a dead skunk decaying under your pillow.
I'd suggest that you copy the folders using Windows Explorer and use a tool like notepad++ or TextPad to rename multiple files.
You can use a macro to rename the classes and the file names. If the solution is bound to Visual Source Safe, it will pickup the file rename. More info and code example on http://tseonet.blogspot.com/2010/12/using-macros-in-visual-studio-to-rename.html.
Related
This is likely not a simple topic - I have researched this to the best of my abilities and realize that it is not supported in any typical fashion.
My goal is to enable something similar to .app files from OSX, where the application, as well as its user data, can exist in the same file. I imagine it would require writing a tool to manage this behaviour, but this question is more about how to achieve this in the Windows OS. I am quite flexible regarding the implementation details, but the more straightforward the behaviour, the better (i.e. avoiding copying or compressing/decompressing entire directories/archives at runtime would be ideal).
Approaches I have considered:
Find a way to get explorer to treat a directory as a file, so that it can be associated. I have found a way to get explorer to treat a directory as a control panel item, I have thus far been unable to find a way to use this to associate a custom program. See the infamous "godmode hack" for Windows (name a directory something to the effect of "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"). This one seems the most hopeful, but I'm at wits end trying to find information about creating a new association of this type.
Come up with some kind of archive format which can extract executable information to a temporary directory, launch this executable passing the archive as a commandline parameter. This seems like the ugliest solution, from a performance perspective. I would prefer a different solution if at all possible, one which doesn't involve making duplicates of the program or its data to run.
Find a way to associate a directory directly, though I have found no trace of this being supported in Windows, and I assume this is a dead-end.
Find a way to get an executable to include writeable embedded files. I have been unable to make any headway with this- I even tried a resource hacker approach, but obviously you cannot modify the assembly while its in use.
Tried to make a self-modifying JAR file with Java, but the route I took would add the JDK as a runtime requirement, which seems a bit overkill. Even then, it would be limited to Java, and I'm pretty sure it's not actually supposed to allow that in the first place.
Modify Windows Explorer. I shudder at the amount of work this would take, not to mention the at-best gray area it falls under legally. Perhaps there's a way to extend explorer to achieve this, I'm not sure.
A custom archive file. This seems like the most straightforward way to do it. But it would ideally need to be an archive format that has very little overhead for file I/O. Could even be some kind of virtual disk that gets mounted, but I am imagining that would be pretty heavy.
I would appreciate any insight that anyone has on this topic. I won't go into reasons as they are irrelevant to the question itself- I'm aware it is likely not the most practical solution to anything in particular. Consider it a novel pursuit.
It can be done by application virtualization,
Read this wikipedia page theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_application
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_virtualization
And two pages about software:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_ThinApp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_(software)
Windows 7 added the ability for a Desktop.ini file to add/change the folder verbs on a per-folder basis. Using that trick it is possible to create a "folders as applications" style setup.
I've created a project and built out a several model classes. I've decided that I'd like to recycle them as a separate framework. In doing so, I want to change my class prefix of those files. The issue is, of course, that I now have to batch rename my files and my classes. I could use the refactor tool, but I have tens of classes, so it would be tedious. Is there a good way to automate the process? For reference, I'm using Xcode 5.
For anyone looking for an answer, I think I have a solution, although it's something I'd like to see built in to Xcode. I've filed a radar.(#15261680)
I had three things to worry about here:
The class names themselves. The class prefixes didn't match the framework that I wanted to put them in.
The file names. Even if I did a careful global search and replace and changed the class prefixes, the file names would be wrong.
The Xcode project references. Xcode keeps a list of your files, and I had to be sure that Xcode would know where to find my files, in the event that I renamed them.
What I did:
I did a global search and replace. Instead of clicking "Replace All", I used the "Review" pane, so I was able to exclude about ten or so cases that I wanted to keep with the original prefix.
I found a utility to do a batch rename. Now my files and classes all match nicely.
Uh oh! Xcode doesn't know where my files are, now. To fix this, I opened the .pbxproj file and did another careful search and replace. (I made sure to quit Xcode first, so my changes wouldn't be overwritten automatically.)
This was a bit of an involved process, and I was hoping that there was a tool or Xcode feature to help me do this, but alas, not yet.
So I have been working on a few projects using audio and images from files in Visual Studio C++. As of now they are just test projects, but I am going to be moving now towards making 2D games for fun using SFML and a few different audio libraries. The problem is this, I want to give out my games to others so they can play and test them, and I may try to develop some sort of Multiplayer for some, thus increasing my desire to give it out to others, however I do not know how I can give them the games with all the files included. I used to just be able to grab the exe files out of the debug or release folder, but these projects have files they rely on.
So here is my question, is it possible to export an exe file that contains all the other files (wav's, jpg's etc.)? If this question sounds overwhelmingly stupid then tell me, because I have very little idea of what an exe is, and whether it can hold those files (I am used to java, where u can simply export something into a runnable jar and because it is an archive, with all of the resources prepackaged in there, I don't know if an exe shares these traits). If this is not possible, or there are better alternatives, what are they? I have seen things and know how to load sounds from arrays of data, would that be a better solution? Or are there other options? On top of that, in the debug and release folder there are several DLL files which I need to run the project, is there a way to compress these into the exe or will those have to be in the same folder as the exe no matter what?
The real question here is what is the best way to export an exe file of my project so that I can utilize all of my sound and image resources as well as the dll's into an easy to distribute copy? Thank you in advance to any advice.
It's not possible to export an exe that contains your exe and multiple other files. You can use an installer (such as InnoSetup, which is free), or bundle the extra files into a resource and load them from resource at runtime. (The first has the benefit of being able to ask the user where to install, create shortcuts and folders, Start Menu items, etc.).
There's two easy ways to make a file that you can easily give to people to test and/or play your game.
The first option is using an installer, as mentioned in Ken White's answer. It's a good method for "final" releases, but it adds an extra step if you just want to send a copy of your game to someone to test it.
The second method is put all your files into a single .zip file (or .rar, or .tar.bz). Basically, this is a lot like Java's .jar file, with all the dlls, image files, and sound files into a single file. Recent versions of Windows have the ability to create zip files built in, so the best way to do it is just zip up the Debug or Release version with all the files, and unzip to an empty folder somewhere, and test the game. Doing that will let you make sure you got all the files you need. This way, you can easily send your game to someone, they can simply unzip it to a folder somewhere, and play, no messing about with installers.
The bonus third option is sticking the files into a resource and loading them at runtime, or similar things (it's possible to get really fancy and combine all the files into a single EXE, but it's not exactly easy, and not really advisable).
Basically, I want one of my folders to appear above the other folders as a type of "special folder", similar to how Properties has it's own special place even though it's a folder, same with App_Data, etc.
Is this possible?
By default, Visual Studio doesn't support adding special project folders. The Properties folder is hard-coded to behave the way that it does.
However, anything is possible with code. You could build an extension to do this, but it wouldn't be simple. You'd probably need to mess around with the IVsHierarchy or even implement a project subtype.
Basically, I want one of my folders to
appear above the other folders as a
type of "special folder", similar to
how Properties has it's own special
place even though it's a folder, same
with App_Data, etc.
Is this possible?
Yes:
Do it manually through the IDE
Write your own script to
generate/modify your *.sln/*.vcproj
For (1) "manual" on solutions in the IDE: Solution Explorer, right-click on Solution node==>Add==>New Solution Folder.
While typically the folders are sorted alphabetically (I'd insert a leading underscore to force your special folder to the top), solution folders inserted manually on my MSVS2008 leave the new folder "at the top", even though it should have bumped down when alphabetically sorted. However, folders under a Project (which are called "Filters") are always sorted alphabetically, and added similarly from the right-click, and then you can modify their "filter properties" with file name globs for what you want in there (e.g., add a filter glob for "*.MY_EXTENSION1;*.MY_EXTENSION2").
We chose (2), and we generate our own *.sln and *.vcproj, adding our own folders/filters. I've not seen any utilities on the web to help with that (so we had to write our own). The formats are not too hard to reverse engineer, but it's largely undocumented XML, so you have to experiment. There are only a couple good web articles explaining what's in the file, like this one:
http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/dotnet/excerpt/vshacks_chap1/index.html?page=4
On the "bright side", the files are only XML, so in developing our scripts we merely made changes through the IDE, saved, and compared the "diffs" for what change we want. Those changes are what our scripts insert when we modify our files. So, if you modify the file manually, you can similarly just "diff" the file to see what changed, and make your own script. (IMHO, this is the fastest and easiest route, since tools generally do not exist to manipulate these files.)
Tools like CMake and QMake generate *.vcproj/*.sln, but don't really do the folder customization thing like you're talking. However, we look at their output too, because, "there's more than one way to do things" in these files, and the files seem to have many undocumented features for doing different clever things that somehow these tools have "discovered" (so you can try to copy their generated output).
We found the .NET APIs to work with these files as too much work, and not really designed for that type of manipulation, but YMMV.
VS 2012 has a feature that I just found, and it solved this problem for me. It may not be new to VS.
Create a folder under the project with a leading "_" (to get it sorted first).
On the folder's properties set "Namespace Provider" to false.
VS (or ReSharper?) code analysis then does not complain that "the namespace does not match file location", which was the source of irritation for me that would otherwise have kept me from going this route.
Although there is no easy way to add Custom Folder, there is an easy way to "steal" Properties custom folder.
Add a regular folder to the project. For example MyCustomerFolder.
Open proj file xml. Find line
<AppDesignerFolder>Properties</AppDesignerFolder>
replace with
<AppDesignerFolder>MyCustomFolder</AppDesignerFolder>
Reload the project.
Now you've got a custom folder, that will always stick to the top.
I'm using Visual Source Safe 6.0d (work requirement) and I've been trying to hack together a little shell script to allow me to easily remove a source tree or warn me if I've got files checked out so I can make sure I don't accidentally delete work. Is there any way to tell if files are checked out other than checking the read-only bit on the files themselves?
VSS doesn't seem to be writing any file (I took a snapshot of the dir before and after checking out a file and there was no difference in the files listed)
I can't seem to find anything by Googling.
I also checked the vssver.scc for differences and didn't find anything.
Mind you, checking for writeable files isn't the worst thing in the world but it seems as if VSS makes several files in the source tree (*.ncb, *.scc, *.sln) writeable without me having checked anything out. I can simply exclude the files but I'm trying to find a bit more elegant solution.
You can use COM to check if a file is checked out. Take a look at the IVSSItem.IsCheckedOut property. For more on using VSS through COM see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/4d44xhsd%28VS.80%29.aspx
Perhaps the most robust technique is to ask SourceSafe itself what is checked out and/or whether individual files of interest are checked out. Whilst I realize that it's not obvious how to do this in a little shell script, I'd advocate the use of PowerShell for this.
SourceSafe exposes an OLE Automation object model (also known as a COM object model), and PowerShell can talk to COM objects. If you're not familiar with this stuff, it's a lot to learn but ultimately it's worth it.
Alternatively, if PowerShell is too alien, VBScript can also be used to control COM objects.