I want to start the develop of a custom project type for Visual Studio that builds a BPR project with Visual Studio.
I need some hints to beginning with this project. Where can I find a template for this type of projects?
My target is to remove the Borland C++Builder's ugly and unstable interface from the development process and work enterely from Visual Studio.
Edit: Oops, I didn't really see that you're about to create a new project type for C++ Builder files. In that case, you have to build a language package. The Visual Studio Extensibility site should get you started. Also have a look at this more specific link.
I'll leave my old answer here for reference, because it might help people who just want to build C++Builder projects without creating a whole new project type :)
You didn't specify the version of Visual Studio, but I'll assume a recent one. In Visual Studio 8 and 9, most project files (all popular ones except Visual C++) are actually MSBuild files and can therefore be built by MSBuild. You can add a simple command line task (Exec) to build your bpr on the command line, or you can create a custom task for this (if you don't find one already available - the search terms should be MSBuild and custom task). This way, both Visual Studio and MSBuild can build anything you like. If you don't have an MSBuild file to start with or want to dive into developing a task, the MSBuild project template for Visual Studio will help you.
Oh, and other than that, if you don't actually need C++Builder things, you might as well export the BPR as a solution (or create a new solution and add the files).
Integrating C++Builder projects into a build process should be a lot easier with C++Builder 2007 or 2009 as both use MSBuild as build system. But then, I think that upgrading to a recent version of C++Builder solves your problem the other way :)
Related
I am having a rough time figuring out how to setup cross-targeting inside a Visual Studio 2017 project and I have not been able to find any examples.
I started out with a .NET Standard 1.5 project and to keep it simple I am just trying to add .NET Standard 1.6. If I understand the documentation correctly, I should now be able to do all of this inside the csproj file without having to mess with a project.json or nuspec file.
I've tried all of these values but none seem to work:
<TargetFrameworks>netstandard15;netstandard16</TargetFrameworks>
<TargetFrameworks>netstandard1.5;netstandard1.6</TargetFrameworks>
<TargetFrameworks>.NETStandard,Version=v1.5;.NETStandard,Version=v1.6</TargetFrameworks>
This is the only source of documentation I can find on the feature and it doesn't contain a full example:
https://docs.nuget.org/ndocs/schema/msbuild-targets
https://docs.nuget.org/ndocs/create-packages/supporting-multiple-target-frameworks
I've gotten this to work on latest Visual Studio 2017. As described in this post https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/10/19/net-core-tooling-in-visual-studio-15/ it is the correct way to do it. My csproj file looks like this:
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFrameworks>netstandard1.6;net452</TargetFrameworks>
</PropertyGroup>
Visual Studio 2017 RC release notes also has this listed as a feature (under .NET Core and Docker):
Cross-target multiple target frameworks in one project.
My mistake at the start was that when I first created the project the property was called TargetFramework, I tried to add multiple targets and VS did not like that at all. It just crashes then... So make sure to rename it to TargetFrameworks and it should work.
There is a bug in the WiX plugin for Visual Studio where file locks on referenced DLLs are not properly released. Therefore, you have to restart Visual Studio every time you want to recompile a custom extension DLL or any assembly referenced by it.
This is a known bug, but the issue was closed because there seems to be a solution / workaround:
You can force the WiX .exes to run out-of-process to avoid the lock
MSBuild has.
I don't understand how to achieve this. I checked...
the properties of my WiX setup project
the properties of the extension assembly (C# class library)
all Visual Studio settings
the available command line arguments of candle.exe
...but did not find anything. What am I missing? How do I apply this workaround?
I'm using WiX 3.10 and Visual Studio 2013.
The example that I've seen several times around the web is to add <RunWixToolsOutOfProc>true</RunWixToolsOutOfProc> to the Wix Installer's project file within a property group. Unfortunately, documentation of this feature has thus far eluded me.
We have large project that used .NET Framework for showing forms/windows. Recently I decided to deprecate CLR dependency and move to Qt.
While learning Qt, we've migrated from Visual studio 2013 to 2015 and then I noticed that there is no qt support for MSVC 14 version which vs2015 use.
Additionally, Qt vs addin was not working jn visual studio express/community edition we use. Is there any chance for me to use Qt and qt addin in our projects?
Searching web did not help, and it looks like no one use Qt with latest Visual Studio?
Building
You can use Qt in Visual Studio 2015 without any problems. As already stated in the comments, you have to build it from source but Qt is pretty straightforward to build. You can download the current (5.5) sources here and then follow this step by step example on building it.
I would also suggest reading more about the configure options, this might save you a lot of time. It might possibly save you some external dependencies as well if you skip components you do not need. My configuration for instance contains -skip qtwebkit -skip qtwebchannel so I do not need ruby or python.
I could totally omit step 3 from the link. Just be sure to open the Visual Studio Command Prompt (32/64 is important here) for configure and nmake.
Usage
For Visual Studio 2015, the Qt Add-In is not available anymore. But there is an Extension (Tools > Extensions & Updates) called Qt5Package or QtPackage which has the same functionality. After installing it, you have the Qt entry on your main toolbar where you have to specify a version and the path to the directory where you built it. This version will also be associated with the current project via the same menu.
If you load an existing project, you also have to convert it so the whole Qt functionality is used automatically. You can do this by opening the solution and right click on it; there should be an entry for the conversion to a QtAddin generated project.
I am using Qt 5.5 on Visual Studio 2015 with an old project and it is working without any issues.
As of now, you can just download Qt for Visual Studio 2015. Here.
Qt have finally added support for Visual Studio 2013 and 2015 although it's only in beta right now. See QTVSADDINBUG-404 for progress and read the blog post From Visual Studio Add-In To Qt VS Tools (Beta).
The Qt Windows could be added to the current project by copying all relating necessary files from the Qt stand-alone project to the current project. Specifically, the following steps must be conducted carefully.
Create an example project of Qt inside a Visual C++ project by using a Qt Plugin Program. The windows must be designed inside this project carefully before adding to the existing project.
Inside the existing project, add carefully the file heloqt.cpp, helloqt.h, ui_helloqt.h, qrc_helloqt.cpp, moc_helloqt.cpp in case of the Qt Project having the name of helloqt.
Add some configurations of Additional include directories and Additional library directories and Additional Dependencies into the existing project.
Compile and add some required *.dll files for running the program.
I have to do that because I want to use a graphic user interface in my big project, and this project is too big to be added into the Qt project inside the Visual C++ Studio.
I am new to Visual Studio Extensibility and want to make an addin/extension which shall do the following:
It should read all the files with a specific file extension (assume "*.ump").
It should process the text/code/whatever in the files.
It should create new Class/Code file with some code in it. [The code will be produced in step 2, just need to know how to do it?]
Yet, I have been racking my brains through extensibility, saw the single file generators .... and addins which go through ProjectItems and can detect the file extension,
BUT I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND a complete tutorial, guide or explanation as to how or what to do!!
Please help...
You don't want to read all files with a specific file extension in Visual C++ project nor standard Visual C# project. You may do that with hand-made MSBuild project (included in the solution).
In Visual C++ projects, there is a way to define custom tools. They are run as separate processes, so you can implement them in anything you want. Studio will ask you whether you want to define a tool (they are defined in special xml files; studio has dialog for editing them) when you add a file with extension unknown to it. In Visual C# projects, just manually write a MSBuild tasks and insert them into the project.
Do whatever you want. IIRC the generated files will have to be included in the project though. Well, for MSBuild, just tweak the project to your heart's desire, but in Visual C++ they have to.
You can combine MSBuild (csproj,vbproj) and VisualC++ projects in a single solution, so I recommend using separate.
If you ever find out you need to compile for different target where you can't use Visual Studio, you'll be glad that you have stand-alone tool you were just calling from Studio and not something that embeds in it.
I got a project, source code, etc, using SCONS. Could you recommend tools/ways to convert or integrate it in a Visual Studio C command line project ?
Hi this may be usefull http://www.scons.org/wiki/IDEIntegration#head-a0b9e629986abc8528bdd599bac43a22cd161bf4
I realize this doesn't directly answer your question but I'd reconsider against using SCONS. Native Visual Studio projects have too many advantages such as being able to use Incredibuild, Visual Assist et c.
Instead you might want to look at XPJ:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xpj/
What it does is generates a vcproj from an XML file, which can also be used to generate a SCONS project if absolutely necessary.
If you are not convinced, you can custom command line project option in Visual Studio and have it invoke the SCONS build.