I just started to use VS 2008 Express. I noticed that I cannot add a new solution folder within a solution in the way like VS 2005 Prof. Not sure if this feature is disabled in the Express version or not.
In VS 2005, I can also add project within a virtual solution folder. This makes my projects in a well organized tree. However, I cannot add virtual folder within a solution in VS 2008 (express?). I am not sure if I could add projects within a virtual folder (if possible in Prof) or not.
I even tried to use text editor to add folder structure in sln file like VS 2005 sln file. However VS 2008 complains the virtual folder.
I couldn't find a question in your post, but yes, the express edition disables this functionality. Consider it another reason to shell out the money for a higher tier.
Related
Last Friday I started a project in Visual Studio 2012. We use Visual SourceSafe 2005 for our source control. I wish I hadn't done this, but I did, when I created the project in VSS 2005, I put it at the root level. I didn't realize my mistake until today. We have a root level project that would have been much more appropriate to have put this into, but I didn't do that.
So here are my questions. First, is it possible to move a project in VSS 2005's Visual SourceSafe Explorer, from one place (the root level) to another place (under a different root level folder)? Where it is on any of our development machines is a different issue, I just want to move this project, within VSS, to where it should be, where other developers will look for find it.
Second, if it is possible to do this, then how do I do it?
You can try the steps below:
In Visual SourceSafe Explorer, you can use the menu File->Move command to move your project.
In Visual Studio, please go to File->Source Control->Change Source Control and update the mapping to make sure it uses the new server path.
How do I create a Visual Studio Project for Development on my Local PC that links to Existing files and folders on a Server?
My employer has a large website. Most of that girth (close to 100 GB) is contributed to Portable and Image document (i.e. PDF and JPEG) files, but there are also numerous web files (.html, .aspx, .php, etc).
We have the following folders:
a WORKING folder that contains everything that is "Live" on our web server.
a BETA folder that contains newest technologies that are being tested and tried.
a DEVELOPMENT folder that contains numerous copies of projects that are being worked on by the different developers.
Developers are allowed to use whatever tools they prefer, so we have people who develop using Notepad++, Dreamweaver, Komodo, Zend Studio, and (now) Visual Studio.
It is NOT OK for me to create Visual Studio Projects for myself on the network servers. Other developers using other tools are not creating solution files or \bin and \obj folders on the servers, and I certainly should not be either.
So, to work on a file in Visual Studio, I use Windows Explorer to browse to the location, then I open it in the IDE.
However, this causes me to lose a lot of the power of Visual Studio - particularly if other classes used in this file, because I would have no access to the Intellisense for that class and I cannot simply Right-Click and go to definition.
Also, since each development environment is so large, I can not copy them to my laptop with its high tech 125 GB Solid State Drive (should be interesting to read that in a couple of years).
What I would like to do is create the Visual Studio Projects on my local drive, and then have them reference the files and folders on our network.
I've looked and found these similar questions, but my goal is slightly different:
Working efficiently on remote projects in Visual Studio
How do I add an existing directory tree to a project in Visual Studio?
How to "Add Existing Item" an entire directory structure in Visual Studio?
These are all great topics, but none of them show a way to create a local project that uses remote files.
It would seem that developers in large company teams would have already developed a way to do this, and that I just do not know what it is called.
I have found a way to do this!
For a long time, I was working with 2 sets of folders. One for our repository and one for Visual Studio.
I'd make changes in Visual Studio, then copy those working files over to the repository folder.
That was time consuming! Very.
Here is how I found to fix it: Open the Visual Studio Project file (*.csproj, *.vbproj, or *.phpproj) in NOTEPAD with Visual Studio closed.
Locate the <ItemGroup> tab, and change every path to be from the one shown to one that uses a relative path to get to the actual files.
Notepad's Replace... CTRL+H will save you hours here!
It makes a funky looking project environment, but it works!
If this helps anyone else or if it were even something you didn't know you could do to manipulate Visual Studio, kindly vote it up.
I assume we must be missing a trick as we are finding using IIS Express with teams quite painful.
The issue is IIS Express' applicationhost.config is stored locally in each persons MyDocuments folder, and thus separate to the Visual Studio solution and not in source control.
So when we make a change everyone has to manually update applicationhost.config on their machine.
THe update visual studio does to the applicationhost.config file fails, because we are not using localhost, we have host entries to give our environments different names.
Is there a better way?
Refer to Here
UPDATE FOR VISUAL STUDIO 2015: As was pointed out to me in a comment
by Søren Nielsen, in Visual Studio 2015 the IIS Express configuration
files have moved. They are now separate per project, and stored in
/{project folder}/.vs/config/applicationhost.config. Which is much
better, in my opinion, just don't forget to add .vs/ to your
.gitignore/.hgignore files!
Other wise NO there is no better way. Instead of IIS Express, for remote access you can use IIS on your development machine...
It doesn't seem a big deal: when you load a project configured to run with IIS express, VS checks your applicationhost.config for that entry. If it doesn't find it, it just prompts you with the problem and asks you if you want it to create it for you. Just click "yes" and the entry is added.
At least, that's how we deal with that here. The problem is just the first time anyway, all other settings are stored in web.config in the project, which is versioned, so everything should be smooth.
I have a project on SourceSafe that the team work with VS 2005.
I have installed VS2010 and like some features of this version.
Is there a way that I keep the project to day with SourceSafe, but however work locally with VS2010.
Say, I could not add new files to solution, but at least obtain, modify and archive the existing ones.
You can update all of the source files pretty safely unless you're adding code that is new since VS 2005. The main difference between the VS versions is in the project, and the solution files. What you can do is make your local project and solution files writable, and then use your source control to modify the source files. When all is said and done though you'll want to build it in 2005 (with the SourceSafe versions of the project and solution files) to make sure it all still works.
Also note that the conversion utility in Visual Studio that converts projects from previous VS versions is only intended to convert projects from the previous version. Since VS 2010's previous version is VS 2008 and not VS 2005 you may have to perform manual changes on your solution and project settings to get everything to build. The main thing that comes to mind is how global include directories are handled. If you have access to VS 2008 convert it to that first, and then to VS 2010.
Besides targetting the 2.0 framework VS2010 will still let you use new language features so you have to be careful.
And as Ben Burnett said, the sourcesafe binding doens't have to be a problem as long as you don't check out project and solution files. You can remove the read only flag from them so VS2010 can edit them, but they don't need be be checked into sourcesafe.
But I really wonder which feature you like so much about VS2010 that you want to restrict yourself to not be able to add, remove or rename files from your project.
We have a solution that has a website and a class library. We also have developers working in VS 2005 and VS 2008. The issue is when a user adds a file/removes a file from the class library it doesn't get added to the project file for the user(s) using the other version of VS. Also I had to setup our automated build to use one project file. Is there a way to work around this or do we need to upgrade everyone to 2008?
Working with two different version of Visual Studio in a team of more than one project member absolutely makes no sense. I recommend to downgrade to Visual Studio 2005 or upgrade to Visual Studio 2008. You can install several versions of Visual Studio on the same machine with no side effects.
You will need to keep each solution file on the same visual studio version. It's ok to split up your product into several solutions though. In this case you may have 1 .sln file that holds your 2005 projects and 1 .sln that holds your 2008 projects.
As you mentioned there is no automatic way to keep a 2005 and a 2008 project in sync, because when you add a file to one of the projects, the other one won't have that new file. Likewise when you remove files.
Maybe you should downgrade to VS 2005 - since I'm working now on a project using VS08 and every now and then the paths of the referenced dlls get mixed up and the dlls are lost - or we have the same problem you just described that files that were added from one user are not in the project file for the next one after an update.
I'm not sure about "Web Site" (rather than "Web Application") projects, but generally you don't need different project files for 2005 and 2008. You only need separate solution files.
Just open your 2005 project in 2008 and allow it to upgrade your solution/projects. You may get a dialog asking you to update CLR versions, just say no.
Once you've got a working 2008 solution, copy the *.sln file to another name (I call my copy *.2005.sln), open the copied *.sln file in notepad, or your favourite text editor. Find "Format Version 10.0" on the 2nd line, and change to "Format Version 9.0". Save the file.
That's it, your upgraded solution file works in VS 2008, and the one you copied and changed works in VS 2005.
There's one extra step if you've got Web Application Projects. In the Web Application's vbproj or csproj file, find the line:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplications.targets" Condition="" />
and replace that one line with these two:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v8.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplications.targets" Condition="'$(Solutions.VSVersion)' == '8.0'" />
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplications.targets" Condition="'$(Solutions.VSVersion)' == '9.0'" />
Those two lines will conditionally select the correct MSBuild path depending on the version of VS used.