Building the project in Visual Studio makes references stop working? - wpf

I don't even know how to describe this. I have a WPF project that I've added some libraries to. Libraries I've used in many other projects before. I have the strange issue of, when typing out code, intellisense can fill in things from a library fine, but as soon as I do a build, VS acts like all of these things are undeclared. Import statements suddenly say that I'm trying to reference things that don't exist, etc. But then if I clean the build, all of the references come back fine.
I'm completely stumped, any thoughts?

I have seen this if you are targeting the client profile, but some of the DLLs require the full .net framework.

This can happen if you are using file based references to libraries ($ref) that have corresponding projects in the same solution as the one you are adding references to ($proj).
Visual Studio is unable to (reliably) understand the build order and builds the items out of sequence (the $proj is built before the $ref, but after the $ref's output has been cleaned).
If you have this situation, just change the references to project based references.
Similarly, make sure there are no build events that would alter or move files.
Also, VS will sometimes search for a reference and pick a file at a location that you do not expect. Highlight the reference and check its property page, and make sure its actually where you think it is.

Related

Build solution fails because of linker errors on newly added projects

I have a solution in VS 2015 which makes use of multiple similar projects.
I added two new ones from a provided template and now building the entire solution shows two linker errors on those two projects.
I have compared configuration with other similar projects within the solution and everything was exactly the same. Building the projects one by one is successful.
At the Linker properties-> Input-> Additional dependencies I have the following libraries, created from other projects within the solution:
CommonLib.lib;UsermodeLibrary.lib
And the linker error I get is either:
Error LNK1181 cannot open input file 'CommonLib.lib' ProjectName
Or:
Error LNK1181 cannot open input file 'UsermodeLibrary.lib' ProjectName
I put the projects in the same folder as the others, and the solution makes use of filters.
My lab teacher figured this out for me.
For the sake of the answer let's call the new project I added from template "MyProject".
"You have to go the properties of the solution (right click on the solution -> Properties), there you go in the left tab to Common Properties\Project Dependencies.
After that you choose at the middle top of your projects (ex.: MyProject) and in the bottom window, you have to search for UsermodeLibrary and check/select it as a dependency for the project.
The thing is that every project is configured OK in the Project Properties (linker related and the rest), the only problem is that when you are building the solution it has to know per solution that some projects depend on other projects.
Here the dependency hierarchy is the following:
MyProject -> UsermodeLibrary -> CommonLib (-> means "depends on").
That's why you are seeing that CommonLib can't be linked to the project because it is not built before those applications.
Somehow, your templates miss this setup in regard to the Solution in which they are created."

SQL Server Database Project dbml file is always modified [duplicate]

I'm running into a small but weird annoyance that seems to be happening to other people, too (for example, check out the revision history of SEDE). I have a SQL Server 2008 database project in Visual Studio 2010 that works properly. When I go to commit/checkin to source control, I'm told that my DB project's .dbmdl file has changed, even when I've made no changes to the project!
I'm not sure if the changes are triggered by building my solution (which also includes an ASP.NET MVC application and a unit test project) or by simply opening the DB project, but this is getting kind of annoying and is creating clutter in source control.
Is it possible to stop these changes from occurring, or get rid of the .dbmdl file whatsoever?
If you delete the .dbml file, it is rebuilt without errors or warnings, so I think it's just a cache file for references, intellisense, etc. I'm going to exclude it from source control.
I believe Visual Studio serializes the dbmdl file every time the project is opened. The only possible work around would be to keep the project open.
See related question here. The .dbmdl file is unique per user (and some kind of cache, as said above) and so the right solution is indeed to exclude it from source control.

Deploy a WPF application partially [duplicate]

I am using VS2008 to publish my application files using ClickOnce. I read somewhere that ClickOnce intelligently does only partial updates; meaning it only downloads files from the network share if the file has changed in subsequent updates. However, this wasn't working for me. So I did some research and stumbled upon this MSDN article - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms404267.aspx. It says that if we build using VS, it doesn't perform the partial updates. Can anyone tell me why this is the case? If so, is there a way to atleast let the referenced dlls to be downloaded only for the first time. I am using Microsoft Practices Enterprise Library and some 3rd party controls (with huge Theme files).
Thanks,
Uniball
Partial updates work fine in ClickOnce even when building in VS. However, if you have a solution made up of a few projects (eg a couple of class library projects and an executable) then any time you rebuild all the projects the timestamp on the assembly files will change, even if the code hasn't. Since ClickOnce really only looks at the timestamps to decide whether a file needs updating, it'll pull down the (unchanged) assemblies as new files when the user updates.
The workaround is to pull any dependent projects out of your executable's solution file and build them separately. That means that any assemblies whose code doesn't change very often will only get pulled down to the client once. If you need to change the assembly, you simply open its solution and make the change, then reopen your executable's solution and rebuild that. The next ClickOnce update will pull down both the exe and the changed assembly.
Hope that's clear enough!

Check CopyLocal property of all references post/during build in multi project solution (Multi Xap)

I have a Silverlight solution that has multiple silverlight projects (Views) that all compile to their own .Xap file.
There is one "master" project that handles the dynamic downloading of the Xap files, which works pretty well.
But now I need to make sure that all the references are set to CopyLocal=false in all the View Projects. Only the "master" project can have CopyLocal=true.
This means that the Xap files generated by the Views stay rather small.
What I would like to do is check post or during the build process to see if any of the View projects have a reference with CopyLocal=true.
What would be a smart way of doing this? Using an external tool in the Post Build event? Or perhaps an addin for Visual Studio ? Or creating a macro in Visual Studio for this?
I have looked at using .extmap with assembly caching, but since you have to specify the assemblies in that, this does not solve my problem. I just need to know if there is a reference with the wrong setting and report that. Fixing it is not the question, that will still be done manually. It's just the notification I need.
Solution has 35 projects now, so dont want to check them all by hand every time.
I found a question similar to this one, but it lists msbuild as a possible solution. I would like to know if there is a way to do this using "code" (be it prebuilt in a tool/addin or otherwise)
I have chosen to go the Addin path. I created an addin that listens to : BuildEvents.OnBuildBegin
Whenever that event fires I create a list of all projects in the current solution. Doing a bit of recursive searching since there are also Solution folders that make life in DTE world a bit harder.
Then I loop through all the projects and cast them to a VSProject so I can loop through all the references.
Anytime I come accross a reference that is wrong, I create an ErrorTask where I set the Document property to the full solution path of the reference. To do this I Build the path for the project this reference is in, all the way up to the root of the solution.
The ErrorTask is then sent to an ErrorListHelper class I created, that handles the ErrorTasks and also performs navigation.
If I'm done with all the projects and I found any errors, I cancel the current build and show the Error List window, where my ErrorListHelper holds all the Reference Errors I created.
Whenever I want to navigate to the Reference in question, I activate the Solution Explorer window and get the root of it using an UIHierarchy.
Then I walk the path from the root on down, step by step, using the UIHierarchy to get to the UIHierarchyItems and expand them. Until I get to the deepest level (the reference) and I Select that.
Since I only need it for a certain solution and within that solution for certain projects (.Views.* and .ViewModels.*) I also have some checking for those in place during buildup of the Error List.
It works like a charm, already found 12 "wrong" References in 35 projects where I tought all were well.
I am using a different path now to do this. I have a base class that I can use to write unit tests that have access to the DTE2 object. This way I dont need an addin. This also works for Silverlight projects since the test class does not actually need access to the Silverlight projects, just being in the solution is enough to be able to iterate through the projects and check the references.

Why does my DB project's .dbmdl file change even when I make no changes to the project?

I'm running into a small but weird annoyance that seems to be happening to other people, too (for example, check out the revision history of SEDE). I have a SQL Server 2008 database project in Visual Studio 2010 that works properly. When I go to commit/checkin to source control, I'm told that my DB project's .dbmdl file has changed, even when I've made no changes to the project!
I'm not sure if the changes are triggered by building my solution (which also includes an ASP.NET MVC application and a unit test project) or by simply opening the DB project, but this is getting kind of annoying and is creating clutter in source control.
Is it possible to stop these changes from occurring, or get rid of the .dbmdl file whatsoever?
If you delete the .dbml file, it is rebuilt without errors or warnings, so I think it's just a cache file for references, intellisense, etc. I'm going to exclude it from source control.
I believe Visual Studio serializes the dbmdl file every time the project is opened. The only possible work around would be to keep the project open.
See related question here. The .dbmdl file is unique per user (and some kind of cache, as said above) and so the right solution is indeed to exclude it from source control.

Resources