Category Archives: Visual Studio

How to put the project template under desired project category in VSIX

Posted on by

You wanted install the project template under desired project category, you tried changing .vsix extension to .zip and it didn’t work out. The solution is simple.

This MSDN article describes how to create a VSIX package for a project template; but if you want to make your template visible under a desired project category the method mentioned in the article doesn’t work for some odd reason. Most of the times when a .vsix file is edited the installation fails.

You do not need to change the extension and suffer, when you create the VSIX in Visual Studio create the folder structure you want your template to appear under the Project Templates folder.  (The article says the same thing but it suggests to create the structure outside the Visual Studio  by changing the extension).

You can get the project template folder names from this path – <visual studio installation path>\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates

In a typical installation structure the path would be – C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates

For example I wanted to install my template under Web projects.

image

 

 

 

 

 

This works perfectly fine and just by building the project you get the desired installation and no outside editing of the .vsix package.

image

Advertisement

VS 2013 Preview – New Features

Posted on by

VS 2013 preview is here. It has loads of new cool features. Mainly it comes with the .NET 4.5.1 If you are to develop for Windows 8.1 then you should install VS 2013 preview. This blog post describes some of the cool features in the VS 2013.

Immediately after installing the VS 2013 Preview, I started a simple Console project just  to check the features listed in the above post. But besides everything one feature attracted me and it’s not mentioned in the above post. (They might have thought this is too obvious for anyone to figure it out)

VS 2013 shows the number of times each class or method is referenced on top of their declaration. This is cool and when you click on that info it will open a tooltip.

image

When you hover the mouse on the each reference info you will get another tooltip showing more details about the reference.

image

When click on the reference in the main tooltip, no wonder it will take you to the exact location of that particular reference is.

This is a super fabulous feature and we can use it for code reviews as well. This gives the overall information of how many times a class / method is referenced or called. This will provide helpful information for the performance analysis as well.

 

VS Blog shows how the map view in the scrollbar works, but by default this feature is disabled. To enable this right click on the scroll bar and go to Scroll Bar Options. There you can select the Use map mode for vertical scroll bar it will bring the map view which you can use to view the areas of your code without scrolling.

image

The VS blog says the main goal behind the VS 2013 is to bring the developer in context, it is facilitated that developer can do more without losing his scope of working context.

This is GREAT 🙂

Visual Studio SP1 and upgrade (Oh.. what the heck is that ?!@#)

Posted on by

I’m a go getter when any of the new upgrades available to the products I use, and I feel it is a very good way to keep ourselves updated and it makes our life easier. (But not always….)

I installed VS 2010 SP1 immediately after they have launched it. It was fine. Last week I installed the WP7 developer tools for VS 2010 SP1 from the link provided in the MSDN. After installing the WP7, when I opened the VS 2010 it threw a message saying that some of the features of the VS 2010 has been upgraded to the SP1 and some are not, so please install the SP1 again. Until that I cannot use VS.

OK, then I downloaded the SP1 online installer again, and executed that. When installing it was asking me awkward questions like specify the ADO.NET RIA Services .msi and Silverlight 4 .msi and all that.

I don’t know where are they ? I know I have installed them and no longer have the access to the .msi files as I don’t keep them in my junk box. I specified the path where they have been installed and it says that, the path is incorrect.

Oh.. God it was a huge time killer, the bad side is, I have to submit a  project that day. But I don’t have the access to the VS.

Then I decided to repair the VS, and I did it. But no use. Even after the repairing process the same thing happened. It’s like I got stuck in an infinite loop.

Then I tried removing the SP1 one completely and tried to open the VS. Any guesses what happened ?

Again the same problem. I feel like kicking off the VS team. They couldn’t provide a support file that detects the installed SP and downloads the correct version of WP7 (or any sort of plugin or tool we add to VS).

(Here I didn’t remove the WP7 which can fix the problem, as conceptually because the I need WP7 to continue my work)

I think the problem might be this…

When I install the WP7 development kit, it has no information about the SP I use in VS. It installs the available version of the WP7 to the VS.

Then when I start the VS, it detects that one (newly added) component does not have the required features (at least few lines meta configurations) to run in the VS SP1.

That’s why it was throwing a message saying, that some components of the VS are not upgraded to SP1 while some being upgraded. And asks me to run the SP1 setup again.

When run the SP1 setup, it starts the fresh new installation of SP1 upgrade (because it asks whether remove the SP1 or to reapply that). When we select the reapply the SP1, it keeps on asking the files for SP1 upgrades (like Silverlight .msi and RIA Services .msi). Which I cannot provide because we installed them from various setup files and we don’t keep them. (at least me..)

Actually MS should have provided a neat installation pack that detect the current VS version of the machine (whether VS or VS SP1) and installs accordingly.

Because it will be a nightmare for the users who are using VS SP1 and whenever they try to install a new feature it asks for SP1 setup and it is a time consuming work to do.

VS 2010 SP1

Posted on by

VS 2010 SP1 has been released and you can download the installer from this location. The SP1 has most of the support tools in x64 mode if you are a x64 user.

The following are some features included in the SP1 this varies based on the features and updates you have already installed in your machine.

SetupUtility
Service Pack 1 Package
WCF RIA Services V1.0 SP1
Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Object Model – ENU
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Performance Collection Tools – ENU
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 IntelliTrace Collection (x64)
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate – ENU
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools
Dotfuscator Software Services – Community Edition
Microsoft SQL Server Data-tier Application Framework 1.1
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Data-Tier Application Project
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Transact-SQL Language Service
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Objects
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Objects (x64)
Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types
Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types (x64)
Microsoft F# Redist 2.0
VSTO 4.0 Runtime x64
Visual Studio Tools for Office
Help Viewer v1.1
Microsoft SharePoint Developer Tools
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x86 Runtime – 10.0.40219
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x64 Runtime – 10.0.40219
NDP40-KB2468871.exe

The estimated download size will be 350 ~ 670 Mbs.