Visual Studios Menu not showing build button - menu

Hi I'm trying to teach myself c++ but I can't even get the most important feature to work. The build/compile button won't show. Its grayed out. I only want to use visual studios because its what all the devs use in my friends company where I want to work. So, any way to get this thing working? This is Visual Studios 2013, I've tried the profile changing feature in attempt to fix it but it still shows up as grayed out and I can't use it. I have made no other changes since installing it.
Also to start my code I did file> new> file> C++ file
Thanks for any help.

Visual Studio relies on projects, so you need for your source file to be part of a project - this would also hold all the configuration for compilation and linker settings, analogous to a *nix style Makefile.
To create a new project, Do File > New > Project... And choose a suitable template from under the Visual C++ section. Typically, if you're just starting out, and only want to work with the console, then you'll probably want to choose "Win32 Console Application" as the project type.

Related

Could not find type 'Microsoft.Office.Tools.Ribbon.RibbonTab' error prevents designer from opening

I have a VSTO for Excel project with a custom ribbon tab. The solution builds without errors. I can run the solution. It launches Excel and displays the custom ribbon tab and task pane without any issue.
When I try to open the designer for the custom ribbon tab in Visual Studio 2019, I get the following error:
Could not find type 'Microsoft.Office.Tools.Ribbon.RibbonTab'. Please
make sure the assembly that contains this type is referenced. If this
type is a part of a development project, make sure that the project
has been successfully built using the settings for your current
platform or Any CPU.
The solution builds and runs without any issues.
When I expand the error info, There is no stack trace or error line information available for this error.
The build settings are set to 'Any CPU'.
The assemblies that contain 'Microsoft.Office.Tools.Ribbon.RibbonTab' are included in the project references. These are Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common and Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common.v4.0.Utilities.
I have tried to Clean, Rebuild, and Restart Visual Studio 2019. This had no effect.
I could not find anything definitive when I Check Windows Forms Design-Time error list.
Would anyone know how to address this issue so that I can open the custom ribbon in the designer?
Is VSTO still supported by Microsoft? All documentation appears to be several years old.
This is a Visual Studio issue, not a C#/Build/DLL linkage issue.
Make sure your Visual Studio setup (do the Modify in the installer (#1) if already installed) has these two components checked:
Is VSTO still supported by Microsoft?
They are moving to an online office365 addin (my words) type VSTO. As to new features, not recently. One can still put in a Visual Studio support ticket if you have the right subscription.
I have never had any issues with ribbons, but sometimes the winforms res files in designer do not show and I use the JetBrains Rider editor to view those controls when VS fails.

Visual Studio crashing when trying to diff or compare files

I'm using TFS for source control and the other day I undocked my laptop while running VS. I couldn't connect to the internet and then unfortunately there was an unexpected shutdown. Since then I have not been able to go into pending changes and compare the file to it's previous version. When I do, it crashes Visual Studio.
I can change the user tool in Options > Source Control > Visual Studio Team Foundation Server to use a third party diff checker and it works no problem. However, I've gotten used to Visual Studio's diff checker and would like to continue using it, if only because it doesn't open a separate window to diff in.
Since I'm not sure as to the source of the problem, my question is two-fold:
First, how do I fix Visual Studio's diff checker and stop it from crashing every time I try to compare with previous version.
Or, if the issue lies with TFS, why is it crashing and how do I fix it?
Click on Visual Studio Menu:
TOOLS > Options
Then on Left Panel:
Text Editor > HTML > Advanced
And finally on Right Panel:
Extension Management > Identify Helpful Extensions
Change this setting to false.
This is an old question, but I needed to fix this recently, so the bug still exists!
I solved this problem by going to Tools -> Options -> Source control -> Plug-in Selection and changing the plug-in to "Git"
Try to disable ability to Identify Helpful Extensions:
Go to Tools->Options->Text Editor->Html->Advanced->Extension Management->Identify Helpful Extensions and switch to false.
You can start VS in safe mode with "/SafeMode" param.

Android Studio referencing library seems overly complicated. Is there an easier way?

I'm trying to migrate to Android Studio from Eclipse.
In reading a simple example of using a library within another app:
https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio-build.html
In eclipse to achieve this all I would go to the properties of the project and add a reference to the project. Simple, through the IDE and easy to check the build settings at a later date.
In Android Studio I've got to add an entry to my referenced library using ALT-ENTER after getting autocomplete to find the library, which seems to add an entry to the file 'app.iml':
<orderEntry type="module" module-name="app2" />
Then I've got to edit the gradle file:
dependencies {
compile project(":lib")
}
Is there not a better way, i.e. using the IDE. I don't particularly want to have to remember about this xml iml file or have to manually edit build files every time I want to do something.
?
Sorry,
After browsing for a while with no answer I found it just after posting:
How to create a library project in Android Studio and an application project that uses the library project
Why can't Google update their documentation to use the more normal way (presuming this dialog is a new addition)....

Visual Studio 2012 Windows service .vdproj project migration

I'm trying to move a solution I have over to Visual Studio 2012 and one of the project types is .vdproj.
According to this link this project type is not supported in Visual Studio 2012:
MSDN says they recommend that you use InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio.
The problem is, when I open up my solution in VS2012 and try to add a new "Enable InstallShield Limited Edition" project to my solution, I get an error message saying:
Creating project 'test'...project creation failed.
Why might I not be able to add a project of this type to my solution?
If I make a new empty solution I can't make an InstallShield project it in either.
I'm going to try to download InstallShield limited edition and see if it does anything.
I tried out that InstallShield download, and it added two extra project types, but I'm unable to create either of them. I'm able to add normal website projects to my solutions just fine, but not deployment projects.
The installer was named the same, but this one prompted me to re-start. After re-starting I was able to add an InstallShield project, but it gets created in its own solution. So, it looks like now I have to figure out how to use it, and I'll be good to go.
It's looking like the limited edition doesn't have support to install Windows services.
This will probably be long and boring because there's lots of steps, but I'd like to write up how to move from a Windows service installer .vdproj to the new InstallShield LE that's available in Visual Studio 2012.
Step 1: Create a merge module (.msm)
Follow the steps of this guide.
Notes:
You will need to install WiX 3.6 and isWiX
The latest release of IsWiX doesn't enable the Tools menu item in Visual Studio 2012. Edit the file: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns\IsWiXAddin.Addin (XML) and clone the HostApplication element and update 10.0 to 11.0.
In step #8 of the guide, it references a code tab. This has been moved to the XML Editor item in the bottom of the left menu
I left the MergeRedirectFolder empty for my installation
Here is my isWix files view:
After you're done with the guide you should have an empty .wxs file that looks something like this:
Using the Component XML element pulled from here you should end up with a .wxs file that looks like this:
Hit build and you should now have a .msm file.
Step 2: Adding merge module to InstallShield
Go though the wizard to setup the basic install information like company and version information.
Find the redistributables view in ISLE. Right click the list and select browse for module. After your module is found and added, right click the modules and select properties. Set the destination folder drop down to INSTALLDIR. I had to set mine to the lowest level folder I created for my install path, so you might have to experiment a bit.
Build Project, and test on virtual machine
Redistributables Screen
If you're getting errors about the path being too long you might need to change the release location to something close to the root.
Here's a list of all the build errors for reference.
Now you should be able to run your installer and have it install/start a Windows service. A lot more work than .MSI files, we got it to generate in Visual Studio 2010, but overall it was not too bad.
While there is no easy or truly supported solution for Visual Studio 2012, Visual Studio 2013 users can get an extension from Microsoft in the Visual Studio Gallery.
I found this post which says you must download InstallShield first. It's a very confusing way to work. I suggest to vote up the post on the connect site and give them comments letting know how poor that is. They could at least give a more descriptive error http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/732196/project-creation-failed-for-installshield-limited-edition#tabs

Compile Tab missing from project properties in Visual Studio 2012

When I right click on a project in my solution and go into the properties, I don't see the Compile tab on the left. I see Application, Build, Build Events and then the next one is Debug.
I've Googled for this but couldn't find anything, and also couldn't find anything here. Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Many thanks!
The Compile tab shows up for Visual Basic projects, but not for C# projects. For Visual Basic it mainly houses constructs specific to VB, like OPTION EXPLICIT, but there are elements like target platform that are found on the Build tab for C#. The target framework, available under the Advanced Compile Options of the Visual Basic Compile tab is found on the C# Application tab.
UPDATE: With Update 2 of Visual Studio 2012 I'm now seeing Target Framework for a VB project also in the Application tab.

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