I have a form in my existing project.
My current task is to make a duplicate of an existing form and change few things on the new form. Making a copy of the form cs files would not do since the existing contents themselves refer to file information.
Simply put, I am trying to crate a form name MyNewForm, which will be a direct duplicate of MyCurrentForm without causing any naming conflict that may arise in mere copy pasting of code content.
What is the fastest way I can achieve this?
Copy the form in visual studio solution explorer. Rename it. And change the class name manually both in .cs and .Designer.cs files. Do not use VS refactoring feature as it blows away references to the original class.
To duplicate a form (in the same project):
Right click on the source form --> Copy
Right click on the destination folder/project --> Paste
Right click on the new form --> Rename
Change manually the class name in .cs
Change manually the constructor name in .cs
Change manually the class name in .Designer.cs
Enjoy!
Why do you need to make a duplication of the form? Try to find some refactoring that can help you, e.g. create some base form and extract common logic there.
Every time you make a duplication kitten dies!
You can just add a new blank form and then select all items on the original aform and paste them onto the new form. This will not copy the code behind though. But that can also be solved with copy paste.
This will not cause any renaming conflicts.
Related
I'm a very newb and know nothing about any IDEs, I've encountered a problem where if I change "Form1" to any other name with proper refactoring it won't add any textBox in the solution explorer, I will see the textbox in the [Design] form but not in the code.
Can someone explain me how to rename things without Visual Studio losing total trace of objects ?
Eventually how can I insert objects manually via code, I know there is a solution but I don't know where find this code to generate an object.
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I appreciate any help, not that I've started C# a couple weeks ago.
How you change the name of the form is important.
If you simply open the code file and change it's name in the .cs file, that's going to fail pretty quickly. A .designer.cs file sits behind the .cs file and contains all the controls, and it thinks the name of the form is Form1.
The best way to rename a form is to either:
Use the Visual Studio shortcut to open the Rename dialog. (For me, the shortcut is CTRL+R+R. For you, it may be F2.) Use the dialog to type in a new name and press enter. This will change the form's name everywhere it appears in the solution.
Right-click on the form in Solution Explorer. Select Rename from the menu that appears. Type in the new name for the file and press enter. When prompted to rename the type to match the file name, select Yes. This will also change the form's name everywhere it appears.
For Form name change:
Select Form Design
Press F4 (Properties of Form)
Form's Properties will open
Goto Form Name Option
Change the Name and press enter
Your form name gets changed successfully.
Open Form.Designer.cs for codeing of the designing part.
We are importing form, from existing project to our new project.
It works well in run time, but we can't see controls to modify them in design mode!
Do you know how what we do to see them?
i found it, when i add exist form to my project, in addition add formX.cs, also add another along files (designer and res). thats enough add formX.cs .
I try to duplicate a form in my Designer with all the elements on it, that i have not to do the huge Job again of designing the full form again. I need only a few little changes on this form copy to do, so i do not want to design the same again from new.
If i click on the form "copy" and then do "paste" on my Project the full Project is destroyed forever and a lot of error Messages Pop up about the form copy. I had to throw my Project afterwards since there's no undo of that action possible. Since this was a huge loss of work I decided to ask the question:
How do I valid copy/duplicate an existing form in the designer without errors afterwards appearing?
You should duplicate the form file, then change the class name in the copy in both the .cs and the .Designer.cs files.
I was given a webproject written with aspx/c#. When I loaded it into Visual Studio 2010, I got many error telling me that some controls in the code-behind files do not exist in the current context.
I checked for the common pitfalls, like wrong code-behind file name, missing runat-attribute, restart VS, reload project, yet nothing resolves the error.
What else can I do to check where the problem is?
Try to change the code-behinde to CodeFile="where code locate", then it probably will work.
inherit class for the markup file and code behind file should match ,and also make sure if these controls are not third party and may need referencing their dlls or something .If these controls are user controls(ascx) controls , make sure they are using the correct tagname in the register line at the top .
Cudos to #03Usr the following link brought the answer:
ASP.NET controls cannot be referenced in code-behind in Visual Studio 2008
Deleting all designer files and converting the project als web application brought the designer files back, effectively making the controls referenceable again.
This is a really annoying hack but if you delete the control from the aspx page and then save the page, then paste the control back onto the page and save again the code behind then seems to recognize the control. I keep running into this problem whenever I change an attribute like the ID.
In my case, the aspx file was inside a folder named XYZ, and the class name was ABC. So ASP named the C# file's class name as XYZ_ABC
After renaming the file to ABC, the error was fixed
Hope it helps!
I found some code to help me in a project and when I first ran the code I received an error message indicating: "Visual Studio cannot start debugging because the debug target c:\path\'dirInfo.exe' is missing. Please build the project and retry, or set the OutPath and AssemblyName properties appropriately to point at the correct location for the target assembly."
Then I select OK and receive an error message indicating that partial is missing. I add partial to the code and receive 3 more error messages.
The type 'RecursiveSearchCS.Form1' already contains a definition for 'components'
does this mean I should delete this from the Form1.cs file?
Type 'RecursiveSearchCS.Form1' already defines a member called 'Dispose' with the same parameter types.
Type 'RecursiveSearchCS.Form1' already defines a member called 'InitializeComponent' with the same parameter types.
(I notice, when I comment out the InitializeComponent line and/or Dispose line, many more error messages populate in ERRORS)
By they way you can find the original code # MicrosoftSite.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You
Just gut instinct, if you were following along and copy pasting remember one key thing:
The designer creates two files when you create a form: A "code" file, and a "designer" file. However, when microsoft (and others) release "templates", they like to merge these two files.
Just create a new .cs file and paste the code and all should be good. It's the code basically saying "in the designer, we already have this stuff". (a good way to note this is the "partial" keyword located before your Form1 declaration)
More info:
The Code file will house all your own implementations. That is click events, methods you personally override, events you bind to, etc. This is the default file when you select "View Code" from either your solution explorer or the dialog itself. Within this file is a construct that calls a "hidden" method, (InitializeComponent) that if you right click and "Go to Definition" will bring you to the next file:
The Designer file is the IDE's generated file. This takes everything you do in the designer and stores it for you. That includes new controls, location and properties of the controls, and the IDisposable implementation. The idea is to keep the "meat an potatoes" out of the way while you worry only about implementation.
Yes it sounds like you've copied the entire code which includes many things already contained within your Form in a partial class. Either remove these or remove the partial class and partial class declaration from your Form to get rid of these errors
I went to the Microsoft site to see what you did. The site shows code for an entire "one file" solution. We've all agreed that Visual Studio creates multi-file solutions, so you're duplicating code.
I don't know if the current answers/comments have helped you get this sample code working, so I thought I'd add my share. I was able to get this sample working by doing the following:
First, where the sample code at the Microsoft site shows declarations for button, textbox, labels, and combobox, rather than attempting to copy that portion, I simply used the toolbox and dragged a button, the labels, the textbox, and the combobox from the toolbox to my form.
You'll probably want to arrange these to your liking.
This process created my form correctly with the appropriate objects on it. All I had to do was use the properties window for each object and rename them according to what they were named in the sample. For example, my new button was originally button1, but I renamed it to btnSearch just as it is named in the Microsoft sample.
I noticed that the Microsoft sample has an established event handler setup for the Form1_load() event. I created this same event in my form by clicking the form in the designer, clicking properties, clicking on the Events button in that properties, and double-clicking the "Load" event. This automatically generated the appropriate code.
In a similar way, I had to create the btnSearch_Click() event. I did this by simply double-clicking the button in the designer.
After that, all I had to do was manually copy and paste from the specific sections of the sample to my code -- fill in the Form1_Load() event with what was in the sample. Copy the DirSearch() method over. Fill in the btnSearch_Click() event. That was it.
I hope this helps solve the overall issue and gives you more insight into how you can avoid these problems in the future.
You have duplicated functionality in the classes, you have a file that was automatically generated with that functionality already in it.