Develop Reference

WPF Project with Custom XAML Controls

I am new to WPF coding. I have a project that has custom controls coded as xaml's with C# code-behinds. I try to import these files into another project and when I try to use these xaml controls in my main view file, Visual Studio cannot find the namespace that the imported xaml's and C# code-behinds are attached to.
I tried changing the namespace to be the same as my current project. I tried restarting Visual Studio 2013. Neither of these worked.
I tried adding the project with the custom controls to my solution. The imported project can read the custom xaml's, but my main project still can't reference them. I tried dragging the files over to the main project, and they still won't work.
I tried rebuilding the controls xaml's and C# code-behinds in my new project it still says:
The type 'local:ClickSelectTextBox' was not found. Please verify that that you are not missing an assembly reference and that all reference assemblies have been built.
This item is under the appropriate namespace and in the current project.

In visual studio go to TOOLS -> choose Toolbox Items. this will allow you either choose from an array of different components or browse around to find a dll that you would like to use.
EDIT:
Oh so you are trying to take customized xaml files that you already have written and modify them in a separate project? I would suggest one of two things.
1: right click your project name -> add existing, and add the xaml and xaml.cs file to your project at the same time.
if for some reason that does not work you can also try
2: creating a new xaml control (with the same name of the control you want to drop in) in your project and copy pasting the xaml code into that control, this should autogenerate the codebehind designer shell you are going to need. you can then go into the xaml.cs file and drop whatever business logic you are looking for. It is not the cleanest solution but sometimes the WPF editor gets a little funky when importing xaml files

I know it's an old post but still somebody may find it useful:) So! ... Make sure
1)You don't have public class outside of root namespace, check this
link
2)You are not mixing targets of your assemblies (unless you can't 100% avoid that)
For example, if you are referencing something like SQLite.Core NuGet (that has both x86 and x64 versions of SQLite.Interop.dll built in) in a project that is AnyCPU, sometimes it's easier to set application's target to x86 or x64 to solve the x86/x64 paths issues - but then you may get all these "type not found/control not built/assembly not found" and all that sorts of nonsense from Designer even despite your app builds and runs ok.
Hope that helps

Try downloading ReSharper's trial version, install it and then open up your code again. One of the awesome features Resharper has with XAML code is that it will automatically map objects to their appropriate namespace. I think this will make it easier for you and will show you a ton of ways to do things better. When I was first learning WPF it was honestly a godsend to use Resharper.

Cannot get Reharper 9.1 Move to Resource refactoring to work

I get this error message when I try to apply the Move to Reource refactoring to a string in a razor file:
"This project does not contain an available resource file"
I have tried added ressource files by adding new item, and also by adding in the project settings dialog. and building etc. All to no help. What is the problem?
I am using JetBrains ReSharper Ultimate 2015.1.1 Build 102.0.20150521.123255
ReSharper 9.1.20150521.134223
in Visual Studio 2015 rc in an ASp.NET MVC 5 project.
Any suggestions how to make this refactoring to work?

Open the .resx file with your "Managed Resource Editor" (the default), look at the top of the screen. There's a dropdown called "Access Modifier". Set it to public. Done.

Bart Van Meerbeeck's answer didn't work for me for the identical issue, though it definitely is the best answer. In MY case, however, the problem was me.
I was working in a large solution, and the file, in which I was attempting to do this refactoring, was located within a completely different project than where my Solution Explorer was scrolled to at the time. Upon realizing this, I created the resources file in the respective project, and all was well.
So, to others who may run into this, simply click your "Sync with Active Document" button in Solution Explorer, to jump to the project for which file you're editing, and you won't feel dumb like I do. :)

Failed to load toolbox item. It will be removed from the toolbox

I have a WinForm application. I also have created my own User Control for it. Everything worked fine. Until today that I received the error message when I try to add it back to my program (I never removed it. Visual Studio did).
Failed to load toolbox item #UserControlName. It will be removed from
the toolbox.
I have it in my solution explorer but it vanishes from my toolbox after this error.
I also receive the warning that says:
'#UserControlName' is never assigned to, and will always have its
default value null.
And when I look at my designer code, that is true. But I haven't done anything with my designer code. My user control is defined there but not instantiated. How can I put it back?
Does it have anything to do with the fact that I changed my build platform from x32 to x64? If that is the case I will be surprised because the program was working fine after that change.

I was suffering from the same issue for one of our applications and could not find a solution. So I created the user and custom controls manually. After searching the web again I finally found why the designer is failing for this particular project. The answer is that project is 64 bit and Visual Studio is still does not have a 64 bit version, it is still 32 bit. So the designer could not load the controls in 64 bit applications or in class libraries. Read Microsoft's article about this.
There was an article on Visual Studio web site but it was removed. See the the answer in Visual Studio support forum.
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/77e10b58-43cc-4aab-919f-888f14f99571/x64-class-library-of-user-controls?forum=csharpgeneral

I had the same issue lately. As this (nor any other answer on this site and on the internet) actually helped me, I found out the way to fix it.
Just clean the files and rebuild the solution. As simple as that.

I was having same issue but I find the solution:
Click on "Project_Name" with left mouse and click "Build" then you can add the UserControl to your WinForm.

Change to AnyCPU and rebuild the project.
Visual Studio has problems with controls being 64bit.

You don't have to necessarily insert the user-control manually. I had the same situation an there was a reason for it.
In my case, it failed because the EXE assembly was compiled to 'mixed-mode' by using CLR support type /clr. After changing it to 'managed-only' by setting type /clr:pure, it worked.
For details, see my answer here at SO.

After many hours of head scratching with this problem with a large custom control with few changes from a previous working copy in source control I copied all the code into a new control name and file and it all worked.
This was to identify the problem line(s) of code since the debugger would not co-operate. The copied control (along with heaps of support code and modules) worked okay.
So these are the very simple steps that fixed my original code
In solution explorer rename the file (I just added an s at the end)
Rebuild
Test the control can now be added to a plain form
Rename the control back to its original name
Step 4 might be optional for you but if you have source control and it's a in a library you would want to do this.
This brought the control back onto all my forms that weren't working (so far as I can tell). It seems the problem is in VS that somehow remembers it doesn't like it?
Hope this helps and I hope I find this message next time I get this when I have forgotten the fix :)
P.S. Clean, rebuild and/or re-run the solution is the old stand by for this problem but this time it was just one custom control in a whole (DLL) class of them. Hope this helps.

For me, after adding the userControl, I rebuild the application first then refreshed the items on the tool box by going to projects => Refresh project toolbox items

Right click - Rebuild Solution fixed it for me!

Mostly caused by 32 bit / 64 bit architecture. Before Visual Studio 2022 the VS built in 32 bit, therefore cannot show 64 bit components.
Solution 1:
Create a new solution configuration in Configuration Manager with name: "Debug_FormDesign" or anything else.
Set the Configuration to the above name for all projects and set the platform to "AnyCPU".
Now open all projects Compile settings step by step, select the above configuration and change the Compile -> Target CPU option to AnyCPU.
Close all opened windows.
Clean solution.
Restart VS.
Select the "Debug_FormDesign" configuration in toolbar as active.
Rebuild solution.
Open the form designer -> Should work now.
You can easily switch back to the default "Debug" configuration after finish with the GUI.
Solution 2:
Use Visual Studio 2022.

At times like these, you'll be forced to tinker with the designer code. As long as you don't make drastic changes in the designer code, you shouldn't break anything. To play it safe, re-instantiate the object where the other controls are instantiated (near the top of the page). The designer should fill in the blanks for properties and such.
This should also return the control to the toolbox.

Check in your form.designer file if there is a left-behind property with that type.
It happened to me several times.
After I removed that line and rebuilt the project, everything started working.

In my case it helped to manually include the header files of the created user controls at the top of the Form where these controls are to be used.

VS2013 Intellisense constantly stops working

I have Visual Studio 2013 with no plugins or anything fancy. Whenever I'm coding, every so often (maybe once every half hour) intellisense randomly stops completing my sentences or popping up at all when I press Ctrl+Space.
I have tried Tools->Import and export settings->Reset all settings but it did not help. The issue came right back.
The only thing that solves it for me now is to close VS and reopen it. But as you can imagine, this is extremely frustrating.

I was having the same problem and this seemed to work for me.
http://omegacoder.com/?p=1008
Basically, go to Tools >> Options >> Text Editor >> All Languages >> General and make sure that both Auto list members and Parameter information are checked (not the half-checked/square state).

This is still happening in VS2013 update 4 (I have a WPF project using C#).
This was relatively easy to fix by closing then reopening the file not the whole project.

For me, Unloading and Reloading a project fixes MVC cshtml intellisense. Right-click project, click Unload. Right click grayed out project, click Reload.
Just to be clear, this problem only happens to me when in C# MVC views, only when checked into TFS.
I have also submitted this as a bug to Microsoft, see https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/932855/vs-2013-c-default-mvc-template-breaks-upon-checkin-to-tfs-2010

Looks like my issue cleared up after deleting the settings folder from my previous VS2010 installation. I followed the instructions here (Also applies to VS2013): http://www.haneycodes.net/visual-studio-2012-intellisense-not-working-solved/
In case URL breaks:
Open the start menu and type “%AppData%” and press enter to get to your Application Data Folder.
Either you were automatically placed in the “Roaming” folder or you weren’t. If you weren’t, go to the “Roaming” folder.
Open the “Microsoft” folder.
Open the “VisualStudio” folder.
Here you’ll see a folder titled “11.0” (the VS 2012 folder) and probably also “10.0” (the VS 2010 folder).
DELETE (or rename) the “10.0” folder. Note that you can now kiss your Visual Studio 2010 settings and preferences goodbye (your projects will be safe and sound).
DELETE (or rename) all other folders that are not the “11.0” folder, assuming you used to have Visual Studio 2008 or whatever.
Now restart Visual Studio 2012 and you should be good to go!

try to delete the .suo file of your solution. It worked well for me.

The first thing I should mention is that this hasn't happened since I've upgraded my RAM. I was at 4GB when this was happening. Often had multiple instances open as well as SQL Server.
I'm finding this seems to happen when I copy/paste controls on a page. Another side affect of this is that the designer.(cs/vb/xx) file is not updated right away and I don't have access to those controls in code behind.
I've tried a handful of things and here's a summary of what I've found so far:
If only 1 file/window appears to be affected, close/reopen that file.
If that doesn't work... in Visual Studio:
Click Tools->Options->Text Editor->All Languages->General
Uncheck "Auto list members"
Uncheck "Parameter information"
Check "Auto list members" (yes, the one you just unchecked)
Check "Parameter information" (again, the one you just unchecked)
Click OK
If this doesn't work, here's a few more steps to try:
If still not working, close all windows and reopen
If still not working, close/reopen solution
If still not working, restart VS.
(I haven't yet figured out why more drastic steps are required in some cases.)
For C++ projects:
MSDN has a few things to try: MSDN suggestions
The corrupt .ncb file seems most likely. Note that in VS2013 and later, it is the .sdf file, which can be found in the root folder. Try searching for filename:*.sdf.
From MSDN:
Close the solution.
Delete the .ncb file.
Reopen the solution. (This creates a new .ncb file.)
Notes:
Tested in VS 2013/2015
Logging possible causes:
Copy/pasting controls in a source page. I found that my designer.vb file didn't update from this, either.
Copy/pasting code from another page that caused an error because the code copied referred to a control that wasn't on the page I was pasting to.
C++ project has corrupt .ncb file

Like cacau says, you must first do a clean of the entire solution. Then restart VS rebuild the entire solution.
This sometimes happens when you are using Entity Framework or WCF services (Or the combination)
VS generates a lot of files then that contain code (the service reference for example). When you regenerate that code (And for example you are running a web project) sometimes you forget to stop the site. Then VS can't overwrite every file. Resulting in a global intellisense failure.

For me, the problem happens when I have two instances of same solution opened. On one of them I'm running Tests, while on the other I am making tweaks to code. Intellisense will quit working on me usually after I've run some tests and stopped the debug session manually.
The solution for me is to close all VS windows and reopen...

Did you try a clean build on your project?
VS might have become confused with some of its generated files..

None of the solutions in this thread worked for me.
what worked was that I deleted everything in the packages folder. when I rebuilt the solution, nuget got the latest versions of all the folders I deleted, and intellisense started working fine.
If I am not mistaken, the problem initially was caused by the contents of the "Microsoft.Net.Compilers.1.0.0" folder, but I dont know why.

If you have this problem in one file, make sure that this file is included in your project. Right Click the file, Select Include In Project. If the file is not included in your project, VS will treat it as a normal text file.

I followed the instructions given in response to the question : Visual Studio 2012 - Intellisense sometimes disappearing / broken (thanks to SajjadHashmi and others). I've copied the steps I followed (which worked for me) here in an attempt to be helpful.
1: Close all the tabs and open your file again. (Thanks to russds)
2: Clean the Build > Close the Solution > Restart Visual Studio > Open the Solution again
Further steps are listed if you follow the above link but some seem to no longer apply to Visual Studio 2013 (e.g. refresh Local Cache for intellisense).
I know that these steps involve restarted Visual Studio (which you are explicitly trying to avoid) but for those who find your question (such as me) a potential solution might be useful.

In case anyone else fell into the black hole I did ... I too suffered from this issue but NONE of the above solutions worked for me. Eventually I figured out that somehow the opening <body> tag had been deleted from my .Master page and that was causing all my .aspx pages to lose 95% of the Intellisense code hinting. Once I added the missing <body> back to my .Master page, the Intellisense finally started working in my .aspx pages again! Hope this helps someone ... just cost me 1.5 hours!

Sometimes none of suggestions here works - at least that happened to me.
But don't rush with configuration resetting, cleaning up visual studio configuration files and so on. If clean/re-build + vs restart does not work - problem might be in code itself.
In my case (vs2013) I had C++ class exposed in .h like this:
class MyClass: ...
{
....
DLL_EXPORT returnArgs function(InParameters)
}
where DLL_EXPORT is defined as :
#define DLL_EXPORT __declspec(dllexport)
Same function in .cpp:
returnArgs MyClass::function(InParameters)
{
}
vs2013 was refusing to jump between function definition / implementation.
Reason seemed to be DLL_EXPORT macro - I've written function like this:
DLL_EXPORT returnArgs MyClass::function(InParameters)
{
}
After that intellisense started to work again.
It's possible also to remove that define or wipe it out - according to visual studio documentation __INTELLISENSE__ - but that define did not work for me for some reason. Code snipet like this:
#ifdef __INTELLISENSE__
#define DLL_EXPORT
#else
#define DLL_EXPORT __declspec(dllexport)
#endif
Please comment if you understand why this does not work.
In vs2015 this issue seems to be fixed, but there are other problems with vs2015.

None of these things worked for me. After lot of struggle I found why it was not working for me. I always had multiple solutions open in my machine. For suppose, One solution is for front-end layer and another solution is for back-end layer.
When it hits breakpoint kept in backend service layer intellisense was not showing up. After I closed all other solutions and rebuild the solution where I wanted to debug, everything worked fine.
There could be other reasons, but this worked for me and wanted to let this community know and it may help someone.
EDIT: Few times "delete all breakpoints" and adding again worked.

I had the same problem and in my case it was the same file being open twice. For example I have dev\include\myfile.h AND dev\include\myfile.h\ (note the backslash, making this a unique string).
This happens when I use F12 to find a symbol in an include file, but also have the original .h file open already; Visual Studio opens up a duplicate file, which is really the same file.
When saving either of the two instances, the changed file date will be noticed and I get a popup asking whether I want to reload the other instance. More problematic seems that it also confuses IntelliSense. I just tried closing all duplicate instanced files, and IntelliSense started working again without restarting or reloading anything.

I tried to fix my problem by solution VS2013 Intellisense constantly stops working
But it did not work for me.
Solution that worked for me is off/on Auto list members
Go to Tools > Options > Text Editor > General

adding images in my project

I'm trying to add/change images in my project, using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 C#. Along with it, Devexpress components are also included.
What I did, I copied an image (.png file) and paste it it in my "PrintRibbonControllerResources.resx" and then after that I have to open again the MainForm.cs right click on the form and click on the Run Designer. It will open the Ribbon Control Designer. From there, I can add the image.
Do you think its ok? It's my first time to do this, and I don't have any experience & I'm learning it by doing.
Thanks
===
it seems I don't see the add function under resource tab

I generally add an image to the project itself. (Add/Existing item) I do this so I can use SourceControl to check in/out the image file. The resx then links to these files.
Basically, my philosophy is: if it works, don't fix it.
If this solution works for you, it's fine. At least, until you discover a situation where it fails.

If you go in the properties of your project, and select the resources tab, you can add it directly from there and it will be accessible in the default resource file of your project, which might be more convenient.

I like to add it to a solution folder (or folder in the project) and like that to the resx via "Add Exising File".
I get all of the advantages of having the resource file, but also the advantages of having a physical file (editing, quick view, etc.)