I have built a custom User Control in Visual Studio (Win Forms).
This User Control requires a .json file to be deployed along with it.
Short Version: How is this possible?
Long Version:
When I am testing the User Control from with the Control designer itself, it works no problem.
This would be because I have set the following:
Build Action to Content and;
Copy To Output Directory - Copy if Newer
So when I'm debugging it, everything is there, as I expect it to be.
The problem occurs when I create a separate Win Forms application, and add this newly designed control to the Palette by:
Right click Toolbox->Choose Items->Browse->Browse to the Project Directory of the Control->Select the DLL->OK
It show up on my Palette, but the problem is of course when I drop the User Control onto the form itself. It has no means of getting "MyFile.json" from User Control Application/Dll to the Current Project.
How do I make this work?
Chud
One easy way is to build your json file as a EmbeddedResource instead of Content. That way it will be embedded into the UserControl's binary (the dll file itself). You can then use ResourceManager class to read it in your code.
If you're going to change the content of json file at runtime, you can instead create an application setting of string type that stores the actual json content. This setting can then be read/written easily using ProjectName.Properties.Settings.Default.YourSettingName.
Also note that if you have set your json file's Build Action to Content and Copy to Output Directory to Always Copy, and you add a reference to this project from another project that also exists in that solution, the content file (json file) should get copied to the bin folder correctly. But if your UserControl project does not exist in the current solution, or you're referencing your control through Browse button, you'll not get your content files. This may not seem obvious, but once you think about it, you'll understand that VS cannot figure out what dependencies does a DLL file has if you simply add a file reference.
In the latter case, a setting is the cheapest solution (described above) that you can use.
Related
I have a Visual Studio 2017 solution, which is split in several C#-WinForm applications.
To have a similar user interface I put all the icons/pictures into one project (ResourceProject) and marked the resource file public.
By directly editing the .Designer-file of a Form I can now explicitly assign the Image to something from the resource file of the ResourceProject by stating
button1.Image = ResourceProject.Properties.Resources.DemoPic
However, from time to time, the designer overwrites this with
button1.Image = ((System.Drawing.Image)resources.GetObject("button1.Image")));
and creates a local resource file, which has the image embedded.
This is exactly what I wanted to avoid in the first place, since I might want to alter easily some icons later on and have those changes directly spread over all projects.
The only way to avoid it seems to be to assign the images not in the Designer file but in some other method in the actual form file.
Is there any other way around this problem?
You should not change designer.cs file, it's auto-generated and any change which you make in the file will be replaced with auto-generated code the next time which you change something in the form.
But to share image resources between multiple projects in a solution with design-time support, you can follow these steps:
Create a class library project, let's call it ResourceLibrary.
Add a Resx resource file to the root folder of the project with this name Resources.Resx.
Open the resource designer and change its Access Modifier to Public. (It will set its Custom Tool to PublicResXFileCodeGenerator)
Add a few images to the resource designer and save it.
Then in the Windows forms project do the following settings:
Add a reference to ResourceLibrary.
Right click on windows forms project and choose Add → Existing item...
Browse to the ResourceLibrary folder and choose Resources.Resx file.
Click on drop-down arrow of the Open button, and choose Add As Link.
Select Resource.Resx which has added to windows forms project and choose properties.
Set its Build Action to None
Set its Custom Tool to a text like None
Set its Custom Tool Namespace to the namespace of the resource in the other assembly: ResourceLibrary.
Rebuild the project.
Then for all the image properties you can choose the other resource file from drop-down in the Select Resource dialog. The code generation will generate correct code for the property and you have a correct build and it works as expected at design-time as well as run-time.
You can clone or download a working example here:
Repository
Download
I have this simple line of code in DotSpatial
var raster = Raster.OpenFile("X://Data//4mr_project.tif");
Why raster just getting null value??
I also have .aux, .ovr, .tfw files in the same directory.
EDITED:
I found that the line below works fine:
var featureSet = FeatureSet.Open("X:\\Test Data\\shap\\edited.shp")
because Dotspatial have capability to load .shp file by default. But loading raster data .tif format, Dotspatial need GDAL extensions. Now the question is how to load GDAL extensions manually in Dotspatial using C#.
GDAL extensions can be supported in your own application through the use of the AppManager component. You can drag and drop this onto your form. This allows for support from the GDAL data extensions, and will also gives support to other plug-ins. Here is a basic walk through for adding the AppManager to a new project that just has a Map on the form.
1) From the Visual Studio Toolbox, right click and click on "Choose Items"
2) From the dialog, choose "Browse" and browse to the DotSpatial.Controls.dll library.
3) Click Ok as needed to close the dialogs and get back to the Toolbox.
4) Find the AppManager component you just added in the Toolbox.
5) Drag the AppManager component onto your form. (not on the map, but on the form). A new instance should appear below your form in the non-visual components list.
6) Select this component to view it's properties in the Properties Dialog.
7) Set the map for the appManager (or other components if you are using them).
8) The GDAL component does not even require the Map to be defined in order to work, it should just work. But you will need the GDAL extension. You can find the DotSpatial.Data.Rasters.GdalExtension in the "Windows Extensions" folder. Ensure that you have a similar folder in your output directory with the necessary GdalExtension. One method is just to ensure that this is in your final distribution folder manually.
9) (Optional) One trick you can use, to ensure you have the GDAL plugin in your release folders is to add the libraries as content. This way, regardless if you are working on a debug version or a release version, it will ensure that the GDAL data extension makes it to the output folders.
10) Ensure that the directory you are using (like "Windows Extensions") is listed in the Directories property of the AppManager. The image below shows the default folders which are "Application Extensions" and "Plugins". I think it originally was "Application Extensions" but got updated to "Windows Extensions" later. Unfortunately, I don't think they updated the default folder.
11) In the code somewhere (probably in the form constructor) you need to call appManager1.LoadExtensions(); If you don't call this, it will not actually load the GDAL extension even if you have the GDAL library as part of your project.
12) Add a SpatialDockManager, SpatialHeaderManager, SpatialStatusStrip to the project. Then assign these to the properties on the AppManager, the same way you did the map. For reasons that are beyond me and were implemented after I left, the previously open ended design structure has changed, and now it will throw message box errors if the program does not include these things but you try to use Extensions. The "ProgressHandler" property takes the SpatialStatusStrip.
After following all 12 of these steps (and running the project in x86 mode) the raster code you posted in the initial question works, and you can open geotifs. I also pushed the GDAL extension into the root "Application Extensions" directory while trying to get it to work, but I don't think you have to do that. It should work if it is in a subfolder.
Sorry to be that late (hopefully, it's never too late), but if you wish to use the plugin without using AppManager, because you may be composing something custom and do not want to depend on the main DotSpatial application framework (note that the AppManager utilizes some slightly advanced "magic" to make it all work together), you can do yourself the following few simple tasks:
1) Add a reference to the file
(DotSpatial Release Folder)\Windows
Extensions\DotSpatial.Data.Rasters.GdalExtension.dll
to your project (this is the main GdalExtension Plugin output file).
NOTE: To make sure this step is done correctly, make sure that building your library (the one that references the GdalExtension.dll) ends up copying to this project's output directory the additional files from the same folder (i.e. gdal_csharp.dll etc.).
2) This same folder also contains a gdal subfolder. Copy the folder itself, as-is, to your output path (usually ...\bin\Release\\ or ...\bin\Debug\\, depending on your configuration). Of course in your final project, you would probably like to use a post-build copy event to automate the process, or just include the folder as content in your application build output, as Ted also mentions in step 9 of his answer.
NOTE: By output folder, I am referring to the Application Output Path, not the library output path. If your application is using a library, which undertakes the task of loading rasters (through GdalExtension), the gdal folder does not need to be in the output folder of this library. It needs to end up in your final application's output folder. The reason is that the various dll files are loaded dynamically, so they have to be found in the executing application folder.
3) As early as possible in your codebase, create a new GdalRasterProvider, which should now be referenced by the dll file added in step 1. This means, add something like the following line to your project
var grp = new DotSpatial.Data.Rasters.GdalExtension.GdalRasterProvider();
Thereafter, the first line of code in your post should work as expected. So, technically, the answer to the original question is that the DefaultDataManager class did not find any suitable provider to perform the task of actually loading the Raster file. Therefore, you are left with a null variable.
Interestingly, you don't need to hold the reference anywhere (i.e. do anything with variable grp). If you check the source code, the constructor itself undertakes the task of adding itself to the DefaultDataProvider.PreferredProviders dictionary, which is eventually invoked behind the scenes in the call to Raster.Open(string) method. The only "tough-to-figure-out" part is simply to copy the gdal folder in your application output path, because the GDAL extension loads a number of references located therein upon instantiation of any provider, and the loading is based on a "gdal" subfolder located in whichever folder your application resides and is executed from.
(Note that the Plugin also contains two more providers (GdalImageProvider and OgrDataProvider). To make these two work, you need to instantiate them but also to manually add them to the PreferredProviders dictionary of the DefaultDataProvider, typically also up early in your application code)
I'm trying to get localization to work in my application. I can follow the typical example online and get it to work in a sample project. (ie. setting the Localizable property and the cultures).
When I try to use it in my application, it always uses the default resource file no matter what language I choose.
EDIT: If I go to the properties of my startup project, select Debug, and set the Start Action to Start Project, it will work. If I run the executable that gets created when building by selecting it in "Start external program", it will not work. Any idea why?
EDIT: When I use the Start External Program, the executable I am pointing to is not pointing to the bin/Debug folder of the project. I have a post build event to copy it elsewhere and am pointing to that. Because of this, maybe it is not able to see the reference files that are in the Debug folder?
When you localize a form, it creates a folder per language in the build's output path that holds a resource file projectname.resources.dll.
I have a post build command that puts our .dlls elsewhere. I needed to change the command to also push out the resource files so that they were in the same directory. Once I did this, I was able to get it to work.
I have a rdlc file and I try to modify a static text on the file, but when I start the program the text in the form is not modified. I use VS C# 2008 Express. What should I do to be able to modify the text in rdlc file?
You mentioned in a comment that the main form and the report are in different projects. You also stated you added the reporting.dll as a reference to the main project. What MAY be the problem is that you added the actual .DLL of the other project as a reference to the first from "some" location.
In your main solution, did you add your reference and use the tab for "Projects" and pick the project itself? (as opposed to picking a .net library or browse for the physical .dll file.
When you add a reference to the PROJECT, it becomes part of the solution and ultimately part of the building dependency order. The main project would see the project, force to rebuild it, then take a copy of it's final .dll file and pull it into it's own building folder so it always has "the latest" of the underlying reference .dll.
I'm trying to publish an XNA game through the Visual Studio Publish tool. The game uses some compiled and some non-compiled content. Basically, I have a level loaded in via XML serialization and a short video. These two files are essentially streamed in, so they aren't compiled. The publish tool includes the compiled content fine, but any references to relative paths are broken because the CurrentDirectory for installed programs are set in the AppData folder.
I know that XNA can now compile XML without having to write custom content processors, but I don't particularly want to go back to rewrite that. I suppose I can if there's no other option, but that still doesn't remedy the video problem.
Is there any way to set up the publish tool so that I can do what I need to do? A setting or something? Or will I need to use a more fully-featured tool like NSIS?
Right click project, Add Existing Resource, browse and select the file you want to add. Then right click the file and click properties and change "Build Action" to content, and "Copy To Output Directory" to Copy if newer (or copy always if the need be). Then you can access it by using the relative path.
I use this for my XML and I can access my content using the following code:
XmlDocument document = new XmlDocument();
document.Load("Resources/DefaultConfig.xml");
Please note that my DefaultConfig.xml file is inside a "Resoruces" Directory which I created in Visual Studio(this is optional, but it helps me keep my project neat)