I'm currently working on a project with multiple language options. I have loads of resource files with my first language and want to copy these files and add some text to them using some sort of batch script in visual studio.
From within VS it will be hard to achieve. There are many standalone tools to edit .resx files separately (like http://resx.sourceforge.net or http://resxmanager.com). Great help when translation gthe files, but I do not know any capable of scripting/batching the job.
RESX are simple XML files, so I think you'd be quicker to write simple console app to load the XMLs via standard C#/Perl/Ruby/Python libraries, patch the texts, and write them back to files instead of searching for a scriptable tool, but maybe I'm wrong. I'd be happy to see such tool too! :)
-- edit:
With pure .bat batch files, it may be hard, because the Windows Console simply lacks proper string-replace commands and you have to use some tricky commands like see the BAT here.. At least small tool like grep or sed would be handy, and the script would be 100% more flexible.
You can rather easily do it with PowerShell, CygWin, Ruby, etc or even the JScript/VBScript that you should already have installed along with your Windows. See here for a such a script in VBS. It scans only a specific directly witout subfolders, but you can easily mix it with this sample to get recursive directory walking. Btw. VBS is kept in files of such extension: myscript.vbs and may be simply double-clicked or simply run just like .bat or .exe files.
All of this however are more like typical programming.. If you have some complex renames to do and if you dont have any Python/Ruby/blargh at hand, I'd recommend just writing it in C# as the code will be friendlier.
Related
I want my program in Visual C# to allow the user to generate a portable .exe file to be run on another user's computer, with the portabe .exe receiving the values the first user inserted. I don`t want to use a configuration file or any other file to store the input values to be then read because I want the .exe to be a single file. I have the main and the second program (future portable executable)
as different projects on the same solution. Is there a way to modify values of the portable .exe or does a new program needs to be compiled on the fly?
To formally answer the question.
You can convert the assembly to IL, search and replace and recompile. However, if you are building this application, you should really consider the need and use case for such very thoroughly.
If you need just to modify the behavior of an application, you have a plethora of options.
Registry (can be remotely done)
A config file (though you ruled this out)
You could use a login method to a resouce
Wcf for instance
Active Directory
A network DB
Rebuild you app for these users
Msbuild with a batch file to tweak something
A pre build script
If you are really tricky you "might" be able to track down the offset of an int and tweak it. However this seems very unreliable
Or if you really have your heart set on this, see the following and associated questions
Modify Emdeded String in C# compiled exe
Is it possible to Add/Remove/Change an embedded resource in .NET DLL?
Update from Ben Voigt Comments
Win32 Resources can be changed after being embedded in an EXE. .NET
System.Resources can only be changed before embedding. C# applications
are compatible with both kinds, but the distinction is very important
The The necessary function is UpdateResource
You can typically append to an .exe without breaking it and then read the data in upon execution.
See: appending data to an exe
So i made 6 different little applications each in its own Project.
And my idea is now to build some kind of Launcher with 6 buttons each of them launching their respectives applications.
I know how to /Add/Existing Projects/Select Project, but my worry is more upon managing to run those application on a Button_Click.
I'm thinking about copy/paste-ing my .cs files of each apps, and their resources.
Should I ? Shouldn't I ?
What would be the best thing to do ?
EDIT1
Well, as i said, my apps are very small, i mean like very very small. It's mostly about automating templates mails sendings and opening/closing reports.
All my apps are in a single form each and they only refer to .png or .txt to store datas or dress up fancy-ish reports with images.
Right now, I'm in the process of importing FormX.cs one by one, as NonStatic said, re-referencing the UI and renaming some functions. I did 2 so far, and i'm hitting a generic file path issue.
I'm not sure how ressources are working once the .exe is built. Are they "embed" whereever the ressources file is located ? (Resources folder, or ..\bin\debug) or should i be carefull with this and systematicly put tehm in some specific folder ?
Also, thanks for your point Zdravko Danev, i was about to just copy/paste everything. You made me think slower about this. But i'm kind of searching for a real merged solution, "fusioned solution" if i may say. I don't want buttons to just run .EXEs. :p
EDIT2
I managed to copy/paste all my forms, was kinda easy, though time consumming to check every references.
But it's done.
Most definitely do not copy the code!
It is relatively easy to create a simple launcher. Take a look at Process.Start:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.process.start.aspx
I think your question is not about merge projects but how to launch them in a uniformed application or launcher.
You could copy files together, rebuild user interface. In the user interface, calling methods in the copied files. Then you could public a single EXE file other than multiple files.
If your original projects generate dll files, you could build a new app which reference those dll files. Loading them when you need it and invoke methods from there.
If your original projects generate exe files, then #Zdravko's solution, using Process.Start() to launch those exe files with correct parameters.
I have students in high school who have created some programs using Visual Studio C#. They created some games and would like to now upload them to the web. I am pretty new to Visual Studio C#. I thought after a program was "built" that you could go into the bin/debug folder and get the exe file for the program and be able to play the game without having to have Visual Studio on the actual computer you are playing it on. It works with some of their games but some of them, there are graphical files that are missing in the exe file if all the other files aren't stored in the same place. How can I get a clean exe of their game? Can that exe be loaded up onto a web server so they can play it from there or at least download it from there?
Microsoft wrote a guide on how to do exactly this. It's on their MSDN website, which is sort of like the developer back-bone for a lot of Microsoft software and documentation.
Old guide: Adding and Editing Resources (Visual C#)
Newer guide: How to: Add or Remove Resources
The gist is that the program needs to know where the files are, relative to the location of the compiled binary (in this case, an .EXE); There's several different ways to do this, depending on your level of expertise. I would suggest that you take a look at the guides above to start that journey.
there's a few ways of doing this. (Also, make sure you're creating a 'release' build when you compile).
You can include resources in your game by creating a resources file. This is something I usually do only on winforms applications etc.
If you have on-disk files you need to distribute those on-disk files along side your game. You could do this by zipping up your game.exe and the /files/images.img folder (or what ever your resources content folder is named).
If you're feeling adventurous you could create a 'deployment project' which is a project that allows you to create an installer file. This is a bit more work however you will have fine grained control over what files go where etc.
Good luck!
EXE files generally aren't self contained for video games with many resources, just add resources in an external folder and make sure the paths to the resources in their games are not absolute but relative in the local directory.
So for example:
get rid of paths like C:/Users/Bob/Desktop/Game/Images/player.png and replace with /Images/Player.png.
Also, an EXE generally doesn't run client side on webpages, it is possible but difficult. Things such as Flash are made for this sort of issue. I'd say make the webpage a place where they can download their games. Github has a nice way to do free websites called gh-pages. OFC, you could host one yourself but that would require a lot of setup work.
Like Monza said, you can zip up the files for download. Or, you could create an installer if you wanted to be really ambitious.
I thought after a program was "built" that you could go into the bin/debug folder and get the exe file for the program and be able to play the game without having to have Visual Studio on the actual computer you are playing it on.
That is correct, given that the other machine has the necessary .NET framework version installed AND any other resources like .dll files and config files are also present. When the application is ready for release, you can set the Build options in the project properties to Release, and then when you build all the files needed for distribution will be in the bin\Release folder.
It works with some of their games but some of them, there are graphical files that are missing in the exe file if all the other files aren't stored in the same place.
This may depend on how the application was written. If resources like pictures are embedded in the assembly then those files will not be needed to run on another machine. If the application is using hard coded paths for the image resources in the source code, then the application will likely break if the necessary files aren't present when the .exe is executed.
Can that exe be loaded up onto a web server so they can play it from there or at least download it from there?
Yes - you could upload the .exe to a file server to make available for a download, but you would not be able to run it within a browser over the web. I would recommend zipping up the .exe and other files needed and hosting the .zip file on the web server for download; browsers may give a warning or block downloading an .exe .
Hope this explains it a little bit for you.
I am new to C#. I am an admin, not a programmer, but I am starting to see how being able to write some console apps could help me with automation. So I wrote one and it works well.
Here is the issue. Every time I execute the exe file for the console application, it generates a .config file. There isn't really anything in the config file. just a few lines. How do I make it stop. The Program.cs is really just calling SCOM's SDK to put a machine into maintenance mode.
Developed in: c# in visual studio 2013
.net version used - 3.5
It's not entirely clear what you're asking. But assuming commenter Jon's guess is correct, and that you really mean that when you build your executable, a .config file is generated, then his advice is correct: just remove the "App.config" file from your project, and no .config file will be generated. The "App.config" file is the template for the .config file; at build time, the file is copied to the output directly, using the executable name and the extension .config.
Please note that this may or may not be safe to do. It probably is. However, some C# projects have configuration information in the .config file that is actually needed. Please see Is app.config required in .Net 4.0 C# projects? for more details on that question.
Finally, I will suggest that for simple automation tasks, you may find other tools more appropriate that even a simple C# console program. The two I use most commonly are PowerShell and plain old batch files, though there are a number of other similar scripting-style automation tools that work on Windows (including a variety of *nix-style shells that are compiled for Windows).
Is it possible to save a whole C# solution in one single text file? I vaguely remember a tool (VS add-on?) to do this, but I cannot find it.
WARNING: This is highly likely a duplicate, and I would be happy to delete the post if so, but I haven't been able to find the answer in SO.
I doubt that this would be possible.
A solution consists of a number of completely different file types, each in their own format, with a different purpose:
The solution file is in a legacy (non-XML) text format and informs your IDE (typically Visual Studio) about all the different projects that are part of the solution, as well as pointing it to other files relating to the solution such as test run configuration settings.
Project files these days are XML build files that inform MSBuild what source files are to be built, and how.
Source files contain code of an arbitrary programming language.
Other files a project can also have any other arbitrary text or binary files. (For example, embedded resource images.)
So there we have at least four different file formats: non-XML text, XML, plaintext, and binary.
Perhaps the only way that you could achieve the combination of all these disparate file types into a single file would be to have some mechanism to magically extract all of the separate files out from your single file, present them to the development and build tools as if everything were normal, and then magically re-combine them back into the single file after.
That would be roughly equivalent to taking the entire solution directory and running it through WinZip to produce a single file (a compressed file, to boot!) though perhaps witha more seamless integration via a Visual Studio Add-In.