Are you missing buttons on the toolbar or context menu?

[Frank Hileman]

The image above shows the toolbar and context menu as they should appear. If you are missing items, we would like to know.

Here is how to fix the problem. It can have one of several sources:

1. Bad add-in installers sometimes remove critical files from the GAC. This problem only occurs in Visual Studio 2003.
2. Visual Studio caches dlls in a secret place, not the normal assembly cache, and sometimes it gets mixed up and uses an old version.
3. On non-English locales, Visual Studio 2005 fails to load the add-in satellite dll containing button bitmaps, even if we provide a satellite specific to the locale.

Reason 1) Note: This problem only occurs in Visual Studio 2003. Do not look for these dlls versions with Visual Studio 2005. It is sad but true, the default installer created for add-ins incorrectly removes critical assemblies from the GAC. If the add-in author is unaware of this problem, you may uninstall an add-in to find that no add-ins or macros work in the future. Open your WINDOWS\Assemblies folder and determine if the following files are present. Don't look for the path, just look for the file name:

• WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\EnvDTE.dll
• WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\Office.dll
• Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies\Extensibility.dll
• Program Files\Microsoft.NET\Primary Interop Assemblies\stdole.dll

If any of the files are missing, go to the folder listed for the file above, and drag and drop the dll into the WINDOWS\Assemblies folder. This will install it back into the GAC where it belongs (nothing is actually moved or copied).

If this is not the problem,
Reason 2) For Visual Studio 2003, try this:

• Close all instances of Visual Studio 2003 and the MSDN library.
• From the Control Panel, Select VG.net (or VG.net 3).
• Click the link "Click here for support information"
• Click the Repair button.
• Restart Visual Studio 2003

If you don't want to do that, you can try running "devenv.exe /setup" from a Visual Studio 2003 command prompt.

For Visual Studio 2005, run the following from a Visual Studio 2005 command prompt:
devenv /resetaddin Prodige.Drawing.CommandBarAddIn.Connect2

If that doesn't work, please let us know.

Reason 3) We have created a special beta that will allow you to use the toolbar buttons and context menu items. The custom image buttons will all use a default bitmap, but the context menu (containing the same commands) has text and is easy to use. This is not a good work around, but the bug is in Visual Studio, so it is the best we have come up with. We will be reporting this bug to Microsoft.

[Marc]

Visual Studio .NET caches dlls in a secret place

Do you know where that is, i would like to know...

Thank you!

[Frank Hileman]

No, but the install repair instructions are pretty easy, and usually work. We are not concentrating on that since I think it is fixed in the next VS version.

[Marc]

Bummer...

I didn't wanted to know because of installation problems, but because i think that is where i would have to put xml documentation for my projects i'm working on. I'm trieing to get Intellisense for the same project that i work in.

Toedeloe!

[DelbertZZZ]

Hello Frank,

I noticed that on occasion I would lose some of my toolbar items when logging in to different domains at my work.

Anyway, I found that when I installed VG as a user on my laptop, VG put the add-in toolbar in MyDocuments folder in the Visual Studio 2005 -> Addins folder.

However, when a new profile is created due to a domain login I will have to manually copy the VG addin to the new profile's path like the above path except in the new profile.

Is this normal?

Eric

[Frank Hileman]

Hi Eric,

That is the folder Microsoft recommends for storing add-ins. I am not sure about the new profile. Isn't this the way it works for other folders in MyDocuments as well? For example, Visual Studio 2005 stores other things in the the Visual Studio 2005 folder, such as the settings for fonts, colors etc, in the .vssettings file. I suppose you have the same problem with those?

Things are changing. Currently we install our samples into Program Files folders; in Visual Studio 2005 this causes security pop-ups. The recommended way to fix this is to install into My Documents somewhere. So the problem may get worse.

Regards,

[Zahid]

Hi Frank,

I have the same problem. I am using VS2005 with service pack 1. After installing the Evaluation Version I do not see even the Drawing tab. I did everything starting from repair, uninstalling and reinstalling, but nothing seems to work.

Please advise.

Zahid Hayat

[Frank Hileman]

Hello Zahid,

To see the drawing tab you must first right click on your project, select "Add New Item...", and select "VG.net Picture." At that point a Picture is added. When the designer opens for the Picture, you should see the drawing tab, as well as the toolbar at the top. Before the designer opens you will not see any addition for the Visual Studio interface.

If you perform that action and you still see no drawing tab or toolbar, please let us know.

There is a bug with non-English (localized) versions of Visual Studio 2005 and the toolbar icons. We have a 4.1 beta version of VG.net that does provide all the toolbar buttons and the context menu items on localized versions, but the several icons all look the same on the toolbar. It is still usable from the context menu because there is text. Some people use this version, and others switch to the English version of Visual Studio.

Our custom icons do not load from satellite dlls in those localized versions of Visual Studio. While it is a Microsoft bug, we are still working on a workaround and may have one soon. In the meantime, I can send you the download information for the beta. We could switch to using only the Microsoft built-in icons, but there is no good matches for several of the commands we put on the toolbar.

Regards,