Visual Studio isn't generating the Code Gen file (*.designer.vb)

N

Nathan Sokalski

I am an ASP.NET developer, and Visual Studio 2005 seems to have stopped
declaring the controls that I add in the *.designer.vb files, therefore
forcing me to manually add them before I can use them in code that I write
in the *.aspx.vb and *.ascx.vb files. Why is it no longer automatically
declaring the controls? Is there a way to manually force Visual Studio 2005
to regenerate these files? Is there a setting somewhere that could have
gotten changed that is causing Visual Studio 2005 to no longer declare the
controls I add in the *.designer.vb files? Thanks.
 
G

Guest

The designer.vb file is a VS2005-generated file and not intended for direct
edit. So, the right way to add controls to a page is adding them to the .aspx
file either in source mode or designer mode.
 
J

Juan T. Llibre

*.designer files are generated by VS 2005's Web Application
Project automatically, and you generally don't touch them.

You *can* edit them, as a last resort, for example to change the field's accessor
from "protected" to "public" but, generally, you should let the code generator do its thing.

Read Scott Guthrie's explanations of what *.designer files, their characteristics,
and the procedures to follow with them, here :

http://webproject.scottgu.com/CSharp/Migration2/Migration2.aspx

http://webproject.scottgu.com/CSharp/UnderstandingCodeBehind/UnderstandingCodeBehind.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/02/05/437439.aspx

The VS 2005 Web Application Project option should monitor both
source-view and design-view, and update the declarations appropriately.

If it isn't doing that, post a comment to Scott's blog, post to the VS 2005 web forums
( http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=6&SiteID=1 ) ...or file a bug at
Connect.

btw, have you installed Visual Studio 2005 SP1 ?
It fixes quite a few bugs.

Also, apparently the first version released of WAP had the very problem you're describing.
Do you have the latest version installed ( with SP1 ) or, are you running the separate add-in ?

For an explanation regarding that, read Rick Strahl's blog :
http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/4031.aspx
 
M

Mark Fitzpatrick

Are you using a Web Site Project? If so then VS doesn't create them. If you
have VS 2005 Service Pack 1 installed than I suggest you use the Web
Application Project. This will create the designer files for the page.
Existing pages within an Web Application Project that may have come from a
Web Site Project can be converted by right-clicking on them once they're
added to the Web Application Project and click the option Convert to Web
Application Project. This will generate the designer file and change any
directives in the .aspx page necessary.
 
N

Nathan Sokalski

I do have Service Pack 1 installed, but clicking Convert to Web Application
Project did not seem to make any difference. Any other ideas? Thanks.
 
N

Nathan Sokalski

I do have Service Pack 1 installed, and I realize that you are not supposed
to edit the *.designer.vb files (I wasn't editing them, I was simply looking
at them to see if that was the reason for my error, which it was). I looked
at all the links you provided, and tried all the suggested solutions (other
than reinstalling VS2005, which I don't think would be a good idea, since it
would mean reconfiguring all my settings, reinstalling any updates,
including the AjaxControlToolkit, not to mention it is a pain to spend all
that time reinstalling and registering it). I seem to remember having this
problem once before, but I don't remember what (if anything) I did to fix
it. Any other ideas? Thanks.
 
N

Nathan Sokalski

I was not editing the *.designer.vb files, I was looking at them to see if
they were the source of my errors (being told that objects didn't exist,
when I knew they were in my *.aspx file). Any ideas on how to fix this
problem of Visual Studio 2005 not generating the *.designer.vb files?
Thanks.
 
N

Nathan Sokalski

I noticed a strange warning that is shown anytime I add a new control. Here
is a copy of the warning:


Warning 2 Generation of designer file failed: The relative virtual path '?/'
is not allowed here. C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\CAT_aspnet\worldnews.aspx 0 0
CAT_aspnet


Three things that I noticed about this warning are the following:

1. The strange foreign character (?) that it says is trying to be used as a
relative virtual path
2. It says it is located at Line 0, Column 0, which is not a valid location
(or if it is, Visual Studio 2005 doesn't show it, since it starts numbering
the lines at 1)
3. I tried opening the file it says the error is in using other text editors
as well, such as Notepad, and there are no unexpected characters there. In
other words, I cannot find the ? character anywhere using any editor.


This same warning, with the same strange foreign character, is displayed
regardless of which file I am trying to add a control to. I have looked at
all of the files that it claims contain the strange foreign character, and
none of them have it (at least I can't find it, or any other characters that
I didn't add in Visual Studio 2005). What's going on here? I may not have
found the solution to my problem with Visual Studio 2005 generating the
*.designer.vb files, but at I it knows it's not generating them, and I am
assuming this is the source of the problem. Any ideas?
 

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