Feature Request: Automatically update VS solution

[thegilb]

When working with other developers I frequently get (many) files added to the file system via source control which I then need to manually add to the project generated by VGDB. This process is tedious, and is more or less my only real gripe with the product currently.

What I really want is for VGDB to either a.) monitor my file system and invite me to update the solution for me when a change is detected outside of the editor, or b.) give me a button I can click in the VGDB properties pages which will scan the file system and update the solution for me.

[support]

Hi,

We’ve added a new command called ‘import folder recursively’ to VisualGDB 4.2 that allows importing an existing folder with subfolders. You can get a quick impression of it by looking at our USB tutorial (http://visualgdb.com/tutorials/arm/stm32/usb/). You can just point it to the main project directory and it will add missing files to the project while keeping all the folder structure. Does that suit your needs or do you want something more sophisticated?

[thegilb]

That isn’t exactly what I want, though it is a welcome addition.

Let’s say I have a project with files on the filesystem like so:
src/
common/
common.hpp
common.cpp
liba/
liba.hpp
liba.cpp

So VisualGDB will generate a solution with folders like so:
Headers
common
common.hpp
liba
liba.hpp
Sources
common
common.cpp
liba
liba.cpp

Now imagine if a developer adds new files via source control and creates a new library called libb. I have to manually create the nested folders under Headers and Sources for libb, and add the missing files.

Finally, imagine having to perform these exact same steps without knowing which files were added because there are in fact thousands of files in dozens of folders. The problem is, I don’t know what to add, and doing this manually is tedious and time consuming.

However, this is a scenario that can be automated. It would be great if VisualGDB detected the new files and offered to add them to the solution automatically, or alternatively provide a way to simply refresh the entire source tree (ie. Recreate the project structure as if creating a new project).

Either way I want my project to always mirror the files on the file-system, and I want it to be as simple as possible to maintain it after I have created it.

[support]

Hi,

The main reason why we did not add this feature is because VS is extremely slow when dealing with projects containing lots of source files. Simply opening a project containing the entire Linux kernel can take several minutes, adding the files one-by-one using VS interfaces would take more than 3 hours. The new recursive import feature solves this by closing the solution file, modifying it manually and reopening it, but that would still degrade project opening performance if lots of files are added. Please try using the new recursive import feature and if you don’t notice considerable delays when using it manually, let us know so that we could add an option to run it automatically when new files are detected.

[Author]

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