BACKGROUND:
I’m self-taught in VB.net, having been a VB6 developer for years. I’m now out of the field but I’m making a forms app that I need for my new business. I am using VB2008 Express, and I’ll upgrade to later versions when necessary. Because I am self-taught I mostly work from examples and there’s a lot about .NET I don’t understand.
SITUATION:
I’ve built a Usercontrol. (A custom datetimepicker which I call “datebox”). Then in my application project, I add it to the toolox, then plunk it on a form. It works great so I use it many times in my project, each time with a various properties. No problem so far.
THE PROBLEM:
Oopsie… Now I realize I want my usercontrol to behave a little differently. I modify its project, keeping it backward-compatible with regard to properties and events. Then I rebuild the control.
Ad you might expect, I find that the project that uses the control is still referencing the old version, which it has placed into its own \debug\ folder. Originally, I had added the control to the toolbox from my “DateBox\bin\Release” folder.
My current process to update my project for the new version is very time-consuming… First I delete every datebox object from every form, then I remove the reference to the datebox control, then I remove it from the toolbox and put it back, (not sure if that step is needed) then I place all of my databox objects back where they belong, (which automatically adds it to the project references) and set each of the properties of each datebox object.
THE SOLUTION????:
Surely, Microsoft must be smarter than I am, so it’s GOTTA be possible to just rebuild the user control, then just “suck in the new version” without having to remove and replace each one and reset their properties as desired.
Can I get some guidance on how this can be done?
Assuming that the UserControl is not part of the solution, the approach that we use to to create an Assemblies folder on disk somewhere in the solution hieararchy.
Any external assemblies that we use in any of the solution projects are then copied into this directory and the assemblies are added directly as references. This allows us to use different versions of the assemblies in different projects and not have to worry about accidental updates to either assemblies that we are responsible for or others.
If we need to use the controls at design time, we remove any previous controls from the toolbox and then drag the file(s) from the assemblies folders into the toolbox to ensure we get the right versions.