Visual Studio C++ Filters

Visual Studio C++ Filters.

1. vcxproj.filters files

The filters file (*.vcxproj.filters) is an XML file in MSBuild format that is located in the root project folder. It specifies which file types go into which logical folder in Solution Explorer. In the following illustration, the .cpp files are under the Source Files node. the .h files are under the Header Files node, and .ico and .rc files are under Resource Files. This placement is controlled by the filters file..

2. VC2010 C++ - organizing source files

I had some questions about how to organize source files in a VC 2010 C++ project. The default filters that are included won't be sufficient as ultimately, I'm going to have a lot of .cpp and .hpp files so it's going ot be messy. I'd like to create a folder at the root of the project called "source" then create folders inside "source" for the various source file categories I'd like to use. When I right click the solution, I only get the option to add a filter, not a folder. I can create folders manually in windows explorer, then include them, but Then I lose my ability to add filters. Is there a way to add new folders (without using windows explorer) and still use filters?

Additionally, is there something similar to $(CURDIR) that I could use to include the source file folder without needing an absolute path?.

there are two good comments as a solution in my case.

You also had the question "is there something similar to $(CURDIR) that I could use to include the source file folder without needing an absolute path?" You are in luck: Visual Studio projects don't use absolute paths! They use relative paths. The project file stores the relative path required to get from the directory containing the .vcxproj file to the directory containing the source file.

So if you created SuperCalc.sln and SuperCalc.vcxproj where I suggested (the SuperCalc\Build directory), and you add your .cpp files in the source subdirectories, you can go look inside the SuperCalc.vcxproj file using Notepad, and you'll see lines like:

Since there are no absolute paths, you could take the entire SuperCalc directory tree and move it somewhere else, and it would all still work. No need for environment variable hacks like $(CURDIR).

One final thing to know: since you are putting your source files in multiple directories, you might have problems with #includeing headers, the .h or .hpp files.

You must tell the compiler the directories where your header files are located. They will probably be scattered among multiple directories. So edit the project settings:

1. right-click on the project name in Solution Explorer, choose Configuration Properties, ->> C/C++ > General-->Additional Include Directories.

2. Before you do anything else, click on the Configuration drop-down menu and choose All Configurations. If you have both a 32-bit and 64-bit build, click on the Platform drop-down menu and choose All Platforms.

3. Now go to the "Additional Include Directories" and add all the paths to all the source directories, with the paths specified relative to the project file's directory. So for the SuperCalc example, it would look like:

   ..\..\..\Source\Input;..\..\..\Source\Math;..\..\..\Source\Math\Matrix;..\..\..\Source\Output

   My Note is: it is right if .vcxproj file is under SuperCalc/Build folder. but if .vcxproj file is in SuperCalc directory, it is much simpler:

   Source\Input;Source\Math;Source\Math\Matrix;Source\Output;

Once this change is made, a file like Source\Math\Matrix\matrix_multiply.cpp can have a line
#include "input_configuration.hpp"

(If it doesn't All Just Work, the usual approach is to go back into Project Properties and fiddle with the number of ..\ sequences in front of your Additional Include Directories. Remember that every time you go to make a change you must choose All Configurations again -- otherwise your changes will only apply to the current Configuration (Debug or Release). That setting is not sticky.)

Visual Studio Tips

3. 10 Visual Studio Solution Explorer Productivity Tips

The Visual Studio Solution Explorer panel is like home for Visual Studio users. It presents all projects, source files and items thanks to a treeview layout. This panel is quite sophisticated and it is likely that you don’t use all the power of this great tool. Let’s present the top 10 productivity tips related to the Visual Studio Solution Explorer.

Short GIF animation is an excellent way to quickly learn Visual Studio productivity tips. See others related posts based also on short GIFs here:

4. Top 10 Visual Studio Refactoring Tips

This is a paragraph.

5. 10 Visual Studio Navigation Productivity Tips

This is a paragraph.

6. 10 Visual Studio Files and Layout Productivity Tips

Nowadays most developers are working remotely. Hence the monitor(s) configuration might have changed, and might change frequently. In this context, it does matter to optimize the Visual Studio layout and documents access. Here are some tips..

7. Can I configure Visual Studio to use real folders instead of filters in C++ projects?

This is a paragraph.

8. Visual Studio & C++: Use filters as directories

This is a paragraph.

9. Visual Studio 2017 Folders in Project

I am using Visual Studio 2017 to write some stuff in C. When I open a new project, I have some default filters and in "add" option for the project there's only filter and no folder/directory.

I want my project to have a folder structure, but can't add folders to the project in Visual Studio. Looking online I can only find solutions for adding an existing folder to a project and not adding a new one.

How can I add new folders to a Visual Studio C project?

How can I disable filters?.

10. Changing the default Source File Directory in Visual Studio

This is a paragraph.

11. Visual Studio 2017 Folders in Project
12. Visual Studio 2017 Folders in Project

This is a paragraph.

13. Structure of Visual C++ Projects in Visual Studio
14. Mapping a Visual C++ filter to a physical folder

This is a paragraph.

15. How to set filters to be real folders on the hard drive for a Visual C++ project

This is a paragraph.

16. Open Folder support for C++ build systems in Visual Studio

In Visual Studio 2017 and later, the "Open Folder" feature enables you to open a folder of source files and immediately start coding with support for IntelliSense, browsing, refactoring, debugging, and so on. As you edit, create, move, or delete files, Visual Studio tracks the changes automatically and continuously updates its IntelliSense index. No .sln or .vcxproj files are loaded; if needed, you can specify custom tasks as well as build and launch parameters through simple .json files. This feature enables you to integrate any third-party build system into Visual Studio. For general information about Open Folder, see Develop code in Visual Studio without projects or solutions..

17. Generate C++ Filters

Simple Extension which provide the ability to generate C++ project filters to replicate the folder hierarchy of the underlying sources

It was originally made to browse easily C++ code hosted on a Linux machine while benefiting of the Visual Studio's features (e.g. GUI, Go to Definition / Declaration, Compile / Debug through SSH, ...).

18. Problem with filters in C++ Shared Items projects.

n VS15.1 (26403.0), in C++ "Shared Items" project there is a problem with Filters. In "Solution Explorer" when you create a new "Filter" (a folder) in the "Shared Item" project and add a file in it - after the entire VS project is saved and reloaded - all files that were added to the "Filters" (Folders) are shown outside of those filters/folders. In VS14 everything worked just fine.

19. Structuring C++ code (Visual Studio)

I'm getting back into C++ after not playing with it for many years.

Being spoiled as a C# programmer I'm finding quite a few things about the Visual Studio environment surprisingly puzzling.

I'm used to just being able to add a class to a folder, and I want to structure my code in folders with matching namespace, but whenever I try to add a class to a folder Visual Studio just puts it in the root. I can of course move it but I can't help thinking - if VS is making it so hard for me to do what I want am I doing something wrong? How do you structure your C++ code?.

20. Walkthrough: Working with Projects and Solutions (C++)

This is a paragraph.

21. Directory Structure for a C++ Project

When you work on some bigger project, it is important to properly organize its directory structure. Most of the time, you have to prepare project directory structure yourself, as an IDE will create only a basic solution for you.

22. How to make a Visual Studio C++ project structure match the file system structure?

How to make a Visual Studio C++ project structure match the file system structure?.

23. C++ application development ( Part 1 — Project structure )

Ifyou come from a web development background, and ended up learning C++ for some fortunate reason you must have ended up at this point at some point of time. Now if you are like most authentic coders, you must have started digging to see what experienced coders do to structure their code. Ironically even though C++ is really old and mature, the docs that are available out there are not very appealing to the current generation of coders who have been reading web framework docs which are easy to understand and follow. I don’t know why people have not taken such an initiative for C++. But truth be told, it is not an easy language to learn..

24. C++ application development ( Part 2 — CMakeLists.txt )

Ifyou have ever worked on a somewhat large C++ project then you must have heard of this tool. It might seem to do some magic under the hood and somehow after a few commands you end up with a binary that is basically the application you can execute. What you must have noticed is that these projects come with a CMakeLists.txt file in their root directory. So what exactly is its purpose? How to write a CMakeLists.txt file from scratch for your own custom project? All these questions can be answered as soon an you understand what CMake is actually doing for you.

25. C++ application development ( Part 3— CMakeLists.txt from scratch )

Towrite a wonderful project there are three things that you should be able to do:

1. Able to compile whatever you have written.,.
2. Expose a header file to let people use your code as a third party library.
3. Able to use third party libraries in your code..

Standard Project Folder Structure Proposal

26. What's a good directory structure for larger C++ projects using Makefile?

This is a paragraph.

27. Canonical Project Structure

We would like to propose source code layout and content guidelines for new C++ projects that would facilitate their packaging..

28. cxx-pflR1 The Pitchfork Layout (PFL)

PFL a convention for laying out source, build, and resource files in a filesystem to aide in uniformity, tooling, understandability, and compartmentalization..

29. Project structuring for "modern" C++, best practices?

I have started working on a command line program/sortof library for some engineering/scientific computing in C++, and I am a little embarrassed about not being completely sure how to structure the source code. The best practices around this seems (at least for me) to be changing.

For our project, we'd like to have a "functional" system to it, i.e. avoid class inheritance and to have a flat, functional structure. Separation of algorithms and data structures.

Googling about this and there seems to be a lot of different approaches in terms of structure of code, folders and files. So, what is your take, are there any "goto" project examples on Github that is worth learning from? I realize there are many ways to structure programs and probably varies quite a lot due to personal taste.

More concrete questions:

• - Is using a lot of namespaces considered bad thesedays?
• - Are we moving away from separating into header and source files?
• - Is it ok to use classes only for encapsulation and use structs for data structures?
As a curious side question: How would this look if modules landed soon? Additional details in our case: Using Eigen for linear algebra, CMake for building and Catch2 for testing. Cross platform. Thank you for your attention..

This is a paragraph.