Project Type in Visual Studio for a Build Only Project

NumericalFunctional 21

I have a modestly large collection of documents that a build from source. It involves: some some scripts for creating figures, macro-like combining form multiple files, execution of external programs to compile these processed files into formatted output, and some post processing steps. Think about converting LaTeX documents into PDFs and distributing them (not what I'm doing, but close). But there are no concepts that correspond to debugging or running. But I will spend much of my time editing the documents (in Visual Studio). How should I setup the Visual Studio Project? Should I go with no project? Should I use a GNU-Make project? Is it practical to create an MSBuild project?

Tianyu Sun-MSFT 30,326 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-03-11T09:28:42.0433333+00:00

Hello @NumericalFunctional ,

I have not heard from you for a couple of days.

May I double confirm the file type of these documents, are they binary files? Or do they contain code, or commands, or text, or…?
NumericalFunctional 21 Reputation points

2024-03-11T17:51:42.9266667+00:00

XML (or XHTML), MATLAB files to build figures, Python scripts also to build figures, and a Math ML meta-language, occasionally LaTeX source files and a LaTeX to Math ML converter

1 answer

Tianyu Sun-MSFT 30,326 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-02-22T12:45:43.6066667+00:00

Hello @NumericalFunctional ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Do you consider using Visual Studio Code(Visual Studio Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor which runs on your desktop and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux) if you are going to edit documents?

For Visual Studio, if you don’t need to build/debug, perhaps directly opening a folder and editing them(files) is enough. If you need to build, then you need to select a corresponding programming language and choose a corresponding project template.

Best Regards,

Tianyu

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NumericalFunctional 21 Reputation points

2024-03-11T17:52:46.8233333+00:00

I have the reverse of this problem a very complicated build process but no run or debug

NumericalFunctional 21 Reputation points

2024-03-11T17:59:16.8466667+00:00

I have the reverse problem. A very complicated build process, only a little bit of anything else. Think about compiling a math book.

Tianyu Sun-MSFT 30,326 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-03-12T06:46:22.89+00:00

Hello @NumericalFunctional ,

Visual Studio doesn’t support editing MATLAB files and LaTeX files.

Normally, for editing these documents, you need to use programs which are specifically designed for working with MATLAB and LaTeX documents.

There are some extensions(for Visual Studio) which add supports for MATLAB and LaTeX documents, but looks like they are not very suitable(you can check here: extensions for MATLAB, extensions for LaTeX).

Comparing to Visual Studio, I think Visual Studio Code is more suitable, and should meet your requirements.

You need to consider installing and using following Visual Studio Code extensions: MATLAB, LaTeX and Python.

As VS Code is different from VS, it doesn’t include pre-installed project templates, you should be able to directly edit your documents without creating/using projects.

NumericalFunctional 21 Reputation points

2024-03-12T21:24:49.79+00:00

I'm quite familiar with VS Code and in fact have used it for a several years, though I use it somewhat less than other IDE.

The question is about support for complex build processes. Is there anything better than command line GNU Make?

Is it practical, for example, to use an msbuild project? Or is that more or less an Microsoft internal thing?
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Project Type in Visual Studio for a Build Only Project

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