Why doesn't Visual Studio refresh the folders when I click the Solution Explorer refresh button?

Question

In Visual Studio 2008, I can see all my project files in my Solution Explorer, and these files exist in an actual diectory.

However, if I add a file to that directory

Answer 1

These days you can use the TF command line to do this.

• Run the developer command prompt (from VS it's tools, command line, developer command prompt; or often you can find a shortcut under your start menu's Visual Studio Tools folder).
• Navigate to the root folder for your project (i.e. the folder for which you want all content synced to source control)
• run tf add * /recursive to select everything / push it all to the project. Other options documented in the tf docs.
• use the Team Explorer pane's Pending Changes section to make any adjustments you may wish via the UI.
• Check in your changes

Answer 2

I faced the same issue. I added new files and folders but the next time I took latest source code from SVN and then opened the project, it wont show the files which were added.

You can perform the following steps : 1. Solution explorer -> Show all files 2. Those files which are added recently will be displayed without the [@] icon on left side. Right click on the file and Select Include in the project 3. If you see the config file Web (Visual C# Project file (.csproj)) under Web folder, you will see the entries made for these new files. Check in this config file in your svn. 4. The next time you take repo checkout , it wont be an issue as the file details have been added into the configuration.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

At the top of the solution explorer is a toggle button "Show All Files" this makes it include all files in the display even if they aren't included in the project. The icons for these will be grayed out a bit. Then just use the context menu to add these to the project.

Answer 4

On the solution, click the right mouse button and select 'Add existing item' and pick the file from the solution root directory. The Solution will now get a 'Solution Items' directory which contains your file. This directory is virtual, so it does not exist on disk.

However there is no feature like 'Show All Files' for a solution, this only works on projects.

Answer 5

On the solution explorer the top rightest icon (Show all files), press it and you will see the file visible, then right click the file and choose: include this to project.