Re: Click Once publishing issue

Hi,

I figure out what was happening. And I can't really explain why it was
happening. After looking closer at the installed application vs the
application folder on the webserver I found that one of the files was
not being copied across. This obviously meant that it wasn't getting
included in the setup.exe file. So basically:
- I uninstalled my application from add remove programs
- deleted all of the webpages created by the publish
- ensured all my Applications Files (button in publish properties)
were set as included (not included (auto))

This seemed to fix it and I don't know why! But for future reference
you can check out the following to see what is and isn't installed
(some of this may be Smart Client specific) and maybe find your
problem:

1. The publish will create a folder like "Shell_1_0_0_0" in your web
folder. For example if you are posting to "localhost/shell" then it
will reside in something like: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Shell\Shell_1_0_0_0
2. The Shell.exe.manifest file in this folder should list all the
files for installation
3. When you install the app locally it will install in a folder like
"Documents and Settings\(user name)\Local Settings\Apps
\2.0\99DKT4ME.O4C\5P92BEZ4.G5K\shel..tion_70...xxxxxnumbers"
4. The following file (which was my isssue) ProfileCatalog.xml will
contain your SmartClient modules that the program needs to be aware
of. Make sure this gets installed with your Smart Client

Hope this helps any future readers.

C.

On Feb 20, 2:45 pm, "CJ" <conorjgallag...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,

I originally had this posted in the .net general section by mistake,
so here goes again! I have an issue with publishing an application
using Visual Studio 2005 click once functionality.

Firstly, my project was written using the smart client software
factory. In my case all this means is my full screen is designed in
smaller parts which are user controls (also called smart parts). These
user controls get added to the main window at runtime. Because of
this, it also means that my project references a few dll's which are
all part of my smart client application.

Secondly, I'm publishing the project to my localhost so it's not to an
external webserver etc.

My issue is that when I publish this to a URL and run it, all I get is
a blank windows form. It works fine if I build and run the application
normally.

As I said, I can't get it deployed. I'm new to Click once so not sure
what to check. I did check the following:
- Checked the references in my project and the all seem fine
- Checked the prerequisites in the publish page of project
properties. Only .Net is selected, which seems to be fine.
- Checked the Shell_1_0_0_0 folder in my wwwroot and it seems to
contain all the dll's my project references
- Checked the shell.exe.manifest in Shell_1_0_0_0 and it seems to
reference all the required dlls

I don't know what to check outside of this. What confuses me is that I
get no errors when I run the app, just a blank windows screen. The
user controls are built in a project called "Interface.Module" and
this dll is referenced, copied to Shell_1_0_0_0, and referenced in the
Shell.exe.manifest file.

The one suspicious thing is an error I get the first time I load the
project into visual studio. Because smart clients use "workspace"
controls I have to reference a composite UI winforms dll to get these
controls. This works fine, but the one bad behaviour I have is that I
get an error everytime I load the project for the first time. The
error is:

Could not find type
'Microsoft.Practices.CompositeUI.WinForms.DeckWorkspace'. Please make
sure that the assembly that contains this type is referenced. If this
type is a part of your development project, make sure that the project
has been successfully built.

This occurs on the Form Designer of the main windows screen. But if I
close the designer screen and reopen it it all works fine again and I
get no errors?!? I checked the project file in notepad and it
references the Composite.WinForms and points to it as being in "$
(SolutionDir) \Lib". I have checked the "$(SolutionDir)\Lib" folder
and yes, it's there. But I can't seem to stop this error appearing.
Not sure if fixing this error might fix my overall problem, but any
suggestions here would be appreciated too. I find it odd that this
error would be the problem if my app runs fine in normal build mode,
but not in published mode.

I'm at a serious head scratching phase here so any help is
appreciated! If I have explained anything badly, or you would like
more details, please just ask! I will try clarify any questions you
may have.

Thanks,
C.


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