Structuring projects & dependencies of large winforms applications in C#

by

Source Control

We have 20 or 30 projects being built into 4 or 5 discrete solutions. We are using Subversion for SCM.

1) We have one tree in SVN containing all the projects organised logically by namespace and project name. There is a .sln at the root that will build them all, but that is not a requirement.

2) For each actual solution we have a new trunks folder in SVN with SVN:External references to all the required projects so that they get updated from their locations under the main tree.

3) In each solution is the .sln file plus a few other required files, plus any code that is unique to that solution and not shared across solutions.

Having many smaller projects is a bit of a pain at times (for example the TortoiseSVN update messages get messy with all those external links) but does have the huge advantage that dependancies are not allowed to be circular, so our UI projects depend on the BO projects but the BO projects cannot reference the UI (and nor should they!).

Architecture
We have completely switched over to using MS SCSF and CAB enterprise pattern to manage the way our various projects combine and interact in a Win Forms interface. I am unsure if you have the same problems (multiple modules need to share space in a common forms environment) but if you do then this may well bring some sanity and convention to how you architect and assemble your solutions.

I mention that because SCSF tends to merge BO and UI type functions into the same module, whereas previously we maintained a strict 3 level policy:

FW – Framework code. Code whose function relates to software concerns.
BO – Business Objects. Code whose function relates to problem domain concerns.
UI – Code which relates to the UI.

In that scenario dependancies are strictly UI -> BO -> FW

We have found that we can maintain that structure even while using SCSF generated modules so all is good in the world 🙂

More Related Contents:

  1. What are the various “Build action” settings in Visual Studio project properties and what do they do?
  2. How can I rename a project folder from within Visual Studio?
  3. Which winform project files should be packed up into the installer
  4. Error: Cannot access file bin/Debug/… because it is being used by another process
  5. Solution-wide pre-build event?
  6. Tool to view the contents of the Solution User Options file (.suo)
  7. Copying Visual Studio project file(s) to output directory during build
  8. How to programmatically include a file in my project?
  9. Visual Studio open files question
  10. Recommended number of projects in Visual Studio Solution
  11. Can’t view designer when coding a form in C#
  12. How do I set the path to a DLL file in Visual Studio?
  13. Copying a DLL’s dependencies in Visual Studio
  14. Creating virtual directories in IIS express
  15. How do I set a path in Visual Studio?
  16. How to support both vcxproj to cmake on a project?
  17. How do you default a new class to public when creating it in Visual Studio?
  18. Exclude files from web site publish in Visual Studio
  19. Why does the Visual Studio editor show dots in blank spaces?
  20. Avoiding “Press any key to continue” when running console application from Visual Studio
  21. How to turn off CodeLens-References
  22. Could not find required file ‘setup.bin’
  23. How can I reference a dll in the GAC from Visual Studio?
  24. Visual Studio loading symbols
  25. Visual C++: How to disable specific linker warnings?
  26. Waiting for second key of chord
  27. How to make visual studio break only on unhandled exceptions?
  28. The project type is not supported by this installation
  29. User Control vs. Windows Form
  30. In Visual Studio (2008) is there a way to have a custom dependent file on another custom file?

Leave a Comment