We develop a module web application by using a separate WAP application project for each module. The primary/root WAP settings web tab is set to "Use local IIS Web Server" the path is http://localhost/MainProject.
Then there are 4 modules. Each module is a WAP with a web configuration set to "Use local IIS server" with a path such as http://localhost/MainProject/Module1. Each module is also set on the build page with an output path of ..\MainProject\bin which is the file system path to the bin folder of the root project.
In IIS manager we have an Application configured as http://localhost/MainProject and a virtual directory for each module pointing to the physical path of the WAP project.
This all worked fine with Visual Studio 2005. But, I have moved the project to Visual Studio 2008 and we are unable to use design view in the module projects. When I open a web form in one of the module projects I also get an error on @PAge and @Register directives like this one:
C:\Development\MainProject-trunk\Product\Production\Module1\ctlRestrictEntityListbox.ascx: ASP.NET runtime error: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\Development\MainProject-trunk\Product\Production\MainProject\'. C:\Development\MainProject-trunk\Product\Production\Module1\ctlRestrictEntityListbox.ascx
The strange thing is that is the correct path to the user control file.
So, does any one have any ideas why I am seeing the problem. I have a feeling it has to do with the Web path setup for each of the module projects.
UPDATED:
More info. I just tested the above with a new clean solution, two WAPs and one web page in each. It all works fine. Then I added a UserControl to the module1 project. Now I get the same error when trying to go into design view in the user control:
Warning 1 C:\Development\TestSolution2008\Module1\WebUserControl1.ascx: ASP.NET runtime error: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\Development\TestSolution2008\TestWebRoot\'. C:\Development\TestSolution2008\Module1\WebUserControl1.ascx 1 1 Module1
MORE INFO:
I was able to get it "somewhat" working. What I did was on each of the module projects I created a virtual directory that isn't a subfolder of the root project. This allowed me to go into design mode on the user controls. It also allowed the forms to be opened to design mode. However, the web controls that come from an external command DLL that we have was not found. I am assuming this is due to the bin folder not being where Visual Studio is expecting it.
Anyone know how I can resolve this? I'd really like to get this working 100%.