Issue with shared WinForms resources across projects in Visual Studio

I was able to share a resx file between project and using it in the designer in VS 2008 SP1 (I don't know other versions). Differently from other approaches, here resources are statically and dynamically shared, so at runtime there's really one copy of the shared resources. No storage or memory waste and it's easy to maintain with tons of projects.

Follow the guide and tell me if it works for you:

• Create a class project Resources;
• Create a resource file (go to Properties -> Resources of the project);
• Move the resource file (default Resources.resx) to the root of the project;
• Rename the resources file Resources.resx -> GlobalResources.resx;
• Modify the resources file modifier to Public (double click on the resources file, "Access Modifier" -> "Public");
• Copy any resource file to the root directory of the project;
• Add any resource to the resource file using "Add Existing File" and selecting resources on the root directory of the project.

The project in the Solution Explorer should look like this:

Now in any project you need the resx file to be shared do this:

• Add the "Resource" project as a dipendency;

• Edit manually the project file (*.csproj) and add the following lines in the resources file ItemGroup (create a local resource file if you want to see it):

   <ItemGroup>
     ...
     <EmbeddedResource Include="..\Resources\GlobalResources.resx">
       <Link>GlobalResources.resx</Link>
       <Generator>ResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
       <LastGenOutput>GlobalResources.Designer.cs</LastGenOutput>
       <CustomToolNamespace>Resources</CustomToolNamespace>
     </EmbeddedResource>
     ...
   </ItemGroup>
  

Obviously, the "Include" attribute should be the correct relative path to GlobalResources.resx.

• Use the resources in the designer as you was asking.

In my project, the following lines are generated and added to the project automatically when I do this:

<Compile Include="..\Resources\GlobalResources.Designer.cs">
  <Link>GlobalResources.Designer.cs</Link>
  <AutoGen>True</AutoGen>
  <DesignTime>True</DesignTime>
  <DependentUpon>GlobalResources.resx</DependentUpon>
</Compile>

If they aren't added, add them manually.

Now the project should look like this in the Solution Explorer (likend files should be marked differently):

Last two steps:

• Click on the linked "GlobalResources.resx" and on the Properties set "None" as the "BuildAction". "Custom Tool Namespace" should already be set to "Resources";

• Click on the linked "GlobalResources.Designer.resx" and on the Properties set "None" as the "BuildAction".

And you are done: at this point you should really be able to use the resources you added in the shared resx in the designer selecting "GlobalResources.resx" in the "Project Resource file" dialog of your question. And as told it's really shared even at runtime! In the Properties panel you should see the full Namespace and class of the external project. If you remove the dependency on the "Resource" project it doesn't even compile. If it doesn't work for you, insist until it works and in case tell me where the guide is wrong. It have to work! Let me know.

For Visual Studio 2015+

There is an easy, straightforward way, that is not supported in the VisualStudio UI. So if you are not afraid of editing the project files, read on.

If you have not already done so, add a new shared project into the solution.

If you have not already done so, include the new shared project as a shared project reference to your peripheral project.

Note how this shared project is included in the peripheral project (.csproj file) in a straight forward manner:

<Import Project="..\Common\Common.projitems" Label="Shared" />

Thus, even though the VS UI does not expose it, everything in the shared project (.projitems file) is included directly into the peripheral project. Adding the following resource definitions to the shared project (.projitems file) will include them directly into your peripheral project. But, because the Resource element is not supported by the VS UI for shared projects, these files will be hidden and ignored in the IDE.

<ItemGroup>
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\one 16x16.png" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\one 64x64.png" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\one.ico" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\two 16x16.png" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\three 16x16.png" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\four 16x16.png" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\five 16x16.png" />
  <Resource Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)Resources\six 16x16.png" />
</ItemGroup>

Lastly, whereas your peripheral project resources might have relative paths (e.g. ".\Resources\main.ico"), these resources are compiled into your peripheral project with base ids, not absolute or relative. e.g.:

<Window x:Class="Common.Shared"
  ...
  Icon="one.ico">
  <Window.Resources>
    <ResourceDictionary>
      <BitmapImage x:Key="one64" UriSource="one 64x64.png"/>
    </ResourceDictionary>
  </Window.Resources>

SHARING RESOURCES BETWEEN PROJECTS IN VS2012

in 3 easy steps using the designer only!

1. create a project and add your resources to be shared as usual
2. create another project and 'add as link' the resources.resx of the first project in the 'add existing item' Dialog, accessible from the context menu
3. select images from the linked resource file as desired; this can be selected in the 'project resource file' pull down menu within the 'select resource' Dialog, accessible from the properties pane

VOILA!

I came accross the same problem recently. Looked around MS documentation but couldn't find any good solutions. I was eventually able to get the image editor in the WinForms designer to recognize resource files from other projects using the method described below. It is hacky - if anyone has a cleaner solution they want to share please post. I have tested this on VS 2008 only.

Before I start I should say that if you just want to make the items in a Resources.resx file accessible to other projects, you can just edit its properties and set the access modifier for the generated class to public so it uses PublicResXFileCodeGenerator. The gymnastics below are only needed if you want to get the WinForms designers to pick up images inside this resource file as described in the post above from Douglas.

Say that your solution has the following layout. The default namespace for the various projects (right click on a project node in solution explorer -> Properties -> Application tab) is important here, so I've put this in brackets after the project names.

• MySolution
  • SharedProject (default namespace = SharedProject)
    • SharedProject.csproj
  • WinFormsProject1 (default namespace = WinFormsProject1)
    • WinFormsProject1.csproj
  • WinFormsProject2 (default namespace = WinFormsProject2)
    • WinFormsProject2.csproj

You want to create a resource file in SharedProject containing images that can be used by WinFormsProject1 and WinFormsProject2.

First create a new Resource file in the root of SharedProject, let's call it SharedResources.resx. It is important that this file uses ResXFileCodeGenerator rather than PublicResXFileCodeGenerator for reasons which will become clear later.

Edit SharedResources.resx in Visual Studio and add the image resources you want to share. Visual Studio should also generate a class file for you inside SharedProject called SharedResources.designer.cs.

Your solution should now look like this:

• MySolution
  • SharedProject (default namespace = SharedProject)
    • SharedProject.csproj
    • SharedResources.resx
    • SharedResources.Designer.cs
  • WinFormsProject1 (default namespace = WinFormsProject1)
    • WinFormsProject1.csproj
  • WinFormsProject2 (default namespace = WinFormsProject2)
    • WinFormsProject2.csproj

If you open up SharedProject.csproj with a text editor you should see the following entries:

<EmbeddedResource Include="SharedResources.resx">
      <Generator>ResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
      <LastGenOutput>SharedResources.Designer.cs</LastGenOutput>
</EmbeddedResource>
<Compile Include="SharedResources.Designer.cs">
      <AutoGen>True</AutoGen>
      <DesignTime>True</DesignTime>
      <DependentUpon>SharedResources.resx</DependentUpon>
</Compile>

Now you need to make the resources accessible inside WinFormsProject1. To do this you'll need edit WinFormsProject1.csproj in a text editor because some of the properties you need to set are not exposed inside Visual Studio.

Open up the WinFormsProject1.csproj file and add the following inside an ItemGroup:

<Compile Include="..\SharedProject\SharedResources.Designer.cs">
    <Link>SharedResources.Designer.cs</Link>
    <AutoGen>True</AutoGen>
    <DesignTime>True</DesignTime>
    <DependentUpon>SharedResources.resx</DependentUpon>
</Compile>
<EmbeddedResource Include="..\SharedProject\SharedResources.resx">
    <Link>SharedResources.resx</Link>
    <Generator>ResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator>
    <LastGenOutput>SharedResources.Designer.cs</LastGenOutput>
    <CustomToolNamespace>SharedProject</CustomToolNamespace>
    <LogicalName>SharedProject.SharedResources.resources</LogicalName>
</EmbeddedResource>

The key things here are CustomToolNamespace and LogicalName. By default Visual Studio uses the project's default namespace to name resources and to generate the *.Designer.cs file. Since SharedProject and WinFormsProject1 have different default namespaces the default behaviour causes the resource that is embedded in WinFormsProject1 to be incompatible with the *.Designer.cs file that is inside SharedProject. This can be prevented by overriding CustomToolNamespace and LogicalName.

Now do the same for WinFormsProject2.csproj. Go back to Visual Studio. It will notice that you've changed the csproj files and ask to reload the projects - choose "reload". You should find that you can now choose images from SharedResources.resx when designing forms in both WinFormsProject1 and WinFormsProject2.

Essentially what all of this does is make VS include the SharedResources.resx file from SharedProject in the WinFormsProject1 and WinFormsProject2 projects. There is only one .resx source file (in SharedProject), but when you compile the solution there will actually be three identical classes called SharedProject.SharedResources, one in each of the three assemblies, but since all have internal visibility they won't interfere with one another even if you add a reference between the projects.