6

Background
I am working with VB6 legacy code and I am using an external editor because of the features that it has. Unfortunately, those changes aren't refreshed in the IDE because VB6 doesn't monitor loaded code for changes.

I have done some extensive searching on the subject including looking for alternative editors, a fairly exhaustive internet search including following all of the links on this StackExchange link and haven't found a way to refresh the code window to reflect the external file changes.

My company doesn't have access to the latest edition of Visual Studio and will not be purchasing it anytime in the near future. Until then, there is code to fix.

Question
Aside from restarting the program are there any methods that can be used to refresh the code displayed in the VB6 editing window?

StayOnTarget
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Dodzi Dzakuma
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    From your "background" section it sounds like you've done good research, so you may have considered this already. But here goes: did you consider not using the VB6 IDE at all, and compiling from your external editor? You can [launch the VB6 compilation](http://stackoverflow.com/a/232476/15639) from the command-line. – MarkJ Jul 16 '14 at 11:15
  • @MarkJ . Thanks for the information. I think that a command-line compile would be the best for me. The project consists of multiple dlls that are compiled into to a single executable. The order of compilation is pretty important too, but I think I can get it. Are there any sites with good information on managing an environment like this? – Dodzi Dzakuma Jul 16 '14 at 12:33
  • 'latest version of Visual Studio' You do realise that the latest version of VS that can edit VB6 is Visual Studio 6.0. Surely you can pick it up cheaply secondhand? What features do you require in an IDE that VB6 doesn't have? – Carl Onager Jul 29 '14 at 13:06
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    @ClaraOnager here is a link to a plugin for VS 2012 that allows one to edit VB6 projects without upgrading them [Visual Basic Tools for Visual Studio](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/6a06be60-1198-486e-9bce-6ace36b24316) – Dodzi Dzakuma Jul 29 '14 at 13:34
  • So are you using Visual Studio 6.0 or Visual Studio 2012? – Carl Onager Jul 31 '14 at 07:47
  • @ClaraOnager the freshest version of Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (SP6). – Dodzi Dzakuma Jul 31 '14 at 12:45
  • You can migrate Visual Basic 6 code to .net using Visual Basic 2008 Express (conversion tools, free) and Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition is also free to use. – Pedro Polonia Apr 10 '17 at 09:01

2 Answers2

6

Check out vbAdvance add on. It will prompt you to reload source file in case of external modification.

wqw
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2

I think a found one possible solution.

The MZ-Tools set has an function called Reload file from Disk. It also allowed me to create a shortcut for this function through the MZ-Tools options menu, so I assigned it to the shortcut keys of my choosing.

It's a solution, but I'm still looking for anything that might be better.

Dodzi Dzakuma
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