Visual studio 2010 part 35 potx

There are various reasons you might want to create a custom project template, such as adding new items that aren’t included in the default project template, removing items from the defau

Customizing

the Development

Environment

Key Skills & Concepts

● Implement Custom Templates

● Create Custom Snippets

● Write Macros

In addition to all the great features you’ve seen in preceding chapters, VS gives you the

capabilities to customize your own environment The customizations I’ll discuss are custom templates, custom snippets, and macros

Throughout the book, you’ve started new projects and added items to those projects, using what is available with VS On some occasions, you might desire to have a special type of project or customize an existing project for your own needs The same need might apply to project items (such as a special type of class file), where you might change the contents of an item or create a new item

Chapter 2 showed you how to use snippets, and Chapters 3 and 4 showed how to use several more snippets to quickly code common statements In addition to using existing snippets, you can create your own VS also has a management window that allows you to organize snippets, adding, deleting, and rearranging as you see fit

Whenever you run into repetitive scenarios, it would be nice to capture the actions you perform so that you can quickly complete a task For example, if you found yourself using the same set of keystrokes, it would be nice to collapse that action down into one command Macros allow you to collapse repetitive tasks into a single task, saving you time Let’s start the journey of customizing VS by looking at customizing templates

Implementing Custom Templates

As you’ve seen in previous chapters, VS helps you get started with new projects and project items by providing default project items and skeleton code In most cases, this is

a very quick way to get started with a project As you become more proficient in VS, you might prefer to have projects with different items than those that ship with VS or item templates with different code This section will show you how to create your own project and item templates

Creating New Project Templates

If you’re working on a single project that lasts a long time, you might be satisfied with

using a default template and doing a one-time modification However, if you are starting

new projects on a regular basis, customizing a project template can be very useful There

are various reasons you might want to create a custom project template, such as adding

new items that aren’t included in the default project template, removing items from

the default template that you don’t ever use, or changing an existing item for version

upgrades In addition to customizing existing templates, you might want to create a brand

new template for a new project type that doesn’t yet exist

The example in this section will show you how to customize the ASP.NET MVC

project template The specific changes made to the template will be to remove much of

the default code provided by the template The assumption is that once you’ve written a

few ASP.NET MVC applications, you won’t need the default files as examples and would

prefer to start with a more bare-bones template and build the application from the ground

up yourself

Modifying a Project

The easiest way to get started with creating a new project template is to start a new project that is most similar to the project type you want to create If you wanted a blank project,

you might start with a Console project because there aren’t many items and it’s quicker to

delete them all In the scenario for this section, we want to create a specialized ASP.NET

MVC project, so it makes sense to create a new ASP.NET MVC project The following

steps show you how:

1 Press CTRL-SHIFT-N to create a new project and select ASP.NET MVC 2 Web Application

Name the project and solution Custom ASP.NET MVC Web Application and set the

location for anywhere you like Click OK to create the project Next, the Create Unit

Test Project window will appear and you should click “No, do not create a unit test

project” and click OK VS will create a new solution with a project Chapter 9 explains

what each of the projects and items are

2 Open the Controllers folder and delete its contents

3 Open the Models folder and delete its contents

4 Open the Views folder but only delete the Account and Home folders

5 Open the Shared folder, under the Views folder, and delete its contents

6 Double-click Global.asax and comment out the call to routes.MapRoute in the editor

7 To make sure your changes are okay, build and run the project Select Build | Rebuild Solution and ensure you don’t receive compiler errors Then press F5 to run and allow

VS to modify the Web.config file Since you’ve commented out the route in Global .asax and there aren’t any files to locate, you’ll receive the message “The resource can’t

be found” in the browser This is okay because it’s assumed that you want to build your own controllers, models, and views and apply custom routing too

You now have customized ASP.NET MVC project that allows you to build your application without any preinstalled items VS is likely to ship with an empty template, but for additional customization, you might replace the CSS file in the Content folder

or add your own JavaScript libraries to the Scripts folder Make any changes you feel are most helpful for starting a new ASP.NET MVC project Next, you’ll learn how to transform this project into a reusable project template

Exporting the Project Template

After you have a project configured the way you want, you can save it as a project

template The first step is to select File | Export Template, which will display the Choose Template Type window, shown in Figure 12-1 Choose Project Template and click Next

Figure 12-1 The Choose Template Type window

The next window is Select Template Options, shown in Figure 12-2 The Template

Name defaults to the name of the project, which you can change You can see how the

filled-in Template description tells what the template is used for Additionally, if you want

to associate an icon or preview, you can click the respective Browse button and select

the image you want to be associated with the project As you may recall, the New Project

window has an icon for the project and will display a preview whenever you select the

project The “Automatically import the template into Visual Studio” option will make the

project template available via the New Project window “Display an explorer window on

the output files folder” will allow you to access the new file, shown in the Output location Click Finish to create the template

After you click Finish, VS does two things: it saves to the output location and makes the

template available in VS The output location is just a place to store the project template,

Custom ASP.NET Web Application.zip, which contains all of the information VS needs

to display the template and create the project if you select it in the New Projects window

Figure 12-2 The Select Template Options window

You can share the project template with other developers too The next section shows what

to do to get the project template to appear in VS

Using the New Project Template

The instructions for exporting the project template in the preceding section chose

“Automatically import the template into Visual Studio.” The use of the word “import” might make you think there is some magic process going on in the background, which there is to some extent However, all the Export Template Wizard did was copy the Custom ASP.NET MVC Web Application.zip file from the Output location to

<My Documents>\Visual Studio 2010\Templates\ProjectTemplates, which I’ll call local project templates The <My Documents> folder location can differ, depending on the version of Windows you’re running Once the file appears in the local project templates folder, you can verify that it’s been imported into VS by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-N and observing that Custom ASP.NET MVC Web Application appears in the list

If you had not checked “Automatically import the template into Visual Studio” (Figure 12-2), then you could have copied the Custom ASP.NET MVC Web Application .zip file to the local project templates folder yourself and the project template would appear in VS If you share the Custom ASP.NET MVC Web Application.zip file with another developer, she can copy to the local project templates folder also

If you delete the file from the local project templates folder, it will no longer appear in the VS New Projects window

Another option for adding project templates is to copy the project templates file to a folder under \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates, which I’ll call global project templates There are various folders under global project

templates, including CSharp VisualBasic, Web, and more; each folder corresponding to folders in the VS New Project window Under each folder is a locale code—for instance, English is 1033—and you would copy the file into the locale folder for the category you wanted the project template to appear in For example, if you wanted the project template to appear in Visual C# | Web in the New Projects window, copy the project template *.zip file to

\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Web Unlike templates in the local project templates folder, where all you need to do is copy the file, project templates in the global project templates folder don’t automatically show up To test the global project templates scenario, you should remove the project template from your local project templates folder You must close down VS and execute the following in a command window, which you should open by selecting Start | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 | Visual Studio Tools | right-click on Visual Studio Command

Prompt (2010) and select Run As Administrator This will take a few minutes to run, but

afterward you’ll see the project appear in the VS New Project window This command

imports all of the project templates from the global project templates folder into VS:

devenv /installvstemplates

If later you decide you don’t want a given template to appear in the VS New Project

window, remove the project template from the global project templates folder(s) and run

the preceding command again

Now you’re able to create and use custom project templates While you might create

projects occasionally, it’s a common task to create project items, covered next

Creating New Item Templates

Sometimes, you use certain item templates frequently but often modify the contents of

the item for your own purposes In these cases, it’s useful to be able to create a custom

item template instead The example in this section will be to create something that isn’t

currently an item in VS: a new item template for enums To create a new item template,

we’ll create the file for holding the item, save the new item, and then use the new item in

a project

Creating an Item Template

The easiest way to get started with creating a new item template is to start a new project

that has an existing item template that is most similar to the one you want to create For

a new enum template, all we need is a class file, so any project that allows you to add a

class file template will work The example in this section will use a Console project, but

the project type doesn’t matter because we’ll only be interested in extracting one file for

the item template The following steps show you how:

1 Press CTRL-SHIFT-N to create a new project and select Console Application Name

the project anything you want and set the location for anywhere you like; name and

location don’t matter because we are only interested in the item template file and not

the project Click OK to create the project VS will create a new solution with a project

By now, you’ve seen plenty of new Console applications in previous chapters, and this

will be the same

2 Right-click the project in Solution Explorer, select Add | New Item, select Code File,

name the file Enum.cs (Enum.vb for VB), and click Add This will add a new blank

file to your project

3 Add the following code to the file:

C#:

/// <summary>

/// Enum description /// </summary>

public enum MyEnum {

/// <summary>

/// Item 1 description /// </summary>

Item1, /// <summary>

/// Item 2 description /// </summary>

Item2 }

VB:

''' <summary>

''' Enum description ''' </summary>

Public Enum MyEnum ''' <summary>

''' Item 1 description ''' </summary>

Item1 ''' <summary>

''' Item 2 description ''' </summary>

Item2 End Enum

4 Save the file

You now have a file that can be used as a skeleton for new enums The next section shows you how to export this file so that it can be used as an item template

Exporting the Item Template

After you have a file written the way you want, you can save it as an item template The first step is to select File | Export Template, which will display the Choose Template Type window, shown in Figure 12-3 Choose Item Template and click Next

The next window is Select Item To Export, shown in Figure 12-4 The list shows all

of the files eligible for creating an item Check Enum.cs, which is the only file we’re

interested in for this example Click Next to continue

Next, you’ll see the Select Item References window, shown in Figure 12-5 These are

the assemblies that are part of the project that you’re extracting the item template from

Check the assemblies that this item will require In this case, I want to ensure the System

assembly is included Ignore the warning message, as it is assumed that you will always

have the NET Framework installed and the System.dll assembly will always be available Click Next to continue

Figure 12-3 The Choose Template Type window

Figure 12-6 shows Select Template Options, where you specify how the item template will appear in the New Items window that appears when selecting Add |

New Item on a project The Template name defaults to the name of the project, which you should change to the item name, by changing the template name to Enum The description lets the user know the purpose of the item template If you want to associate

an icon or preview, you can click the respective Browse button and select the image you want to be associated with the item As you may recall, the New Item window has an icon for the item and will display a preview whenever you select the project The “Automatically import the template into Visual Studio” option will make the item template available via the New Item window “Display an explorer window on the output files folder” will allow you to access the new file, shown in the Output location Click Finish to create the item template

Figure 12-4 The Select Item To Export window