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How to create a multi project template

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Ralph Möritz edited this page Jul 30, 2014 · 16 revisions

Sample Projects

I’m going to show you how to create multi-project template. Let’s say we want our new template to create a solution with two projects - class library (let’s further call it Specification) and a test library (Tests) which will contain functional tests.

1. Visual studio template

First create a VSIX project.

Then run install-package TemplateBuilder –pre command in Package Manager Console (Tools\NuGet Package Manager\Package Manager Console). You should see following lines in the Manager console:

2. Visual Studio Project structure integration

Next step is following TemplateBuilder naming convention and creating a folder structure that will be visible in the Visual studio Create New project window. Let’s say we want our template to appear under MultiProjectWaffle section. To do so we need to have following hierarchy.

Here MultiSpecBasic folder is used to keep all the files and projects related to one multi-project template in a separated folder. In other words it will not show up in the Create New project window.

3. Multi-project solution

At this step we should create our multi-project solution in the aforementioned MulitSpecBasic folder. To do it just open a new instance of VS and create a new solution with 2 class libraries named Specification and Test. Now we should have a new sub-solution:

And following folder structure:

4. Referencing new folder structure in the template project

Now we can add the template folder hierarchy to our SpecTemplate project. To do so we need to enable “Show All files” option in the Solution explorer.

And then include MultiSpecBasic to the project:

Note: Visual Studio will include all the files and subfolder under MultiSpecBasic folder, but we do not need them here. So we will just remove everything below Specification and Tests by choosing “Exclude from project” menu item and will have following structure:

5. Add project item templates

Now we need to create MyTemplate.vstemplate for each of our template projects. To do so we will go to File Explorer and create a file with that name in the Specification and Tests folders.

In our example we will have Specification\MyTemplate.vstemplate file:

<VSTemplate Version="3.0.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005" Type="Project">
  <TemplateData>
    <Name>Your name here</Name>
    <Description>Project description here</Description>
    <DefaultName>$saferootprojectname$.Specification</DefaultName>
    
    <ProjectType>CSharp</ProjectType>
    <ProjectSubType></ProjectSubType>
    <SortOrder>1000</SortOrder>
    <CreateNewFolder>true</CreateNewFolder>    
    <ProvideDefaultName>true</ProvideDefaultName>
    <LocationField>Enabled</LocationField>
    <EnableLocationBrowseButton>true</EnableLocationBrowseButton>
    
    <!-- Indicates how many parent folders this item template should appear in -->
    <NumberOfParentCategoriesToRollUp>1</NumberOfParentCategoriesToRollUp>
  </TemplateData>
  <TemplateContent>
    <Project TargetFileName="$saferootprojectname$.Specification.csproj" File="Specification.csproj" ReplaceParameters="true">      
    </Project>
  </TemplateContent>
  <WizardExtension>
    <Assembly>TemplateBuilder, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null</Assembly>
    <FullClassName>TemplateBuilder.ChildWizard</FullClassName>
  </WizardExtension>
</VSTemplate>

And Tests\MyTemplate.vstemplate file:

<VSTemplate Version="3.0.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005" Type="Project">
  <TemplateData>
    <Name>Your name here</Name>
    <Description>Project description here</Description>
    <DefaultName>$saferootprojectname$.Tests</DefaultName>
    
    <ProjectType>CSharp</ProjectType>
    <ProjectSubType></ProjectSubType>
    <SortOrder>1000</SortOrder>
    <CreateNewFolder>true</CreateNewFolder>    
    <ProvideDefaultName>true</ProvideDefaultName>
    <LocationField>Enabled</LocationField>
    <EnableLocationBrowseButton>true</EnableLocationBrowseButton>
    
    <!-- Indicates how many parent folders this item template should appear in -->
    <NumberOfParentCategoriesToRollUp>1</NumberOfParentCategoriesToRollUp>
  </TemplateData>
  <TemplateContent>
    <Project TargetFileName="$saferootprojectname$.Tests.csproj" File="Tests.csproj" ReplaceParameters="true">      
    </Project>
  </TemplateContent>
  <WizardExtension>
    <Assembly>TemplateBuilder, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null</Assembly>
    <FullClassName>TemplateBuilder.ChildWizard</FullClassName>
  </WizardExtension>
</VSTemplate>

6. Add vstemplate definition

Now we can create C# vs template. Right-click on MultiProjectWaffle folder and add new item – SideWaffle definitions folder (under Extensibility templates). We will just name it MultiSpecBasic so visual studio will not create any subfolder.

Now there will be several vstemplat- files added. In our sample we are going to integrate our new template under C# items. So we will just delete all the other templates except CSharp.vstemplat- and rename it to CSharp.vstemplate.

7. Referencing project templates

Now edit CSharp.vstemplate to look like following snippet:

<VSTemplate Version="2.0.0" Type="ProjectGroup"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005">
 
  <!-- Fore more info on multi project templates visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185308(v=vs.90).aspx -->
 
  <TemplateData>
    <Name>MultiProject Waffle project</Name>
    <Description>Creates multiple Waffles</Description>
    <ProjectType>CSharp</ProjectType>
    <DefaultName>WaffleProject</DefaultName>
    <SortOrder>5000</SortOrder>
  </TemplateData>
  <TemplateContent>
    <ProjectCollection>
      <ProjectTemplateLink ProjectName="$safeprojectname$.Specification">Specification\MyTemplate.vstemplate</ProjectTemplateLink>
      <ProjectTemplateLink ProjectName="$safeprojectname$.Tests">Tests\MyTemplate.vstemplate</ProjectTemplateLink>
    </ProjectCollection>
  </TemplateContent>
  <WizardExtension>
    <Assembly>TemplateBuilder, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null</Assembly>
    <FullClassName>TemplateBuilder.RootWizard</FullClassName>
  </WizardExtension>
</VSTemplate>

Pay attention to ProjectTemplateLink tags – these are actual links to the project to our new template.

WizardExtension is a special tag that will be used by template builder during template generation process. It should reference RootWizard in the solution template and ChildWizard in the project templates (shown in the previous section).

8. Adding _preprocess.xml

So we are almost done. The last step is to add _preprocess.xml to each of the project folders. We will need them under MultiSpecBasic, Specification and Tests folders. Simply right-click each of that folders and add a new item - _preprocess.xml

We will end up with this:

Now we will need to edit those xmls in the following order.

MultiSpecBasic_preprocess.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Preprocess>
  <!--
  You can specify the path where this should show up in the
  Add New Project / Add New Item dialog by setting the value below
  -->
  <TemplateInfo Path="CSharp\MultiWaffle"/>
  <Replacements Include="*.*" Exclude="*.vstemplate;*.csproj;*.fsproj;*.vbproj;*.jpg;*.png;*.ico;_preprocess.xml;_project.vstemplate.xml">
  </Replacements>
</Preprocess>

MultiSpecBasic\Specification_preprocess.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Preprocess>
  <!--
  You can specify the path where this should show up in the
  Add New Project / Add New Item dialog by setting the value below
  -->
  <TemplateInfo Path="CSharp\MultiWaffle\Spec"/>
  <Replacements Include="*.*" Exclude="*.vstemplate;*.csproj;*.fsproj;*.vbproj;*.jpg;*.png;*.ico;_preprocess.xml;_project.vstemplate.xml">
    <add key="ProjectName" value="$saferootprojectname$"/>
  </Replacements>
</Preprocess>

And MultiSpecBasic\Tests_preprocess.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Preprocess>
  <!--
  You can specify the path where this should show up in the
  Add New Project / Add New Item dialog by setting the value below
  -->
  <TemplateInfo Path="CSharp\MultiWaffle\Test"/>
  <Replacements Include="*.*" Exclude="*.vstemplate;*.csproj;*.fsproj;*.vbproj;*.jpg;*.png;*.ico;_preprocess.xml;_project.vstemplate.xml">
    <add key="ProjectName" value="$saferootprojectname$"/>
  </Replacements>
</Preprocess>

9. Editing the VSIX manifest

Add the following entry to the Assets section of the file source.extension.vsixmanifest to ensure the TemplateBuilder assembly is included in our VSIX:

<Asset Type="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Assembly" d:Source="File" Path="TemplateBuilder.dll" AssemblyName="TemplateBuilder, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null" />

10. Show me my Multi Waffle template!

And that is it. Simply build your SpecTemplate project (make sure you put correct template publisher in source.extension.vsixmanifest file – you can do it by double-clicking that file in the solution explorer and putting correct name under Author edit box) and hit Ctrl+F5 to run experimental VS instance. And here is the magic view you should see:

And ok button will create our brand new project:

Now you can go to the TemplateProjects.sln in your SpecTemplate\ProjectTemplates\MultiProjectWaffle\MultiSpecBasic folder and modify it to be something more useful – adding new classes, configurations and so on. You do not have to think about updating template files anymore – Template builder will pick up all your changes automatically. You will just need to open SpecTemplate.sln file and rebuild the project to have a new version of SpecTemplate.vsix file.

Note

You can download a hard copy of these instructions here.

Copyright 2015 LigerShark

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