Pablo Galiano : Creating and deploying solution item templates

Creating and deploying solution item templates

A solution item template is an VS item template that is available at the Solution level.

The list of item templates that you see on the Add New Item dialog is constructed by VS by looking for installed templates on certain locations.

There are two types of templates:

Installed Templates
- <VisualStudioInstallDir>\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\Language\Locale\
Custom Templates
- My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ItemTemplates\Language\

The location for the custom templates can be modified:

So lets see again the locations:

<VisualStudioInstallDir>\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\Language\Locale\

My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ItemTemplates\Language\

The problem is that for a solution item template we DON'T have a language, there is no project that act as a container because we want to add the item directly to the solution.

So how we can create and deploy a solution template? The answer is by using the General category:

<VisualStudioInstallDir>\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\General\Locale\

My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ItemTemplates\General\

And the same category for the ProjectType node in the vstemplate file:

<VSTemplate Version="2.0.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005" Type="Item">
<TemplateData>
    <DefaultName>Class1.cs</DefaultName>
    <Name>MyClass</Name>
    <Description>My Item Template</Description>
    <ProjectType>General</ProjectType>
    <SortOrder>10</SortOrder>
    <Icon>MyClass.ico</Icon>
</TemplateData>
<TemplateContent>
    <References />
    <ProjectItem SubType="Code" TargetFileName="$fileinputname$.cs" ReplaceParameters="true">Class1.cs</ProjectItem>
</TemplateContent>
</VSTemplate>

Pablo

posted on Thursday, October 04, 2007 9:19 PM by pga

# re: Creating and deploying solution item templates @ Thursday, August 28, 2008 9:42 AM

Hi Pablo, interesting article.

I was trying to add a new template, but for the File -> New WebSite... option in the Shell's menu.

Currently the option is enabled, but the templates dialog appears empty.

Is there any way to create a new template (or use the one that comes with VS) and add it to that dialog?

Thanks for your help.

P.S I'd really appreciate if you could dm me if u post an answer, because this doesn't have any notify option.

willvv

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