I have exported a Sharepoint 2010 list as a list template (.stp file) via the UI.
Is there any way to import this list template back to Visual Studio 2010 or is my only chance to extract the .cab file and go through the manifest.xml manually?
moontear!
Yesterday I gave some thoughts to the same matter.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the solution to import the list template to VS 2010. It seems, that Microsoft deprecated .stp files in SP 2010 and replaced them with .wsp one.
Therefore, I found two solutions:
The first: Working with .cab files, as you said.
The second: Make the template of the whole site and copy the list from it to your project in VS 2010.
I'm in agreement with #Deniplane. If there is data in a SharePoint list that needs to become part of my Visual Studio 2010 solution, I export the .stp and lift the <Data> node from the manifest.xml and put it into my list template file in Visual Studio (in my scenario the list def is already in my project, but I'm trying to get default data nodes into the definition).
In one case, I use regular expressions to delete a number of superflous elements from each <Row> since the amount of default data was rather large and it took too long to clean it out by hand.
However, if you're trying to incorporate an entire list definition back into your Visual Studio sln, then, I always have to go with Deniplane's 2nd option.
Related
I am trying to generate code scaffolding for an in-house API. I created a T4 template which includes several other templates for each code file to be generated. I then wrote a Visual Studio Extension (VSIX) with a WPF form to capture user input and initiate the transforming of the T4 template. I am doing all of this in Visual Studio Professional 2013.
This is what I followed to Invoke the Text Transformation in a VS Extension
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg586947%28v=vs.120%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
When testing the templates locally using Run custom tool, everything works perfectly. However, when testing the VS extension in an Experimental Instance of Visual Studio, the problem I am having is that after the transformation has been invoked [calling ITextTemplating.ProcessTemplate], the generated files are not placed into my open project. I verified that they exist in their appropriate folders in File Explorer.
I have searched high & low and can't find anything that talks about this. Any ideas?
The custom tool is using the Visual Studio API (DTE object) to add the generated files to the projects. I built something very similar and that is what I had to do. This project is a bit old but it is a great starting point for seeing how this can be done.
Basically you need to get a reference to the folder you want to add the new item to and then call AddFromFile. Also don't forget to save the project after you add all the items.
I create a new custom project type using a VSPackage project inheriting of MPF library (http://mpfproj11.codeplex.com/). As a result I obtain a .vsix but I need add this project type using a .msi. I'm using the Visual Studio 2010 Setup projet for it. In my setup project I add the content of the VS Package in the same directory where the .vsix put then, but I think Ineed to put in the registre the new type of project because when I use the setup , the project template does not come out in Visual Studio and when I give double click the file with extension of the type of new project and does not recognize it. When I look the registry after install the vsix, this was one of the things that I found diferent. I add this entries in my setup project but It's not working yet.I'm missing something else?
In the projecttemplatedir is the directory where I put the .dll of the project type, the vsixmifest and pkgdef. The project template is in [User]\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates\[Name of new Project Type]\[projecttemplate.zip]
Best Regards
PS: The project type is for VS 2013 but I'm using the VS 2010 Setup project ;)
OK, so first the "don't"s of doing this:
In general, if you are installing via MSI you shouldn't be doing anything user-specific -- no writing in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, nor writing within their Documents folder, LocalAppData, or Visual Studio folders, etc. If you see yourself writing files or registry keys in either of those places, that should be your hint that there's a better way to do what you're trying to do. For what you've shown so far, this raises more than a few red flags for me.
Second, don't ever go writing keys into 12.0_Config. That part of the hive is nothing more than a cache that's built up from other parts of the registry and on-disk .pkgdef files from extensions. It's rebuilt in any number of senarios, including installing new extensions. Any writes there you should presume will get blown away at any time. If you need to write things there you should either (a) write in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[version] and run devenv /setup or (2) [preferred] put your keys in a .pkgdef inside your extension which gets merged into 12.0_Config for you automatically.
Now the dos:
You said you already had a .vsix produced by the SDK: you can put project templates in there. You can then register those templates in the .vsixmanifest and those will pull in. That's far easier than mucking around with files in Documents -- that's the user's directory...don't go playing with that.
Once you have a .vsix that does most of what you need, you should simply take the files within that and install the files in a folder within C:\Program Files [(x86)]\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions. Even better, you might just want to WiX toolset to build your installer, since it has built-in support for installing extensions. It also has built-in support for invoking the "/setup" process if that's what you need to do as well. Visual Studio Setup projects are no longer supported in newer versions of Visual Studio, so you're better off starting with a technology that isn't already obsolete. WiX is even what we use at Microsoft to do the setup work for Visual Studio itself, so it's definitely up to the task.
Last point: almost everything when it comes to Visual Studio extensibility can be done with a VSIX directly, so presume there's a good way to do something that way before falling back to an MSI. Internally, we can register the entire C# and VB language services with just a VSIX -- they're quite powerful.
I found the answer in this link Registering Project and Item Templates. I set projecttemplatedir entry with
[User]\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates[Name of new Project Type][projecttemplate.zip] that is where i put the project template.
Visual Studio 2012 (and 2010, too) has a Start Page that has links and streamed videos. Is it possible for my package to provide content on this page, e.g., create a separate section next to Welcome/Windows 8/etc.?
I finally got a custom start page working in VS2012 - my issue was I could not install the Start Page Project Template in 2012 as the extension only installs on 2010 (which I don't have access to) and my My Documents folder is mapped to a network drive, so putting the raw XAML file in My Documents/Visual Studio 2012/Startpages didn't work as Visual Studio refused to use this "untrustworthy file".
Download the Start Page Template from here.
Rename the file to .zip and extract it.
Copy the "\Solution\CSharp\Extensibility\StartPage.zip" file to your project template folder (by default "My Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#").
Create a new project using this template.
Follow the instructions here to upgrade from 2010 to 2012 start page.
Update the project properties target framework to 4.5.
Update the project references in the Control project by removing the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0 reference and adding the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.11.0 and Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Immutable.11.0 references.
Update the namespaces references in the xaml file by replacing the existing ones with the two below.
xmlns:vs="clr-namespace:Microsoft.VisualStudio.PlatformUI;assembly=Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.11.0"
xmlns:vsfxim="clr-namespace:Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Immutable.11.0"
Replace the references to vsfx:VsBrushes keys to vs:EnvironmentColors keys, e.g. vsfx:VsBrushes.StartPageBackgroundKey to vs:EnvironmentColors.StartPageTabBackgroundBrushKey
In the VSIX project, make the following changes to the source.extension.vsixmanifest file (values depending on if 2010 support is desired, it is not for me):
Add an author, the default empty tag is not allowed: <Author>Ken</Author>
Change/add the visual studio support version to 11.0: <VisualStudio Version="11.0">
Change the supported runtime edition to include 4.5: <SupportedFrameworkRuntimeEdition MinVersion="4.5" MaxVersion="4.5" />
The VSIX solution should now build and spit out a VSIX file in the project bin folder. Install this and you can now choose your Start Page from the drop down list in the visual studio options.
I haven't actually developed my custom start page beyond this, but hopefully it is a helpful to people wanting to get started developing them with VS2012
EDIT: A project which includes a basic 2012 start page, custom control and can be deployed via VSIX: template
Custom Start Pages, via google:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa991992.aspx
I followed the steps on MSDN for creating a template. I created a new project in VS2010 and then used the File->Export Template... option to create my template. I went through the wizard and everything seemed to make sense. I left the default Output location alone (it was:
...Documents\Visual Studio 2010\My Exported Templates\MyProject.zip)
and I left the Automatically import the template into Visual Studio checked. I can see the exported zip file (and I tried moving a copy to the:
Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#
folder. But when I start up a new instance of VS2010 and use File->New Project I don't see my template. I was expecting that in addition to RecentTemplates/ Installed Templates/ Online Templates I might get a new category for User Templates. Failing that I thought it might be under Installed Templates but there is nothing new there. Where is my template supposed to appear? Did I miss a step?
Duh, It was working I just didn't know where to look. I would bring up the new project template and search through all the leaf nodes. Turns out I had to click on the Visual C# root in the tree view (it appears to not be in any of the leafs). This always trips me up in tree views, I never expect the root to have options, let alone be the only place that has an option.
I think you should restart( quit and run again) your visual studio!
I've created a Visual Studio 2010 ASP.NET MVC Project Template as a VSIX package that I'd like to upload to the Visual Studio Gallery, but every time I try it tells me the path is too long...
Locally, it installs and works without issue...
The structure of the project (zipped as t.zip to try and reduce the length) is a standard MVC structured project, the only caveat is that it needs (well, doesn't need to but makes sense for it be there) installs to the Web sub-folder under the C# language, so the path inside the VSIX package is ProjectTemplate\CSharp\Web.
Is there a way around this limitation, or am I simply doing something wrong?
There is a check when you upload to the VS Gallery to see if the path length might end up being too long when installed on the users machine. This check includes not only the files directly in your VSIX, but also the files embedded inside the zip file. (This is because templates are unzipped on disk before they are used for instantiating a new project.)
Unfortunately, I think your only option is to shorten-up the paths of the files in the template itself.