Does VS 2010 Express edition support T4 preprocessed templates? - visual-studio-2010

Just installed 2010 Express Edition and I cannot see Preprocess t4 template as an option. Is it not supported in 2010 Express?

Unfortunately the item templates got a little misconfigured in our setup program for VS Express editions and are not in the right place on disk, so don't show up in the Add New Item dialog.
In VS 2010 Express Editions, we do support T4 templates of both regular and preprocessed kinds, however you'll have to set them up yourself.
If you add a regular text file, then rename its extension to '.tt", it should automatically get the regular T4 custom tool set up in the property grid for the file.
For preprocessed templates, you should set the custom tool manually to 'TextTemplatingFilePreprocessor'.

The simplest test is:
In your Solution, Add New Item... look for Text Template item. If it's there, then chances are that VS 2010 Express supports T4 natively.
Take a look here for more info:
Does Visual Studio 2008 Express support t4?

Related

Can a language extension written in Visual Studio Code be used in Visual Studio 2017?

I am writing a language extension in Visual Studio code (see this article for an example), and I wish to know whether this extension will be useable in Visual Studio 2017 (and 2019 when it comes out).
According to the visual studio docs and especially to this picture it should be possible to migrate that language server to visual studio, too.
However it is not possible to use the exact same extension for VS Code as well as for Visual Studio. At least you will have to change the Provider-specific intizialization code (see the picture) to make the server work for Visual Studio, too.
For further reading you can check out the corresponding VS Code docu on language server.

Use Visual Studio for custom script language

We are using a commercial software that has its own scripting language with which you can customize the product. It is very tedious to write code in it without any help from an IDE and it has its own compiler.
Is it possible to use Visual Studio and create an environment for me to write scripts in this language and get the help of intellisense and syntax highlightning and other good things you find in an IDE? Ideally I would like to bind a button in VS to launch the external compiler and compile the code so I don't have to switch windows all the time as well.
If this is possible is it a very hard thing to accomplish?
Yes, this is certainly possible. You need to create a Visual Studio Shell add-in with custom language services and text editors. You need to install the appropriate Visual Studio SDK and then you'd continue to:
Create a custom Editor and/or designer
Add a language service
Add Project and Item templates
You're allowed to ship Visual Studio Isolated Shell with your application (license required and there are some limitations) so that your users don't need to have Visual Studio Professional installed.
There are a number of open-source projects that provide a custom editor, language services etc in Visual Studio, these could provide a nice place to research how things are done, next to teh Visual Studio SDK documentation:
PyTools, which is a Visual Studio editor for IronPython
Phalanger, which contains a Visual Studio editor for PHP
PoShTools, a Visual Studio service for PowerShell editing right inside Visual Studio
You'll probably want to dig into MsBuild as well, since Visual Studio will expect you to create a project file if you want to edit a collection of files and compile them. MsBuild could in turn call your own compiler, like it calls csc to compile C# code for example.
Creating Project Types

VS 2010 RDLC -Desginer

We have a VS2008 solution with a project that had RDLC files. We generate them dynamically in code, and don't need the viewer.
However, when we converted to VS2010, when I open the .rdlc i don't get the designer, it just opens as XML. Even if I create a new rdlc from scratch in 2010, it opens in xml, not with the designer. Help!!!
Reporting Services development is done in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), which uses the Visual Studio shell. The Visual Studio 2010 shell is not yet supported. You'll have to edit the report in BIDS using the VS2008 shell.
Check the second note here for more info.

Specflow with Visual Studio express

I have used Specflow in Visual Studio 2010 Pro at work but would like to use it on my personal projects. Unfortunately I only have VS210 Express.
I have not managed to get Specflow working in VS2010 Express. has anyone done this or is it even possible.
thanks,
I have managed to do this, and I have written a blog post on how to do this entitled: "C# ATDD on a shoestring (or the complete guide to SpecFlow & NUnit in VS2010 Express)"
The main idea is: SpecFlow generates fixtures for one of the common Unit-Test-Frameworks. More information you can find here.
I suppose that you loose some Item templates that appear in the Visual Studio Professional but disappear for Visual Studio Express versions. To overcome this problem you should take all templates files from SpecFlow application folder on computer where you have Professional version installed. On my computer it is located here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\TechTalk\SpecFlow\ItemTemplates
There should be the files like: SpecFlowFeature.zip and etc, all with *.zip extension. Then you should copy its to your computer for this place:
C:\Users\[User name]\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Templates\ItemTemplates\Visual C#
And finally, open Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express. Create console application, for example. And choose Project -> Add new item. There is only possible to open these templates with Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express. Because inside template files it was defined that templates could be open only with C# project type.
You can't use 3rd party add ons (like Specflow, ReSharper etc.) with the Express editions of Visual Studio. I can't find the reference right now, but this will be why you can't integrate Specflow.

How can I add C# language support to Visual Studio 2010 shell?

Greetings,
I'm using Visual Web Developer Express 2010 to do some development; I have also the Visual Studio 2010 Shell installed, which I use to debug server and client code, using the Debug>Attach to process command.
My problem is that C# (.cs) files open in the shell as if they're plain text files; there's no syntax colouring nor value evaluation on mouse hover over properties or values.
Sometimes when I open ASP.Net pages in the shell I get an error message saying "The Visual Studio language support for C# has not been installed. Code-editing IntelliSense will not be available. Markup IntelliSense for server controls may not work".
VB.Net language support is working well in the shell. I get all the features I have in Visual Studio Express.
Is there a way to get C# language support in the shell?
The Express editions of Visual Studio are a little different than the other SKUs (Professional, Ultimate, etc.) in that there are separate products for the various .NET languages.
My guess is that you have Web Developer Express installed, but in order to open C# code files with the full support of the editor (syntax highlighting, debugging, etc.) you need to download and install Visual C# Express. Multiple versions of Visual Studio Express work side-by-side just fine.
See here to download Visual C# Express 2010 free from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-CS

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