I was really glad when I first found the “Starter Kits” support in the VS.NET 2005 IDE. With few clicks I can just make a basic pre-defined .NET application, specially with commonly used custom codes. Well the second wonder was waiting for me, when I have seen how easy to built my own starter kits.
Here is the very quick steps that is needed to be followed to built a starter kit.
1. Create your application with VS.NET (which might be a windows application or web site or any other type of application). Lets assume this is a web application, named “MyWebApp” which has an aspx file named “default.aspx” and a text file named “ReadMe.txt”. After making an web site using this kit, we would like to see the “ReadMe.txt” file to be opened in the VS.NET IDE.
2. File -> Export Template, create a template, which will be saved in zip format in the “Exported Template” of the VS 2005 IDE project location. Lets assume the template name as “MyWebApp”.
3. After getting the zip file, extract it, and we will find a file named “MyTemplate.vstemplate”. After opning it with a editor, we sould add a new line in that file into a similar tag location, to set the start-up object, which will be opnned right after creating the site thru the starter kit.
<ProjectItem ReplaceParameters="false" OpenOrder="10" OpenInWebBrowser="true">ReadMe.txt </ProjectItem>
After making this chage, we have to get back to the zip format as before.
4. Now add a new text file named “MyWebApp.vscontent”, and we have to add the folowing text, with necessary values:
<VSContent xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vscontent/2005">
<Content>
<FileName> MyWebApp.zip</FileName>
<DisplayName>Our Starter kit</DisplayName>
<Description>VSTemplate for C# project</Description>
<FileContentType>VSTemplate</FileContentType>
<ContentVersion>1.0</ContentVersion>
<Attributes>
<Attribute name="TemplateType" value="Project"></Attribute>
<Attribute name="ProjectType" value="Visual C#"></Attribute>
<Attribute name="ProjectSubType" value=""></Attribute>
</Attributes>
</Content>
</VSContent>
5. Now we have to create a new zip file (assume “MyApp.zip”) with this file and the zip file that contains the contents.
6. Change the extention of the zip file from “MyApp.zip” to “MyApp.zip ”.
That’s it !
How to remove a starter kit?
Well while testing and developing, your IDE dialogue may be filled with lots of “Test” starter kit. Now the concern is how to remove those starter kit.
Go to the VS.NET 2005 default folder and locates the zip file associated to the starter kit, and remove that:
\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#\ Starter Kits\ CardGameStarterKit.zip