How to: Create a New Windows Application Using Extensibility

Article
02/21/2011

Creating a new project and adding it to the current solution is accomplished through the AddFromTemplate method of the general extensibility DTE.Solution object. This task assumes that you know how to access the Macros integrated development environment (IDE) and create a macro project. For more information, see Automating Repetitive Actions by Using Macros.

The following steps create a Visual Basic project. To create a Visual C# project, use the string "CSharp" in step 4.

Note

The dialog boxes and menu commands you see might differ from those described in Help depending on your active settings or edition. These procedures were developed with the General Development Settings active. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Working with Settings.

To add a new project to the solution

Create a new macro module and name it NewProject.
Add a new macro,NewWindowsProject, to the module.
```
Sub NewWindowsProject()
   ' Add code here to create new project.
End Sub
```
This macro adds a new Visual Basic Windows application.

Select the template you need for a console project. Several different project types may be created, as shown in the table. For a Windows application, use the WindowsApplication.zip template.

Template Name	Project Type
ClassLibrary.zip	Class library
ConsoleApplication.zip	Console application
EmptyProject.zip	Empty project
WebApplication.zip	Web application
WebControl.zip	Web control
WebService.zip	Web service
WindowsApplication.zip	Windows application
WindowsControl.zip	Windows control
WindowsService.zip	Windows service

The syntax for using a template is GetProjectTemplate("WindowsApplication.zip", "VisualBasic"). You can also access templates specific to applications, for example: GetProjectTemplate("PocketPC2003-ClassLibrary.zip", "CSharp") returns the template for a Visual C# class library for a Pocket PC 2003 project. The project templates for all the languages can be found in <drive>\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\Language.

You can also create your own custom project templates and custom project item templates. To specify the directory in which you will store your templates, click Options on the Tools menu. On the left pane of the Options dialog box, click Projects and Solutions. Type the paths for your templates in the Visual Studio user project templates location and Visual Studio user item templates location boxes. Alternatively, you can accept the default locations.

Custom templates require unique file names that do not conflict with the file names defined in:

<drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\Language

and

<drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\Language.

Ensure that you use long file names (as opposed to 8dot3). For more information, see Creating Project and Item Templates.

Use the GetProjectTemplate method to locate the project template. The template path depends on the language, so to retrieve the Visual Basic template, use the string "Visual Basic", as shown below. For a Visual C# template use the string "CSharp".
```
        Dim vbTemplatePath As String
        Dim vbProjectPath As String
        vbProjectPath = "C:\UserFiles\MyFiles\MyProject"
        vbTemplatePath = soln.GetProjectTemplate( _
          "WindowsApplication.zip", "VisualBasic")
```

Call the AddFromTemplate method.

        ' Create a new solution.
        ' Make sure the filepath below exists
        ' on your computer.
        soln.Create("C:\UserFiles\MyFiles\MyProject", "MySolution")
        ' Create a new VB console project using the template
        ' obtained above.
        soln.AddFromTemplate(vbTemplatePath, vbProjectPath, _
        "VB Console Project", False)

The complete macro appears below:

Sub NewWindowsProject ()
        'This function creates a solution and adds a Visual Basic Console
        'project to it. 
        Dim soln As Solution2 = CType(DTE.Solution, Solution2)
        'Dim proj As Project
        Dim msg As String
        Dim vbTemplatePath As String
        Dim vbProjectPath As String
        vbProjectPath = "C:\UserFiles\MyFiles\MyProject"
        vbTemplatePath = soln.GetProjectTemplate _
       ("WindowsApplication.zip", "VisualBasic")

        ' Create a new solution.
        ' Make sure the filepath below exists
        ' on your computer.
        soln.Create("C:\UserFiles\MyFiles\MyProject", "MySolution")
        ' Create a new VB console project using the template
        ' obtained above.
        soln.AddFromTemplate(vbTemplatePath, vbProjectPath, _
        "VB Windows Project", False)
        msg = "Created new solution: " & soln.FullName & vbCrLf
        msg = msg & "Created new project: " & soln.Projects.Kind()
        MsgBox(msg)
    End Sub

Save the macro, close the Macros IDE, and run the macro from Macro Explorer.
View the new Solution, "MySolution", and the Windows application, "VB Windows Project" in the Solution Explorer.

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How to: Create a New Windows Application Using Extensibility

To add a new project to the solution

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