How to: Add Items Using Online Item Templates

Visual Studio provides many default project item templates. If these templates do not meet your needs, you can search online for additional templates to use in Visual Studio.

Note

The dialog boxes and menu commands you see might differ from those described in Help depending on your active settings or edition. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.

Creating a new project item from an item template includes the following steps:

1. Locating the item template.

2. Installing the item template so that it appears in the Add New Item dialog box in Visual Studio.

3. Creating a project item based on the item template from the Add New Item dialog box.

Search for project item templates online

You can search for existing online item templates by keyword. Once you have located the item template you intend to use, you can read additional information about the item template and decide whether or not to download it.

To search for an item template online

1. In Solution Explorer, select a target project.

2. On the Project menu, select Add New Item.

3. In the Templates list, select Search Online Templates under My Templates and then click Add.

   The Search page of Help appears, with the Item Templates option selected for the Topic Type filter.

4. In the text box, enter a keyword or name for the item template you are searching for and then click Search.

   Matches are grouped by source and are displayed in the Search Results area.

5. Click on a result to display additional information for the template.

Install item templates

Once you have downloaded item template, you must install the item template so that it appears in the Add New Item dialog box.

To install item templates downloaded from the Web

1. On the Web page for the item template, click the link to download the item template.

2. Click Open to download and install the item template at the same time.

   The Visual Studio Content Installer wizard appears.

3. On the Welcome to the Visual Studio Content Installer Wizard page, select the items you intend to install and then choose Next.

   Security Note:
   It is highly recommended that you read the information in Publisher Status to determine whether or not the control is signed. For further security, click Review to display a list of the files that will be installed on your computer.

   The Installing Content page appears.

4. On the Installation Complete page, click Finish.

Use the item template to create a new item in your project

Once you have located a suitable item template online, you can easily use this template to create a new project item within Visual Studio.

Security Note:
Before you use a downloaded project item, determine the trustworthiness of the code outside of Visual Studio. Opening project items in Visual Studio automatically executes code from that file on your local machine in the trusted process of devenv.exe.

To add a downloaded item template to your project

1. In Solution Explorer, select a target project.

2. On the Project menu, select Add New Item.

3. In the Templates list, select the item template you downloaded from the My Templates section.

4. Click Add.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Use a Starter Kit to Create a New Project

Concepts

How to: Locate and Organize Project and Item Templates