1. Visual Studio Automation
Twin Cities Code Camp
April 5th 2014
Justin Wendlandt
jwendl@hotmail.com
@jwendl
http://www.jwendl.net/

2. Why I Develop Applications
• Laziness
• Automation
• Applied Computer Science

3. Integrated Development Environments
• In College
 VIM
 Eclipse
 CLI
• Professional World
 Visual Studio
 SQL Server Management Studio

4. Extensibility Models for Visual Studio
• Visual Studio Visual Studio Project Templates
• Visual Studio Item Templates
• T4 Code Templates
• NuGet packaging
• DTE development against the Visual Studio COM API
• Build Automation via MSBuild or TFS

5. Visual Studio Project Templates - Simple
• File extensions are stored in a file with a .vsix file extension
• Visual Studio SDK is Required
• For Visual Studio 2013
 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40758
• Installed Extensions for Visual Studio 2013 are located
%LocalAppData%MicrosoftVisualStudio12.0Extensions<Company><
Product><Version>

6. Demo – Simple Project Templates

7. What is Still Missing?
• Ability to have multiple projects on the solution
• Ability to have NuGet automatically fetch associated dependencies
• Name the project when opening up the solution file
• Adding multiple item templates when creating the solution and projects

8. Demo – Complex Project Template

9. T4 Templates
• Code Generation
• Resembles Classic ASP
• Run Entirely from Visual
Studio

10. T4 Templates using EF or ADO.NET

11. T4 Templates using the File System / DTE
• POCO based on Interfaces

12. Word to the Wise
• Use with caution
• Only use when re-iterating multiple
patterns
• Attempt to use Generics instead

13. Visual Studio DTE
• Complex object model
• Support for Solutions, Projects
and Files

14. How MSBuild and .csproj Files Work

15. Customization of MSBuild Definitions

16. MSBuild Definition XML Schema
• XSD exists to describe every option in MSBuild
 %windir%Microsoft.NETFramework[version]MSBuild
• Get latest version of .net by using
 wmic product where "name like 'Microsoft .N%'" get Version

17. TFS Build Automation

18. Customization of Build Templates

19. Online Repository of Templates
• Side Waffle
 http://sidewaffle.com/

20. Questions?
• Twitter: @jwendl
• Email: jwendl@hotmail.com
• Web: http://www.jwendl.net/