VS 2019 Custom ASP.NET Core project templates - asp.net-core

I'm trying to figure out how (or even if) I can create a custom Visual Studio project template that hooks into the existing ASP.NET Core Web Application template available in Visual Studio 2019?
What I want to do is something similar to madskristensens ASP.NET Core Template Pack (GitHub source code). However instead of VS 2017 I want to do this for VS 2019's revamped "New Project Dialog" window. So imagine adding an additional ASP.NET Core web application template in the place highlighted below.
I am able to create new project templates (both for Visual Studio and for dotnet new) but nothing has worked thus far. Has anyone been able to extend VS 2019 in this way, or was this taken away after VS 2017?


After doing some more investigation between both VS 2017 and 2019 (Community) I was able to successfully figure this out! Man oh man do we need some docs on this because this felt like a doozy!
I was able to use the ASP.NET Core Template pack as a building block for putting something together. For those who don't know, the extensions are designed to add templates to Visual Studio using .nupkg file(s) embedded in the extension. The use of the .nupkg files is similar to how dotnet new works with custom templates. I've got a working prototype on GitHub that supports both Visual Studio 2017 and 2019.
Now if you're like me, you may look at either madskristensens or my project and ask "How in the heck does this work!?" Great question! Here are the details I have the time to fill out right now:
Build out a custom template (or templates) and place them into *.nupkg file(s)
In my sample, my SampleTemplates project contains three different project templates. I generate the .nupkg with dotnet pack
A vs-2017.3.host.json file is required in the .template.config/ folder so that the ASP.NET Web Application wizard can display the template.
At least 1 or more other requirements need to be fulfilled to be displayed in the ASP.NET Web Application wizard, but I haven't yet figured those out, as adding the file to a console app template doesn't cause it to appear. I want to try and figure this out, although I'd love help if anyone already knows!
The template.json needs a Framework symbol to define the list of .NET Core framework targets that are supported by the template.
In doing some testing, it didn't look like the Framework symbol didn't substitute into the .csproj, so that is why my example also includes a TargetFrameworkOverride symbol that the Framework symbol replaces.
Place the .nupkg file(s) into the root of a VSIX extension project and make sure to set the "Include in VSIX" flag to True. I emphasize root because originally I had the NuGet package landing in a build\ folder in my extension and my templates weren't being picked up.
I'll try to put together a README in my example project to provide a better outline of all of the details required to accomplish this. Fingers crossed this helps someone out (or at least help me out in the future when I inevitably forget how I accomplished this)!
Update
As of September 2nd, 2020, the Visual Studio team released an experimental feature to include dotnet new templates within Visual Studio. I have done some exceptionally minimal testing with it, and it does appear to work, but it's not perfect. For example, I created a dotnet new template that scaffolds multiple .csproj files and .sln file, and the output didn't quite match my solution.
This is the Visual Studio blog post describing the announcement: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/net-cli-templates-in-visual-studio/

Related

VB 2019 project settings empty

I want to store startup settings for my project. When I go to the project Properties/Settings, it's empty except for a link that says, "This project does not have a default settings file. Click here to create one." When I click the link to add one, it says "The system cannot find the file specified. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070002." So, how do I add a default settings file?

As mentioned in my comments, this seems to be a bug in VS and ought to be reported to Microsoft. As a temporary workaround, you can actually copy the settings files from a .NET Framework project into a .NET Core project. As far as I can tell from examining various VB and C# projects targeting .NET Framework and .NET Core, the settings files are the same in each case, so there's no issue copying between them. Here's what I did:
Added a VB WinForms app project targeting .NET Framework to the same solution.
Clicked the Show All Files button in the Solution Explorer for both projects.
Expanded the My Project node for both projects.
Dragged the Settings.settings item from the .NET Framework project to the .NET Core project.
It seemed to work as expected after that.

How can I debug the source code of .Net Core or the Base class libraries (coreFx)?

I am using .NET Core 1.0 and Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 to make a simple Asp.Net Core MVC website.
How can I debug my application and "Step Into" the .NET Core source code that is available on GitHub?
Specifically, I am trying to troubleshoot one issue with Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.Facebook 1.0.0 assembly that I fetched from NuGet.

I wrote this article more than 1 year ago so it's a bit out of date but the idea is still the same:
You sync to the correct tag from GitHub. In your case, you probably want to sync to tag 1.0.0
Build that repository by running build.cmd or build.sh
Add the src folder path to your app's global.json file. For example, if you cloned Security in D:\Security, then you add D:/Security/src to global.json in the projects property.
Rebuild everything and it should work.
PS: If you use VS and don't see immediately the new code, try restarting it. It's a known issue that sometimes it doesn't pick up the changes to global.json

Update to fit new VS 2017
In Visual Studio 2017 15.3.5 and later
We can use SourceLink support for debugging .NET Core and ASP.NET Core sources.
To enable source link support just Disable Enable Just My Code and and Enable Enable Source Link Support.
Then Enable Microsoft symbol servers.
Victors answers works well with vs 2015.For some one who is looking for a solution with vs 2017,
In vs 2017 there is no global.json availble.So instead of adding folder path in global.json a project reference has to be added and rebuild.
All the others mentioned in Victors article works same as with 2015.
It is important that the git hub tag and the nuget package matches have the same versions.

Also make sure that on a solution level, you have your project "configration", set to debug. See screenshot. .
.
(For the solution properties to show up, right click on the .sln in the solution explorer.)

If you have debugged an app before with the previous version of .NET, delete the %TEMP%/SymbolCache directory as it can have old PDBs that are out of date. Per Debug .NET and ASP.NET Core source code

Getting SlowCheetah to transform files on Visual Studio Online

I've looked over several suggestions for getting SlowCheetah transforms to work with Visual Studio Online's build system, but nothing seems definitive, especially for the Visual Studio 2015 world.
I have a web project with both build configurations and publish profiles in place. If I'm using the one-click publish, everything works as expected; first the build config transform fires, then the publish profile config transform. However, on VSO, only the web.config is transformed, and then only for the build configuration.
The goal would be to provide the build definition on VSO with the build configuration and publish profile to use (which I know can be provided via MSBuild) and trigger the transforms to work as appropriate. I'm using the new VSO build definitions that are done online through the web interface (not the XAML ones), and the good news is this has an option to restore NuGet packages automatically (which has been one of the issues in the past). It looks like other MSBuild steps could also be added, so maybe there's a way to trigger the process after the build or something.
Has anyone gotten this to work properly? Thanks.

I did a quick test on this but didn't see any issue.
The screenshot for my project:
And the screenshot for my build definition:
After the web project is published with these settings, I can get the "Web.config" and "XMLFile1.xml" transformed with the "edd" profile and "XMLFile2.xml" transformed with build configuration.

Visual Studio won't show my installed project templates

I'm trying to install some custom made project templates for asp.net MVC4, however my Visual Studio 2012 Premium won't show the new templates. The templates are installed by a .VISX file like this one: http://www.asp.net/single-page-application/overview/templates/hottowel-template
Visual Studio is showing this file as an "Enabled" and "Installed" Extension, but when I try to create a new ASP.NET MVC4 project it is not showing those templates as an option like shown in this image:
I'm just seeing the regular options and it is not showing me the Hot-Towel template or any other single page application template. Could you please tell me how to fix this if one of you guys knows.

I fixed this by installing ASP.Net Web Tools Update Pack Fall 2012:
http://www.asp.net/vnext
I decided to give the answer to my own question for helping others with the same question.

Where are the symbols for ASP.NET MVC 4.0 RTM?

I'm trying to configure Visual Studio 2012 to allow me to step into ASP.NET MVC 4.0 source code. (System.Web.Mvc.dll). I've followed SymbolSource's recommended configuration but when I try to load the symbols, Visual Studio can't locate them.
Recommended configuration
To configure Visual Studio for symbol/server
use, follow these instructions:
Go to Tools -> Options -> Debugger -> General.
Uncheck “Enable Just My Code (Managed only)”.
Uncheck “Enable .NET Framework source stepping”.
Yes, it is misleading, but if you don't, then Visual Studio will
ignore your custom server order (see further on).
Check “Enable source
server support”.
Uncheck “Require source files to exactly match the
original version”
Go to Tools -> Options -> Debugger -> Symbols.
Select a folder for the local symbol/source cache.
Add symbol servers
under “Symbol file (.pdb) locations”. Pay attention to the correct
order, because some servers may contain symbols for the same binaries:
with or without sources. We recommend the following setup:
http://referencesource.microsoft.com/symbols
http://srv.symbolsource.org/pdb/Public or the authenticated variant
(see above)
http://srv.symbolsource.org/pdb/MyGet or the authenticated
variant (see above) (other symbol servers with sources)
http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols (other symbol servers
without sources)
I am aware that the source code is available on CodePlex, however I'm specifically interested in stepping into the code using a symbol server instead of having to unreference Mvc from the GAC and reference a locally built assembly.
Has anyone had success doing this with MVC 4.0?

Just add a symbol server that serves more then just major releases.
Try this one, contains most minor builds.
http://srv.symbolsource.org/pdb/Public
Verify:
Run VS as administrator.
Check that something have been downloaded to your symbol cache directory.
Goto select only specified modules.
Add "System.Web.Mvc.dll"
Set a break point in your code. Start debug.
When break point hits rightclick in callstack on any mvc.dll row. Verify that symbols are loaded.
if loaded, try dubbleclick on one callstack row to open mvc source.
Get back with where you get in trouble.

I will make some refinements to Luke Gumbley's anwser.
Microsoft tries to make a developer's life easier. Whenever it release an MVC version installer, there should also be a Source to download. So people can use the source to explore what is installed by the Installer, as well as to debug the MVC.
Back to the way of downloading the MVC debug info. Your Visual Studio (I use 2010) will never try to download MVC PDB files from the aforementioned servers if you have MVC4 installed on your system. In this case, your Visual Studio will use the MVC from your GAC when you run debugger.
I have tried the way suggested by Luke Gumbley. However, once you uninstall MVC, your MVC project will not be loaded, and you cannot create a new MVC project since the Template is gone. So please don't unistall MVC. If you do so, you still need to reinstall it. This wastes time.
What you really need to do is exit your Visual Studio, run command
gacutil /u System.Web.Mvc
Then go to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL, remove or rename the offending System.Web.Mvc folder. After this, lanuch your Visual Studio, and fetch the MVC package from NuGet.

I can't answer on your question directly and provide you URL with symbols (.pdb) for System.Web.Mvc.dll for ASP.NET MVC 4.0, but probably I can help you to solve the problem in another way.
As well known (see here for example) Microsoft provide the current source code of .NET on http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/. In the post it's described how to use the Nightly version of ASP.NET (the current developer state of the code). If you didn't used Git before you can have problems with downloading RTM version of ASP.NET 4.5 (with ASP.NET MVC 4.0) which you could prefer to use instead of Nightly version. Nevertheless the downloading of the full source code of RTM version is easy enough. You need just to know that Git allows to save copy of the code in branches or tagged versions. In the way you can get access (and download it) to some previous versions of the full code. The link for example provide you jQuery 1.8.2 instead of another link get you the latest developer version which can be unstable. So to download the source code of RTM version you just need to choose "v2-rtm" branch and then click on "Download":
You can use the link to select "v2-rtm" branch directly.
I can repeat that it's not exactly what you asked and I know that compiling of ASP.NET source code could be also a little tricky, but I decided do write the information. If somebody would suggest you the better solution it would be interesting for me too.

I had exactly the same issue (correct version but no symbols), but after a day or so of trying everything I've been able to get it working. These are catch-all instructions that worked for me, they may contain unnecessary steps:
Sign up for SymbolSource and follow the VS instructions using the
authenticated URL form
Uninstall all versions of MVC with add/remove programs
Remove MVC assembly from the GAC (the question is about modifying
MVC but the GAC answer is good)
Remove and then reinstall the MVC 4 reference to your project with
NuGet
Start debugging, open the modules window, and cross your fingers
that ‘Symbols loaded’ is next to System.Web.MVC when it appears.
(sprinkle in restarts as you see fit, for me the key final step was reinstalling the NuGet reference)
My theory is that as the GAC library is used at runtime in preference to the local reference, the symbols are not found when they are searched for. By removing MVC from the GAC and then reinstalling the NuGet reference, it seems the local reference is used and the symbols are found. It's counterintuitive as the System.Web.MVC.dll files are binary-equivalent between NuGet and the GAC, although they are dated differently.
I'm not totally convinced though as I tried to do the same thing for Razor and that didn't work.

Let me start with that ReSharper provides a handy dialog to step in the code at any time:
So you get the following code screen if you drill to the source code:
But I became curious to accomplish this by hand. I started with proper pdb configuration:
After that I got the following error:
Next I copied the C:\Users\Andrew\AppData\Local\Temp\SymbolCache\MicrosoftPublicSymbols\System.Web.pdb\CA49C4332DE847FA967F58AFF370B70E1\System.Web.pdb to C:\Users\Andrew\AppData\Local\Temp\SymbolCache\System.Web.pdb (to match the lookup path). After that i encountered this:
And it turned out that the mismatching builds are only good for browsing the source, not debugging. (Current machine has VS2012 RC, hence MVC libraries are not RTM). If they match, you'll the the source.
I still don't know why doesn't the lookup path adjust to symbol configuration. Hope this helps.

I just solved this same problem.
The problem is that the dll stored in the GAC does not correspond exactly to the published pdbs on symbolsource.org. The one on symbolsource corresponds apparently to the latest version available through Nuget, and the one in the GAC must the one installed with .NET Framework 4.5. (.Net uses whatever is on the GAC before attemting to use anything local to your proyect, you can see this, when debuggin, go the Debug->Windows->Modules, there the System.Web.Mvc.dll is the one from GAC according to its path)
What I did was to include in the GAC the System.Web.Mvc.dll on the package folder of my solution, the one downloaded through Nuget. This you can do by using gacutil on a VS Command Prompt (run the VS Cmd as admin).
You can check on the same Modules Windows, right clicking on the System.Web.Mvc.dll, and then on Symbol Load Information. With the "old" GAC dll you get a message like (part of it)
SYMSRV: http://srv.symbolsource.org/pdb/Public/System.Web.Mvc.pdb/1E540B87149F4031B9CDEACAD8D771231/System.Web.Mvc.pdb not found
Notice here the subfolder 1E540B87149F4031B9CDEACAD8D771231 (yours might be different)
After replacing the GAC dll for the one recently downloaded through Nuget, the message is
SYMSRV: System.Web.Mvc.pdb from http://srv.symbolsource.org/pdb/Public: 336067 bytes
http://srv.symbolsource.org/pdb/Public: Symbols downloaded from symbol server.
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp\SymbolCache\System.Web.Mvc.pdb\68B2330E48624B6C9DE05BED1C8C320F1\System.Web.Mvc.pdb: Symbols loaded.
Notice the subfolder 68B2330E48624B6C9DE05BED1C8C320F1, which is the one that is searched for in symbolsource.org is the correctly found.
Hope this helps

There's some related info here: http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/discussions/399312
And here: Debug into nightly build of ASP.NET MVC4 using Symbolserver