Visual Studio Custom Item Template Dependent Upon

Question

I'm writing my own custom item template for use within visual studio. All is well except I need to find a way to get one of the files in the template to be dependent upon another.

In a csproj file it would look like this

<Compile Include="Class1.cs">
    <DependentUpon>Class1.xml</DependentUpon>
</Compile>

Does anybody have any idea how I would define this in the vstemplate file?

Thanks

How did you solve this? I flagged this question for reopening because the duplicate actually isn't a duplicate, its another question. — Felix K., Dec 23 '12 at 10:37
Agree this is not a duplicate. This is about Item Templates, not just editing .proj files (as the other question relates to) — David Gardiner, Jan 30 '13 at 09:49
Please select the answer. the answer by @Yasin Kilicdere worked for me. — Pramod Pallath Vasudevan, May 16 '15 at 14:48

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 04 '13 at 14:22

17

<ProjectItem SubType="Code" TargetFileName="$fileinputname$.cs" ReplaceParameters="true">Test.cs</ProjectItem>
<ProjectItem SubType="Code" TargetFileName="$fileinputname$.cs\$fileinputname$Dependent.cs" ReplaceParameters="true">TestDependent.cs</ProjectItem>

answered Mar 04 '13 at 14:22

Yasin Kilicdere

426
6
17

This answer wasn't selected as correct but I have tested it in VS2012 and it DOES work... – James Curtis Sep 27 '13 at 18:12
I tested in VS2012 it DOES work. It's the most simple and correct way. – JasonMing Oct 09 '13 at 07:15
Works on VS 2017 too – sergiopereira Sep 13 '18 at 13:13
Note that this behavior was apparently not officially supported and no longer works in VS 16.5 – Scott Jones Mar 21 '20 at 19:42

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 19 '11 at 15:11

Not sure if this can happen automatically for non-managed file types (i.e. file types that VS doesn't know about, like yours)...

A hack would be to use WizardExtensions (google for examples on writing a basic wizard) like this:

Add the files initially as .cs and .designer.cs.
Then use wizardExtensions to rename those files

or

see if wizard extensions can directly modify the csproj (but that be difficult as VS might not let you do that without unloading the project first).

hope this helps...

Visual Studio Custom Item Template Dependent Upon

2 Answers2