How do I create my own Scaffold Template in ASP.NET MVC 3?

ASP.NET MVC provides the ability to select a 'Scaffold template' upon which a newly-created view will be based (Add View > Create a strongly开发者_如何转开发-typed view > Scaffold template).

Is it possible to create your own Scaffold Template? And if so, how?

ASP.NET MVC uses T4 templates. Here's an overview.

Here are the steps:

1. In the Package Manager Console type: install-package mvc3codetemplatescsharp
2. Accept all the warnings
3. The CodeTemplates folder will be added to your project containing the templates

From here you could either modify the existing templates or add new one.

Or if you want to modify those globally you could to this in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Web\MVC 3\CodeTemplates\ folder.

You can use T4 without nuget of course: Place a folder in the root of the application website (the project containing the views). The directory structure is important so it should be

\CodeTemplates\AddView\AspxCsharp\MyTemplate.tt

You can copy the contents from one of the existing templates located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Web\MVC 3\CodeTemplates\

Next, clear the property on the TT file named "Custom Tool". This should be blank.

Then right-click on any Controller Action and say "Add View" or since the controllers are in a separate project in our case, right click on the View folder and click "Add View".

From the dropdown Click "Create a strongly typed View" and then enter the type to use under "View Data Class:"

Finally, in the "View Content" dropdown, select "MyTempate". This should show up if you've entered the folders correctly.

In Visual Studio 2012 with MVC 4, the easy way (install Nuget package) gets you an incomplete setup, because the Nuget package is woefully out of date (last updated in 2011 - perhaps the day it was created).

You have to use the equivalent of Francis Shanahan's answer, but instead the path to copy things from is (64-bit):

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\11.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Web\MVC 4\CodeTemplates

You:

1. Add a Reference to Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure, which you can find in Assemblies > Extensions.

2. Copy this CodeTemplates folder (including the folder itself) to the root of your Project and Include it in the Project

3. Ignore the compiler errors for now (like can't find MvcTextTemplateHost)

4. Go through the Properties of each of the added files and delete the text in the "Custom Tool" property of each. When you do the expand arrow next to each file will disappear (because the file will no longer be generated in-place)

5. Save All and build - compiler errors gone

If the compiler errors don't go away - especially if you're seeing an error in a generated .cs file Visual Studio can't find, and a .tt file - close Visual Studio, wipe your temp folder, and reopen the solution. In one case I went so far as restarting before the issue cleared up. It was caused by a generated .cs file from a .tt template that Visual Studio was still trying to automatically generate code for.

In addition, the names of the .tt files are a little bit confusing - here's how they map:

GUI:

Empty MVC controller
MVC controller with read/write actions and views, using Entity Framework
MVC controller with empty read/write actions
Empty API controller
API controller with read/write actions, using Entity Framework
API controller with empty read/write actions

CodeTemplates\AddController's files map respectively:

Controller.tt
ControllerWithContext.tt
Controller.tt
ApiController.tt
ApiControllerWithContext.tt
ApiController.tt

There's an if statement in Controller.tt and ApiController.tt that handles the with/without read/write actions functionality.

For the views, naming is intuitive except that List.tt creates Index.cshtml, and Empty.tt is used for any View besides Create/Delete/Details/Edit/Index.

This question covers what properties you can use in the .tt templates.

.tt templates are Microsoft T4 templates. T4 Template Syntax.

Or, for Visual Web Developer Express on a 32-bit system, another location for these files is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\VWDExpress\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Web\MVC 3\CodeTemplates

This MSDN article discusses Scaffolding and Page Templates: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc488540.aspx

Which, in turn, links to the following article for modifying the templates: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc488537.aspx