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© Copyright 2012, Christian Bækdorf
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This post is part of a larger tutorial on DSL Tools and Visual Studio 2008 Isolated Shell, in this post I will go through the steps to setup project for the Shell application and DSL.
Previous step: Creating a custom project type
Creating a new setup project
We will start by adding a new setup project to our solution, so start by opening the solution from the previous post, if not already open.
1. New Project
Create a new Setup Project named “MyDslApplication”, by right-clicking the solution in the Solution Explorer and choosing Add New Project.
In the Add New Project choose Setup Project as shown below:
The solution should now look as shown below:
2. Set project properties
In the setup projects properties set Author and Manufacturer to “MyCompany” as shown below.
Adding output files
Now we are going to add assemblies and other files to the setup project, so you should now open the “File System” in the setup project. Right-click the setup project, MyDslApplication, in the Solution Explorer and choose View -> File System on the context menu.
1. Shell output
Add the Primary Output from the “MyDslShell” project (this will be the actual executable MyDslShell.exe) to the Application Folder.
Right-click the Application Folder, in the File System view, and choose and Add -> Project Output… from the context menu. Then select the “MyDslShell” project, Primary Output and Active configuration as shown below.
The solution should now look as shown below.
2. Add Shell config, icon and splash screen image
Add the following files from the folder “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\MyDslShell\MyDslShell” to the Application Folder:
Right-click the Application Folder, in the File System view, and choose and Add -> File… from the context menu. Then select the files as shown below.
After this your solution should look as shown below.
3. Add PackagesToLoad and template folders
Add the following folders under the Application Folder:
And a folder named “1033” under the new “PackagesToLoad” folder.
Right-click the Application Folder or a subfolder, in the File System view, and choose and Add -> Folder from the context menu to add a folder.
Mark the “ItemTemplates”, “ItemTemplatesCache”, “ProjectTemplates” and “ProjectTemplatesCache” folders with the AlwaysCreate option as shown below
4. Add Shell UI output
Add the Primary Output from MyDslShellUI to the “1033” folder.
After adding the Shell UI output the solution should look as shown below.
5. Add DSL package output
Add the Primary Output from the “DslPackage” project to the “PackagesToLoad” folder
After adding the DSL package output the solution should look as shown below. Note that a lot of dependencies will be added, you can just ignore them for now.
6. Add MyDslProject output
Add the Primary Output from the “MyDslProject” project to the “PackagesToLoad” folder.
After adding the DSL project output the solution should look as shown below.
7. Exclude unwanted dependencies
Most of the dependencies that were added when adding the DslPackage and MyDslProject output need to be excluded. The only dependency you will want to keep is “MyCompany.MyDsl.Dsl.dll”.
In the Solution Explorer select all the dependencies to excluded as shown below and select exclude on the context menu.
The solution should now look as the solution shown below
8. Add pkgdef files
Add the “MyDslShell.pkgdef “ and “MyDslShell.pkgundef” from the folder “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\MyDslShell\MyDslShell” to the “PackagesToLoad” folder
Your solution should now look as shown below.
9. Add pkgdef for project and dsl packages
Add the “MyCompany.MyDsl.DslPackage.pkgdef “ and “MyDslProject.pkgdef” from the folder “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\Debug\PackagesToLoad” to the “PackagesToLoad” folder.
Please note that the file is taken from the “Debug” (not the “Release” folder”), this is not an optimal solution. The file should actually be taken from the active configuration output folder, but I could not find an easy way of doing this, so for now just use the Debug or Release folder as you like –it the same file.
10. Add project template
Add the project template file “MyDslProject.zip” from the “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\Debug\ProjectTemplates” folder to “ProjectTemplates”.
11. Add profile file
Add the Visual Studio settings file “General.vssettings” from the “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\MyDslShell\MyDslShell” folder to “Profiles”.
12. Adding the DSL schema
You need to add the XML schema for your DSL, otherwise you will get a warning when running the application. This has to be placed in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Xml\Schemas”, even when we use the isolated shell.
Add the “Program Files” folder to your solution as shown below, by right-clicking the “File System on Target Machine” and choose Add Special Folder -> Program Files Folder
Under the Program Files folder add a folder named “Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0”, under this folder add a folder named “Xml” and under this folder add a folder named “Schemas”.
Add the file “MyDslSchema.xsd” from “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\MyDsl\Dsl\GeneratedCode” to the newly created “Schemas” folder.
13. Adding a start menu folder
Under “User’s Programs Menu” add a new folder named “MyCompany” and within that folder create a new folder named “MyDsl”.
14. Add a start menu shortcut
In the “MyDsl” folder, under the start menu, create a new shortcut pointing to the Shell executable.
And choose the primary output from the "MyDslShell" project
Name the shortcut “MyDslShell” as shown below
Choose the icon, “MyDslShell.ico”, in the Application Folder
Adding a launch conditions
Add a launch condition to ensure that Visual Studio 2008 isolated shell is installed before installing our application
1. Add registry search
Fill in the following values:
Your solution should look as shown below.
2. Add launch condition
Adding custom actions
During installation and uninstallation it is necessary to execute the shell application with some options to register and unregister its components. This is done by adding two custom actions to the installation.
1. Add setup custom action
Right-click the Install node and choose Add custom action…. In the Select Item in Project dialog choose the primary output from “MyDslShell” in the Application Folder.
After adding the action specify “/setup” as arguments in the properties window.
2. Add remove custom action
Right-click the Uninstall node and choose Add custom action…. In the Select Item in Project dialog choose the primary output from “MyDslShell” in the Application Folder
After adding the action specify “/remove” as arguments in the properties window.
Build and Test
Finally you are ready to test the entire solution, so just build and try out the installationv
1. Rebuild the setup project “MyDslApplication”
2. Install the application
Run the “setup.exe” from the folder “D:\project\DslToolsAndVsShell\Code\MyDSLApplication\MyDslApplication\Debug”
Just press next and install the application using its default settings
3. Run the application
Start the application from the Windows Start menu
You should now see your application
Now try to open the New Project dialog and should hopefully show your Dsl project as shown below
Create a new project and try out your application
Summary
This is the end of this tutorial, you have a running DSL application that can be redistributes, but there are still some things to do:
Download: DslToolsAndVsShell-06.zip (12 MB)
What next?
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