VSTemplate Element (Visual Studio Templates)

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Contains all the metadata about the project template, item template, or starter kit.

Syntax

<VSTemplate Type="TemplateType" Version="x.x.x">  
    <TemplateData>    </TemplateData>  
    <TemplateContent>    </TemplateContent>  
    ...  
</VSTemplate>  

Attributes and Elements

The following sections describe attributes, child elements, and parent elements.

Attributes

Attribute Description
Type Identifies the template as a project template or an item template. This attribute can have a value of Project or Item.
Version Specifies a version number for the template. Templates in Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 have a Version attribute value of 3.0.0.

Child Elements

Element Description
TemplateData Required element.

Specifies data that categorizes the template, and defines how it displays in the New Project or Add New Item dialog box.
TemplateContent Required element.

Specifies the contents of the template.
WizardExtension Optional element.
WizardData Optional element.

Parent Elements

None.

Remarks

The VSTemplate element is the root element of .vstemplate files.

Example

The following example shows the metadata for a project template for a Visual C# application.

<VSTemplate Type="Project" Version="3.0.0"  
    xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005">  
    <TemplateData>  
        <Name>My template</Name>  
        <Description>A basic starter kit</Description>  
        <Icon>TemplateIcon.ico</Icon>  
        <ProjectType>CSharp</ProjectType>  
    </TemplateData>  
    <TemplateContent>  
        <Project File="MyStarterKit.csproj">  
            <ProjectItem>Form1.cs</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Form1.Designer.cs</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Program.cs</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Properties\Resources.resx</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Properties\Resources.Designer.cs</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Properties\Settings.settings</ProjectItem>  
            <ProjectItem>Properties\Settings.Designer.cs</ProjectItem>  
        </Project>  
    </TemplateContent>  
</VSTemplate>  

See Also

Visual Studio Template Schema Reference
Creating Project and Item Templates