March 18, 2010
Blog ArchivesAn even better way to run T4MVC: a VS AddIn
Last week, I blogged about a nice way of auto-running T4MVC by using the Macro IDE to write an OnBuildBegin event handler . This was a big improvement over the hacky ‘AlwaysKeepTemplateDirty’ flag that we’ve been using since T4MVC’s early days. Since then, Wayne Brantley has taken this idea to the next level by turning it into a Visual Studio AddIn. Check out his post and give it a try! The nice benefits of the AddIn over directly handling VS events in the macro IDE are: Simpler install : you drop a couple files in the AddIn folder and it just works Encapsulation : all the code related to this is in one binary Easy to disable : once the AddIn is installed, you can just go in Tools / AddIn Manager to turn it on or off Note that Wayne…(read more)
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A better way to auto-run T4MVC when you build
T4MVC has always struggled with finding the right way of running automatically when you build. Being a T4 template in your project, by default it just runs when you save it. This is not great, because you really want it to rerun whenever you make a change that affects it: e.g. new controller action, new static file, … So I had come up with a pretty crazy workaround (the AlwaysKeepTemplateDirty flag), described in details in this previous post (under “ The T4 file automatically runs whenever you build ”). It’s a pretty hacky technique, which mostly works but has some nasty quirks: You need to open and save it once to start the save ‘cycle’ You need to leave it open It’s always marked as dirty, which is an annoyance. The…(read more)
T4MVC 2.6.13: now officially in MvcContrib, with a few new features
To get the latest build of T4MVC: Go to MvcContrib T4MVC page on CodePlex A few weeks back, we announced (mostly on Twitter) that T4MVC was moving into the MvcContrib Codeplex project. I didn’t say much about it at the time because there wasn’t a whole lot to say yet, in the sense that the move had not actually happened. MvcContrib was transitioning from github to Mercurial, and since I wasn’t familiar with either one, I figured I’d wait for that and only have to learn Mercurial. So to make it short, all of this has finally happen, and we can now say that T4MVC is officially part of MvcContrib! Many thanks to Eric Hexter and Jeremy Skinner for helping make this possible. So what difference does it make for it…(read more)
T4MVC 2.6.10: fluent route value API, shorter way to refer to action, and more
To get the latest build of T4MVC: Go to T4MVC page on CodePlex I just posted build 2.6.10. There were also a few builds in between since I last blogged about 2.6, so this post describes some of those changes (full history here ). Fluent route value API As you probably know, T4MVC uses a pattern where the route values are encapsulated using a pseudo-call to a controller action, e.g. Html.ActionLink("Delete Dinner", MVC.Dinners.Delete(Model.DinnerID)) This adds the controller, the action and the method parameters to the route values in a convenient way with no hard coded strings. But in some situation, you may need to add extra values to the route that don’t exist in the action method. Now you can do it as follows…(read more)
