Adding files to templates

Q:

A problem I've run into is the IconImageList element of the ProjectProperties tag in the project file (.vbproj or .csproj). If I specify an imagelist bitmap in ProjGen, it includes the full path to the local file and the file itself is not included in the template ZIP package. This obviously won't work when the template is deployed on a user machine. I tried to include the bitmap as part of the zip package and just specify a relative path, but the project doesn't seem to be loaded anymore.

A:

By editing .xxproj file in the template generated by ProjectGen, you can add a file path described in the registry.  This is demonstrated in the SDK sample template project files with:

<ProjectProperties

DebugInfoExeName="#HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ShapeAppCSharp\InstallPath#\ShapeAppCSharp.exe"
.../>

By adding an install path to the registry when the application is installed, the imagelist bitmap can be installed into a known bin or resource directory and accessed by the VSTA projects.  For instance:

<ProjectProperties

IconImageList="#HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ShapeAppCSharp\InstallPath#\bin\imagelistbitmapfilename"
.../>

 Follow the instructions we've posted for manually editing and registering project templates