EPiServer CMS Visual Studio Integration Extensions

EPiServer CMS 6 R2 ships with a Visual Studio Integration package that you can optionally install from the zip download found here.

Once this is installed, you get not only a new EPiServer Project type but also EPiServer components that can be created using the Add New Item menu:

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, this hasn’t been kept inline with the juicy new features added in CMS 6 R1 and R2.

With that said, I have taken an old VS Integration extension package that Fredrik Tjärnberg released a while back and added some of those juicy bits from CMS 6 R1 and R2.

After you have installed the extension, in addition to the 4 EPiServer items already available, you get 3 new ones: Dynamic Content, Online Center Gadget and Visitor Group Criterion:

All of the new items come with an array of options to chose from when you create one.

For Dynamic Content, you chose what type of component to create to render the content along with the option to create a custom Editor:

For an Online Center Gadget, you can chose to optionally create a model class and a JQuery based Javascript file:

And last but not least, for a Visitor Group Criterion, you get options to create a model class, a custom Editor and a Dojo based Javascript file (for the custom Editor):

Whilst VS Integration may not feel mission critical for seasoned EPiServer developers, it can be very useful for new developers. I also think that some of the new options could be useful for all when creating components with custom editors and javascript files.

The VS Integration Extension installer can be found here. Both Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 are supported including Visual Web Developer and VS Professional / Team Edition.

Whilst this is not an official EPiServer release I intend to fix bugs and add new features so let me know if you have any issues or ideas.

Happy coding!