Can you do a RunCustomTool with EnvDTE as a pre-build event?

Question

I am using T4MVC, and I can't use a pre-build event to run TextTransform.exe as it relies on EnvDTE, and must be run with Visual Studio as host.

If I have run custom tool once, it works nicely because it marks itself dirty when its executed (AlwaysKeepTemplateDirty = true), but when you open the solution, it doesn't run on build, so I was wondering if you could run t4 via EnvDTE as a pre-build event?

Answer 1

I figured out a way to do this. Its not optimal, but it actually works. If you hookup to the BuildEvents.OnBuildBegin.

You push ALT+F11 to get to the Macro IDE, click EnvironmenEvents and add the eventhandler in the below code snippet . Make sure that its added outside the autogenerated code section.

The EnvironmentEvents now looks like this:

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit Off
Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports EnvDTE90
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module EnvironmentEvents

    Public Sub BuildEvents_OnBuildBegin(ByVal Scope As EnvDTE.vsBuildScope, ByVal Action As EnvDTE.vsBuildAction) Handles BuildEvents.OnBuildBegin
        If Scope = vsBuildScope.vsBuildScopeSolution Or Scope = vsBuildScope.vsBuildScopeProject Then
            Dim projectItem As ProjectItem = DTE.Solution.FindProjectItem("T4MVC.tt")
            If Not projectItem Is Nothing Then
                If Not projectItem.IsOpen Then
                    projectItem.Open()
                End If
                projectItem.Save()
            End If
        End If
    End Sub

#Region "Automatically generated code, do not modify"
'Automatically generated code, do not modify
'Event Sources Begin
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents DTEEvents As EnvDTE.DTEEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents DocumentEvents As EnvDTE.DocumentEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents WindowEvents As EnvDTE.WindowEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents TaskListEvents As EnvDTE.TaskListEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents FindEvents As EnvDTE.FindEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents OutputWindowEvents As EnvDTE.OutputWindowEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents SelectionEvents As EnvDTE.SelectionEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents BuildEvents As EnvDTE.BuildEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents SolutionEvents As EnvDTE.SolutionEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents SolutionItemsEvents As EnvDTE.ProjectItemsEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents MiscFilesEvents As EnvDTE.ProjectItemsEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents DebuggerEvents As EnvDTE.DebuggerEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents ProjectsEvents As EnvDTE.ProjectsEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents TextDocumentKeyPressEvents As EnvDTE80.TextDocumentKeyPressEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents CodeModelEvents As EnvDTE80.CodeModelEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents DebuggerProcessEvents As EnvDTE80.DebuggerProcessEvents
 <System.ContextStaticAttribute()> Public WithEvents DebuggerExpressionEvaluationEvents As EnvDTE80.DebuggerExpressionEvaluationEvents
'Event Sources End
'End of automatically generated code
#End Region

End Module

Answer 2

This is definitely one of the areas of T4MVC that I'd like to solve, but haven't been able to find a great solution to. I did make some attempt at the time to use a pre-build event but didn't get anywhere interesting. Which doesn't mean it can't be done.

Sorry, I don't have a solution for you, but if someone comes up with something, I'd be happy to integrate it into T4MVC.

David