Change category name for VSPS

Question

I'm currently using the new Visual Studio Project System Extensibility library to implement a new project type for VS2015. What I would like to do is change the name of the "category" of that type of project. I would like it to be "Visual Basic 6". The problem is that when I create a package using the "Project Type" template, it asks me for a display name (which I set to "Visual Basic 6") and a namespace name (which I set to VB6), buth when I launch the VS experimental hive (with the default template code), the project template name is "Visual Basic 6 Project" but the category at the left is "VB6". I tried changing the line of the .vstemplate file from

<ProjectType>VB6</ProjectType>

to

<ProjectType>Visual Basic 6</ProjectType>

but if I do that, then the template simply doesn't appear in the New Project window. I also tried changing the value of the Language and UniqueCapability constants in the MyUnconfiguredProject.cs file, but it doesn't change anything. If I ever change the ProjectType value, the template disappears. I noticed that the category name is in fact the namespace name (and not the "Display name", why?), so it works if I put VisualBasic6, but I can't put spaces. How could I make the category be "Visual Basic 6"

Carafe

What happens if you run the wizard again with the Project Type template and use "Visual Basic 6" as your namespace instead of VB6? – Defrayal

As I said, I can't put spaces in the namespace. – Carafe

Unfortunately I think that's your answer then, you can't put spaces in it. – Defrayal

That is the point of my question. I want to change the category name. I mean, if VS can have "Visual Basic", "Visual C#", etc., then it should be possible for me to do the same. I saw other projects using the old MPF/MEF project system use category names with spaces in them. – Carafe

Have you tried Visual Basic 6? – Tigges

Answer 1

I have tried to follow the tutorial here

If you create a new folder with spaces in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\VisualBasic\, put your templates in there, after running the devenv /installvstemplates command the templates indeed appear in a category with the given name including spaces.

This article also mentions, that you cannot create new category at the top level, only as sub-category of an existing language:

You cannot create a new category at the programming language level. New categories can only be created within each language.

Tigges

That is, again, the point of my question. I am not creating templates for an existing language. I created the project system and the language service, and now I want it to appear as "Visual Basic 6" in the New Project/Item window. For example, here, the folder is "VisualBasic", but it appears as "Visual Basic" (notice the space) in Visual Studio. The same way CSharp appears as "Visual C#". – Carafe

Then it seems you will need to create a Visual Studio extension, which will somehow add the new language category. I know Syncfusion and Telerik extensions are able to hook into the dialog somehow, but even though I have looked for that earlier today, I was unable to find anything :-( . Hope you will find a solution. – Tigges

As I said, I'm using VSPS to create a new project type, so I am using the provided "Project Type" template which creates a VSPackage project. Currently, everything works perfectly fine (I can create new projects, syntax highlight the source code files and even have a custom designer for .frm files), but I simply would like to change the display name. – Carafe

From what I have found, VSPS will apparently not be enough to accomplish what you need (which seems to be confirmed by the quote above. – Tigges

I have found a Java extension for Visual Studio which does this - it adds a new ProjectType - Java and also somehow registers itself into Visual Studio using a class like this: github.com/tunnelvisionlabs/JavaForVS/blob/… – Tigges

Yes... but... I mean... there're no spaces in 'Java'. If you can find (I wasn't able to) something that uses VSPS and that has spaces in its name, it would help me a lot. – Carafe

Here it registers Java into the Visual Studio environment using a LanguageInfo implementation. The LanguageName property is the one you need - there you can provide the name even including the spaces. github.com/tunnelvisionlabs/JavaForVS/blob/… – Tigges

Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Carafe