Visual Studio Designer

What is the Visual Studio Designer

The Visual Studio Designer is used to model your Visual Studio Solution and specify how Intent Architect integrates generated source code files into that solution. In this designer, you are modeling the following:

  • The name of your Visual Studio Solution.
  • The various C# projects that make up your solution.
  • C# project configurations.
  • The locations where the various code files will reside in the solution.
  • The "Roles" each C# project plays in the solution.

Below is an example of a Visual Studio Designer configured for a typical Clean Architecture Visual Studio Solution. In this designer, we can see the following:

  • The Visual Studio Solution will be named VisualStudioDesigner.Example.
  • The solution will have four C# projects:
    • VisualStudioDesigner.Example.Api – Responsible for application hosting and service distribution.
    • VisualStudioDesigner.Example.Application – Responsible for application-specific business rules and use cases.
    • VisualStudioDesigner.Example.Domain – Responsible for business rules and domain logic.
    • VisualStudioDesigner.Example.Infrastructure – Responsible for infrastructure, persistence, and integration.

We can also see Template Outputs, such as Intent.Entities.Entity, which indicate where the generated code files will be placed. In this case, domain Entity code files will be generated into the VisualStudioDesigner.Example.Domain C# project, inside the Entities folder. When you install new modules, they will automatically add their Template Outputs to this designer. Modules use Roles to determine where to place their Template Outputs.

Clean Architecture Model

Tip

Application Templates typically fully configure the Visual Studio Designer for you. However, you can reconfigure or adjust this designer if you want to customize the structure of your application's code generation.

What are Roles and how do they work?

Roles in projects are arbitrary tags used to guide Modules on where to install the code they generate. Modules contain templates that generate code files, and these files target Roles to determine their placement.

For example, if you have a domain-oriented module, it will generate code that should be installed into the C# project responsible for domain concepts. This project is identified by having a "Domain" Role.

When a module is installed, it looks for Roles to determine where its generated code files should go in the Visual Studio Designer. These Roles serve as guidance for the module to determine where to insert its Template Outputs, the actual artifacts that define "where code files go".

Note

Roles assist modules in determining where they should place their Template Outputs within the designer. That is their sole function. Ultimately, the Template Output determines where the code is placed, and these can be adjusted post-installation if needed.

Adding a New Project

  1. Right-click on the Visual Studio Solution element or a Folder under it and select C# Project (.NET).
  2. Enter the name of your C# project.
  3. (Optional) Configure any project options in the Property Pane, such as Target Framework.
  4. (Optional) Customize your project by configuring Roles, Folders, Template Outputs, etc.

Add a Custom Project

Changing Where Code Files Are Generated

If you want to change where Intent Architect generates code, you can do so by making changes in this designer. Here are some examples of how this can be achieved.

Moving a File to a Different Location

Given the following setup:

Clean Architecture Model

Modeled domain entities are generated into the Entities folder. These entities may be things like Customer or Order, depending on what Entitys you have modeled in the Domain Designer.

If you drag the Intent.Entities.Entity Template Output to the root folder of the C# project, the entities will now be generated directly into the project's root folder.

Move Template Output

Alternatively, you could create a new folder, say My Folder, and move Intent.Entities.Entity into that folder. Now, the entities will be generated into a folder named My Folder.

Changing the Project Structure

In this example, let's assume you do not want four projects and prefer to consolidate the Application and Domain projects.

To consolidate the Domain project into the Application project:

  1. Move all Template Outputs from the Domain project into the Application project, placing them where you want the code to go.
  2. Delete the Domain project.

Consolidated Project

Now, your Visual Studio solution will have three projects instead of four.