Part 54 - T4 templates in asp.net mvc

we will discuss
1. What are T4 templates and their purpose
2. Customizing T4 templates

What are T4 templates and their purpose?
T4 stands for Text Template Transformation Toolkit and are used by visual studio to generate code when you add a view or a controller.

Where does these T4 templates live?
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\[CSharp | FSharp | VisualBasic]\Web\[MVC 2 | MVC 3 | MVC 4]\CodeTemplates

What is the file extension for T4 templates?
.tt

Is it possible to customize T4 templates?
Yes, T4 templates can be customized in place, if you want the customized T4 templates available for all MVC projects on that machine.

If you want to customize T4 templates, only for a specific project, then copy "CodeTemplates" folder and paste it in the root directory of your MVC project. Right click on the template files(with .tt extension), and select Properties and delete "TextTemplatingFileGenerator". 


By deleting this from CustomTool property, we are telling visual studio not to run them during the build. They will be manually called when we add a view or a controller using "Add View" and "Add Controller" dialog box.

Is it possible to add your own T4 template to the existing list of templates?
Absolutely, simply create a file with ".tt" file extension in "AddController" folder in "CodeTemplates". If it is for adding a view, then put it in "AspxCSharp"(if view engine is aspx) or "CSHTML"(if view engine is razor) folder.