Hi, i've just converted the templates from the flixon site generator to t4. This makes building your bll/dal even easier. This exercise was really just a learning curve for me in preperation for .net v4 and the entity framework but i thought i'd share my work.

Please note that t4 is a tool built into visual studio and therefore you must have visual studio to do this.

Here's how to get it working:

1. Download and install the t4 toolbox extension from http://www.codeplex.com/t4toolbox
2. Download the templates from http://www.flixon.com/MyFiles/Files/...eGenerator.rar
3. Extract the contents of the rar file to a seperate folder and copy into your web project.
4. Open the "Generator.tt" file and modify the settings at the top.
5. Modify the list of providers (line 40 to 44), eg the following will create 2 providers called Content (Categories and Documents table applied) and Users (Users table applied)

var providers = new List<Provider>()
{
new Provider { Name = "Content", Tables = database.Tables.Cast<Table>().ToList().FindAll(t => t.Name == "Categories" || t.Name == "Documents") },
new Provider { Name = "Users", Tables = database.Tables.Cast<Table>().ToList().FindAll(t => t.Name == "Users") }
};

6. Save the file. This will fire off the generator and may take a few minutes.

I've tried to set it out as clear as possible and once you start looking at the code you will see how simple it is to modify the templates to your liking. When you modify a template you need to either save the "Generator.tt" file or right click and click "Run Custom Tool" to trigger the code generator.

Hope this helps.

jgd12345 - what version did you use for the T4 implementation? I saw where
jimi was up to V3.? .. when I tried to get to his site I couldn't get there. I flixon site I only see V1.

I'm trying to track down the latest version and I'm hoping it was done using T4 by someone. thanks in advance.

hi - i'm trying to set these templates up and keep getting errors such as:

================================================== =====
Error 5 Compiling transformation: 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating59CE26A6593B 8A252A7C0514F7FB919C.GeneratedTextTransformation.B izObjectTemplate' does not implement inherited abstract member 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating.TextTransfo rmation.TransformText()' e:\DotNetProjects35\MvcTest\MvcTest\FlixonT4SiteGe nerator\Generator\Templates\BizObject.t4 3 14
================================================== =====

is there any obvious thing i'm doing wrong/not doing?
many thanks...

it's to do with the toolbox version i think.

replacing

protected override void RenderCore()

with

public override string TransformText()

moves things along to a new set of errors! oh well, progress of a kind!

and then this:

return this.GenerationEnvironment.ToString();


as the return value of each template fixes it.

Hi, yeah it looks like the issues you are having is because of the version of the t4 toolbox you are using. I can't remember exactly which version i'm using but try the latest anywayz.

As for the templates, i upgraded from my own set of templates but it should be relatively similar to v3. I believe the key differences are that my set of templates handles identity columns better but jimi's deals with many to many relationships better.

Sorry i can't be abit clearer. Thanks