The goal for Visual Studio XGen is simple. It should give the developer the simplest possible way of generating code (HTML, ASP, ASP.net, SQL, C++, C#, VB) using XML and XSLT inside Microsoft Visual Studio .net.

It adds two commands to the tools menu in Visual Studio, "Transform" and "Transform (verbose)". They both do the same thing except that the latter command prints more information. When you click either of these commands they will search through all projects in your solution looking for xtransform files, which have extension .xtr.xml, that define how to translate XML using XSLT.

It really can't get much simpler than that. If you know XML and XSLT you will hit the ground running. If you don't then you have the opportunity to learn these two wonderful technologies.

Please note that there is nothing specific to Visual Studio XGen in the XML source files nor the XSLT files. The same XML source files and XSLT files can be used outside Visual Studio with a command line XSLT processor.

To get started quickly you can download the add-in and read the quickstart guide. You may also want to read about the xtransform file. If you have comments or questions, please feel free to visit the forums.

Visual Studio XGen is released under the GPL.