Reformatting Microsoft's wizard/template generated project files

Introduction

When using Visual Studio's project wizard to create a new project, Microsoft uses templates that are located in the

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98\Template\ATL

and

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio.NET\Vc7\VCWizards\ClassWiz\ATL\Control\Templates\1033

directories (of course the paths will vary on your installation choices.) These templates use tags to include and exclude information in the resulting header and source files. Call me anal, but I really hate the way the Microsoft builds these files. The MAPS are lacking indentation, the member variables (in 7.0) are declared directly above the method which uses them and they contain no useful comments or debugging code. I know that I am nit-picky but, I like my code formatted so that it is readable and so there are no nasty, unreadable curly braces on the end of 'if' and 'while' statements, and that all of the Member variables reside in one '// Attributes' section.

All of this is easily configurable through Wizard template header files.  There is a pretty good help file under the following directory D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98\Template\ATLfor Visual Studio 6.0.  To view it, rename the Template.txt file to Template.HTML.

Visual Studio wizard template directories.

Visual Studio 6.0 

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98\Template\ATL 

Visual Studio 7.0 

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio.NET\Vc7\VCWizards\ClassWiz\ATL\Control\Templates\1033

The following is some information on how to modify the template files to make VC generate headers as you would like to have them generated. The main file used for generating headers is Control.h. Search for this file under your VS install folder and you will see this file and other files which can be modified. VS 6 and 7 use different template files so you will have to make your modifications for both platforms' files.

Here is a brief list of files that I found useful to modify. Again, either search for these files or look in a path similar to the ones I mentioned in the first paragraph. For this example I will mainly use the VS 7 templates under

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio.NET\Vc7\VCWizards\ClassWiz\ATL\Control\Templates\1033

control.h, control.rgs, ctlco.idl and ctlint.idl.

control.cpp connpt.h control.rgs ctlco.idl ctlint.idl cmposite.rc are modifiable, too, although I have not made changes to them.

Before modifying any of these file(s) I would HIGHLY suggest making a backup of them or having the installs disks near you. NOTE: any changes you make to the java script are exact. Spaces, tabs, etc all show up your header/source files exactly as you enter them in the script.

VS's use of Variable tags in the java script.

When looking in any of the above files you will notice statements like

[!if AUTOSIZE] #include "[!output PROJECT_NAME].h" 

and 

uuid("[!output OBJECT_UI_GUID]")

These are (I believe) Java tags. When going through the wizard setup, the wizard sets these values depending on your choices. The

[!if
       SOME_TAG]

is straightforward. If the VS wizard has set the flag SOME_TAG then this statement does or does not get compiled.

The #include line above takes whatever name you named your header file and replaces the [!output PROJECT_NAME] with it. i.e.

#include "[!output
       PROJECT_NAME].h"

becomes #include "MyProject.h". Simple enough.

The third line above is basically the same.

[!output OBJECT_UI_GUID]

uses the generated GUID as a replacement for this line. You will see many variations of the [!output ...] in the files, but most of the tags are self explanatory.

Onto the modifications... Let's start with the IDL file and my rants. I hate the way Microsoft generates the properties and methods in your class/interface definition in the IDL file. The standard generated properties look like this

[propput, bindable, requestedit, id(DISPID_AUTOSIZE)]
HRESULT AutoSize([in]VARIANT_BOOL vbool);
[propget, bindable, requestedit, id(DISPID_AUTOSIZE)]
HRESULT AutoSize([out,retval]VARIANT_BOOL* pbool);

Whoever added that code must never modify the IDL by hand. When you opt to include numerous inherited properties for your class, the IDL section becomes unreadable. I personally would rather see it in a readable fashion like the following (in case these were wrapped in your web page, in the IDL file each [propput... and [propget... would be on one line and each section would be lined up nicely.)

[propput, bindable, requestedit, id(DISPID_AUTOSIZE)] 
                                          HRESULT AutoSize([in]VARIANT_BOOL vbool);
[propget, bindable, requestedit, id(DISPID_AUTOSIZE)] 
                                          HRESULT AutoSize([out,retval]VARIANT_BOOL* pbool);

(Ed: These lines have been wrapped for display purposes - the author's original intent is to have them unwrapped)

Simply edit the 'ctlint.idl' file and move the HRESULT lines up to the end of the

[propput

and [propget lines. The above line is really more for VS 6.0 since in 7.0 the interface definitions are generated in your class header file. Hence, for 7.0 you will have to modify the Control.h file to see the above changes.

The Control.h header template file.

This file composes the bulk of work that the wizard generates. Remember any changes that you make inside of a [!if ...], [!endif] pair is going to be exactly what is generated in the Header file. The majority of the work for me was indenting the BEGIN_ and END_ macros and every macro line in between them. I know, I'm anal.

OK, beyond formatting. I moved the InterfaceSupportsErrorInfo implementation for the cpp file to the header. I do this so the in the project I can delete the cpp file from the project and disk and then have all implementation code reside in the header only. This is good a practice for interface implementation as it lets other people only include the header and not the cpp. Now, when you add a Method or Property, the new method and properties implementation will be added to the header instead of the cpp file. WARNING: I think that under 6.0 you will get an error from the wizard when generating methods and properties if the cpp file does not exist, so the previous statement might be a 7.0 only suggestion.

Another thing that I found useful to change here is to add any debug and try/catch statements to each of the methods in the Control.h file. I like to see TRACES when I enter a function in the designated output debug app. You might also find it useful to add try/catch handlers in here so you do not have to add them in manually later on. Anything that you tend to add to every project that you generate is a candidate for addition here. Remember to add any include files in the header, depending on what dependencies that the code that you add needs. I remove the /*uMsg*/ parameters as well (personal preference.)

Ctlco.idl This is IDL file for the Connection points. Not much of anything to do here. Control.cpp I simply remove the InterfaceSupportsErrorInfo from this file and move it to the header. Connpt.h I did not have a need to modify this file. Control.rgs. All Registry ('.RGS') files can be modified, too, although these are pretty specific and I have not taken the time to look into what advantages would exist in modifying them.

VS 6.0 has a great many other files that I have not looked into modifying as I do not use VS 6.0 any longer. You should probably be able to reformat the MFC files for both 6 and 7.0 as well but, as I use only ATL and no MFC, I have not looked into any of these files, either.