Getting Monogame content pipeline to work with Visual studio 2013 in windows 8

Question

I've got monogame working in VS 2013 but I can't get the content pipeline to work. When I try to import an existing Content pipeline Project I get the following error.

And I can't create a new project since the templates arent installed in 2013.

Since I am running windows 8 I cannot install XNA (installer stops saying it requires Win 7 or Vista). Reading here: https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/wiki/MonoGame-Content-Processing It seems XNA is required..?

EDIT

Fex answer gets the templates installed in VS 2013 and I can create a new MonoGame windows Project. But I still cant create or open content projects as they crash with this error

Answer 1

1. Download this zip - it contains script by Eric Mattison and some other things. Zip - sendspace link
2. Extract EricMattisonScript, read and do what Instructions file says.
3. Extract MonoGame.zip to: My documents folder/Visual studio 2013/Templates/Project templates/Visual C#/
4. Extract XNA Game.zip Studio to location $Location where your visual studio 2013 is installed$ ( in my case D:/Program files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 2013)/Common7/IDE/Extensions
5. Launch "devenv.exe /Setup" in command line with administrator priviliages (it is in IDE directory)

Not sure will it work on your pc - in my case it worked.

EDIT: edited script - try this edited script, be sure you have XNAGS40_setup in same folder and that you run it with administrator priviliages

Answer 2

You actually can install XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh on Windows 8 and 8.1. The issue is that the GFWL it tries to install won't work. So obtain a usable Distributable package, such as from a GFWL game (I believe MS also offers a standalone package), install that, THEN install XNAGS4 Refresh.

CORRECTION: I failed to mention that this does not actually install the necessary project/solution/filetypes into VS2012. See the next section for useful solutions. ADDITIONAL INFO: At the renamed XNA CodePlex page ( http://mxa.codeplex.com ), there are downloads for versions of Visual Studio beyond 2010 (10.0). These downloads are ZIP files that include installers for each separate package that XNA4 installs, ending with the VS extension package installer for the relevant version of Visual Studio. In addition, MonoGame at this point (two years later) no longer requires any XNA elements to load and compile in Visual Studio or Xamarin Studio/MonoDevelop. The tools that MonoGame uses to replace XNA Content Projects can also import them for conversion to MonoGame Content Projects.

Answer 3

You can use the content pipeline of SharpDX.
You put your content in the Content folder of the SharpDX solution. Build that solution and then you move the .xnb files generated to the content folder of your MonoGame project.

You could also just use a post buid event to copy the files for you.

Answer 4

If I'm right the Content Pipeline project is at the core a Windows Phone 7 XNA project. Since VS2013 it became unable to create or edit Windows Phone 7 nor XNA projects and thereby unable for you to open the Content Pipeline project.

For so as far as I know to create/compile the Pipeline you'll need VS2012 or VS2010.

VS2010 has XNA bundled within and for VS2012 to work you would need to download the Windows Phone SDK to enable XNA development. (this is also what I use for my Pipeline)