Change default code Visual Studio 2015 Community

Question

How can I change the code that VS automatically generates for a Win32 Project? Instead of this:

// testproj.cpp : Defines the entry point for the application.
//

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "testproj.h"

#define MAX_LOADSTRING 100

// Global Variables:
HINSTANCE hInst;                                // current instance
WCHAR szTitle[MAX_LOADSTRING];                  // The title bar text
WCHAR szWindowClass[MAX_LOADSTRING];            // the main window class name

// Forward declarations of functions included in this code module:
ATOM                MyRegisterClass(HINSTANCE hInstance);
BOOL                InitInstance(HINSTANCE, int);
LRESULT CALLBACK    WndProc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM);
INT_PTR CALLBACK    About(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM);

int APIENTRY wWinMain(_In_ HINSTANCE hInstance,
                     _In_opt_ HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
                     _In_ LPWSTR    lpCmdLine,
                     _In_ int       nCmdShow)
{
    UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(hPrevInstance);
    UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(lpCmdLine);

    // TODO: Place code here.

    // Initialize global strings
    LoadStringW(hInstance, IDS_APP_TITLE, szTitle, MAX_LOADSTRING);
    LoadStringW(hInstance, IDC_TESTPROJ, szWindowClass, MAX_LOADSTRING);
    MyRegisterClass(hInstance);

    // Perform application initialization:
    if (!InitInstance (hInstance, nCmdShow))
    {
        return FALSE;
    }

    HACCEL hAccelTable = LoadAccelerators(hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDC_TESTPROJ));

    MSG msg;

    // Main message loop:
    while (GetMessage(&msg, nullptr, 0, 0))
    {
        if (!TranslateAccelerator(msg.hwnd, hAccelTable, &msg))
        {
            TranslateMessage(&msg);
            DispatchMessage(&msg);
        }
    }

    return (int) msg.wParam;
}



//
//  FUNCTION: MyRegisterClass()
//
//  PURPOSE: Registers the window class.
//
ATOM MyRegisterClass(HINSTANCE hInstance)
{
    WNDCLASSEXW wcex;

    wcex.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);

    wcex.style          = CS_HREDRAW | CS_VREDRAW;
    wcex.lpfnWndProc    = WndProc;
    wcex.cbClsExtra     = 0;
    wcex.cbWndExtra     = 0;
    wcex.hInstance      = hInstance;
    wcex.hIcon          = LoadIcon(hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_TESTPROJ));
    wcex.hCursor        = LoadCursor(nullptr, IDC_ARROW);
    wcex.hbrBackground  = (HBRUSH)(COLOR_WINDOW+1);
    wcex.lpszMenuName   = MAKEINTRESOURCEW(IDC_TESTPROJ);
    wcex.lpszClassName  = szWindowClass;
    wcex.hIconSm        = LoadIcon(wcex.hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_SMALL));

    return RegisterClassExW(&wcex);
}

//
//   FUNCTION: InitInstance(HINSTANCE, int)
//
//   PURPOSE: Saves instance handle and creates main window
//
//   COMMENTS:
//
//        In this function, we save the instance handle in a global variable and
//        create and display the main program window.
//
BOOL InitInstance(HINSTANCE hInstance, int nCmdShow)
{
   hInst = hInstance; // Store instance handle in our global variable

   HWND hWnd = CreateWindowW(szWindowClass, szTitle, WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
      CW_USEDEFAULT, 0, CW_USEDEFAULT, 0, nullptr, nullptr, hInstance, nullptr);

   if (!hWnd)
   {
      return FALSE;
   }

   ShowWindow(hWnd, nCmdShow);
   UpdateWindow(hWnd);

   return TRUE;
}

//
//  FUNCTION: WndProc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM)
//
//  PURPOSE:  Processes messages for the main window.
//
//  WM_COMMAND  - process the application menu
//  WM_PAINT    - Paint the main window
//  WM_DESTROY  - post a quit message and return
//
//
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
    switch (message)
    {
    case WM_COMMAND:
        {
            int wmId = LOWORD(wParam);
            // Parse the menu selections:
            switch (wmId)
            {
            case IDM_ABOUT:
                DialogBox(hInst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_ABOUTBOX), hWnd, About);
                break;
            case IDM_EXIT:
                DestroyWindow(hWnd);
                break;
            default:
                return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
            }
        }
        break;
    case WM_PAINT:
        {
            PAINTSTRUCT ps;
            HDC hdc = BeginPaint(hWnd, &ps);
            // TODO: Add any drawing code that uses hdc here...
            EndPaint(hWnd, &ps);
        }
        break;
    case WM_DESTROY:
        PostQuitMessage(0);
        break;
    default:
        return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
    }
    return 0;
}

// Message handler for about box.
INT_PTR CALLBACK About(HWND hDlg, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
    UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(lParam);
    switch (message)
    {
    case WM_INITDIALOG:
        return (INT_PTR)TRUE;

    case WM_COMMAND:
        if (LOWORD(wParam) == IDOK || LOWORD(wParam) == IDCANCEL)
        {
            EndDialog(hDlg, LOWORD(wParam));
            return (INT_PTR)TRUE;
        }
        break;
    }
    return (INT_PTR)FALSE;
}

I want it to auto generate some other code. How could I do this?

Edit: Also, how do I get VS to not generate precompiled headers for globally (I know how to change it for every project, but that is annoying). And how do I get it to use the A versions of the Win32 by default and not the W ?

Answer 1

You should not want to use the A versions instead of W versions of functions in 2015. Not every code page has every character you'll want to use, you may wind up not using solely English in the future in some major project, and virtually all the data we communicate on the Internet is in some form of Unicode. For Windows programs, you will have to embrace wide strings and UTF-16; Microsoft has yet to invent the time machine that will let us use UTF-8 directly in APIs. (Microsoft's adoption of Unicode predated UTF-8.) The A functions do not work with UTF-8 because UTF-8 is not a valid process code page (it is only valid in the character set conversion functions).

If you really want to avoid using UTF-16 as much as possible, you will need to convert between UTF-8 and UTF-16 at every API call point. Not using either UTF-8 or UTF-16 for text, though, is no longer recommended. In fact, it's a great thing that VS2015, according to your code sample above, dropped the TCHAR madness of prior versions that continues to confuse beginning Windows programmers ( especially here on Stack Overflow) to this day.

Answer 2

From https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms185319.aspx :

Locate the .zip file that contains the template. By default, this file is located in
\\My Documents\\Visual Studio Version\\My Exported Templates\\

Extract the .zip file.

Modify or delete the current template files, or add new files to the template.

Open, modify, and save the .vstemplate XML file to handle updated behavior or new files. For more information about the .vstemplate schema, see Visual Studio Template Schema Reference. For more information about what you can parameterize in the source files, see Template Parameters

Select the files in your template, right-click, click Send To, and then click Compressed (zipped) Folder. The files that you selected are compressed into a .zip file.

Put the new .zip file in the same directory as the old .zip file.

Delete the extracted template files and the old template .zip file.

Start (as administrator) an instance of the Developer Command Prompt (on the start menu, under Visual Studio 2010 / Visual Studio Tools / Developer Command Prompt).

Run the following command: devenv /installvstemplates.

The other mentioned things can be changed too.