WindowsScript

Windows Script Sample

Simple project type that supports .js and .vbs files; can run and debug them using cscript.exe.

Showcased Features

• File globbing (project automatically includes *.js and *.vbs under the project cone)
• Editing the project file without unloading the project (right click on the project node - Edit)
• Project handles own reload without the solution doing a full reload when the project file changes on disk
• Custom properties
• Custom item type - project defines Script item type to include *.js and *.vbs files
• Custom debug launch provider using custom properties to invoke cscript.exe and run the script file
• Run from command line using the same parameters defined above via msbuild target:

  msbuild /t:run
  

How to use the sample

Walkthrough

1. Open WindowsScript.sln in Visual Studio 2017 and use Ctrl + F5 to run it. This will open the Experimental instance of Visual Studio
2. From the main menu, File -> New Project, select WindowsScript -> Windows Script Project and press OK. This will create a new project that contains a Start.js file
3. In the generated project, insert a breakpoint on the 2nd line of Start.js
4. Press F5 - this will start the debugger; it will stop at the breakpoint
5. Switch to the cscript window - the default implementation displays information about the execution context (which script is running, current directory, arguments)

Adding new files

The sample doesn't currently provide any item templates. To create new files, you can:

• copy-paste the default Start.js
• create new script files (.vbs or .js) in Windows Explorer; the project includes automatically all *.js and *.vbs located under the project cone

Specifying a different script file to run

Project uses a custom property StartItem to specify which script file to run. The default value is Start.js.

1. Open the Property Pages dialog (right click on the project node -> Properties)
2. Set the value of Start Item property (located under Common Properties -> General) to specify the file you would like to run (e.g. Foo.js)

This value gets persisted in the project file:

<StartItem>Foo.js</StartItem>

Specifying additional debugging parameters

Project supports a few additional properties to control the script execution. They can be set from the project properties dialog (Configuration Properties -> Debugging -> Script Debugger) and get persisted in the .user file (next to the project).

• Command (persisted as RunCommand) - specifies which tool to invoke to run the script; by default it uses cscript.exe but you can set it to wscript.exe (offered conveniently as a predefined value when you expand the drop down)
• Command Arguments (persisted as RunCommandArguments) - specifies additional arguments to pass to the script; by default it is empty
• Working Directory (persisted as RunWorkingDirectory) - specifies the working directory for the script; by default it is the project folder

Implementation Notes

Custom properties

• Default values are defined in the .props file. This allows them to be used from msbuild when the value is not specified.

• .user file is imported in .targets for consumption by msbuild

  <Import Project="$(MSBuildProjectFullPath).user" Condition="Exists('$(MSBuildProjectFullPath).user')" /> 

These properties are consumed in 2 different places:

• Debug Launch Provider (F5 and Ctrl F5 from Visual Studio) - see ScriptDebuggerLaunchProvider.cs
• The Run Target - that can be used from MSBuild - see CustomProject.targets using

  MSBuild /t:Run