Creating Projects Based on Templates

The creation of new projects can further be streamlined through the use of project templates. This is somewhat similar to leveraging reference projects (see Creating Projects Based on Previous Projects). However, in this case you do not use an *.sdlproj file, but an *.sdltlp template file, which contains settings such as the selection of TMs (i.e. the translation provider configuration), termbases, task settings, source / target languages, etc.

While reference projects are mainly used when you need to handle update projects based on previous projects, project templates help streamline the creation of multiple similar projects, e.g. when a customer requires a specific project structure.

Create a Project Programmatically Based on a Template

Start by implementing a function called CreateBasedOnTemplate. Use the ProjectTemplateReference class to create a project template object. For this, you just need to provide the full name and path of the *.sdltpl project template file:

string templateFile = @"c:\temp\project_template.sdltpl";
ProjectTemplateReference template = new ProjectTemplateReference(templateFile);

In the next step use the FileBasedProject class to create the new project. As parameters, you need to provide the project information (which we will retrieve through a separate helper function) and the project template object. Finally, apply the Save method to persist the project in an *.sdlproj file. While the project template contains settings such as the source / target languages, translation providers, task settings, etc., some variable options still need to be configured, i.e. the:

Project name
Project due date
Project location (i.e. the project files folder)

Below you see an example of how to configure the above settings:

ProjectInfo info = new ProjectInfo();

info.Name = "Project based on Template";
info.DueDate = DateTime.Now.AddDays(3);
string localProjectFolder = string.Format(
    CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,
    "{0){1}{2}{1}Projects{1}{3}",
    Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments).ToString(),
    Path.DirectorySeparatorChar, Versioning.Versions.StudioDocumentsFolderName,
    info.Name);
info.LocalProjectFolder = localProjectFolder;

return info;

Putting it All Together

The two complete functions should now look as shown below:

public void CreateBasedOnTemplate()
{
    #region "GetTemplate"
    string templateFile = @"c:\temp\project_template.sdltpl";
    ProjectTemplateReference template = new ProjectTemplateReference(templateFile);
    #endregion

    #region "TemplateBasedProject"
    FileBasedProject newProject = new FileBasedProject(this.GetInfoForTemplateProject(), template);
    newProject.Save();
    #endregion
}

public ProjectInfo GetInfoForTemplateProject()
{
    #region "TemplateProjectInfo"
    ProjectInfo info = new ProjectInfo();

    info.Name = "Project based on Template";
    info.DueDate = DateTime.Now.AddDays(3);
    string localProjectFolder = string.Format(
        CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,
        "{0){1}{2}{1}Projects{1}{3}",
        Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments).ToString(),
        Path.DirectorySeparatorChar, Versioning.Versions.StudioDocumentsFolderName,
        info.Name);
    info.LocalProjectFolder = localProjectFolder;

    return info;
    #endregion
}

Creating Projects Based on Templates

Create a Project Programmatically Based on a Template

Putting it All Together

See Also