Using fubu new

Using fubu.exe‘s new command to create template FubuMVC projects and to create your own custom templates.

Creating a default FubuMVC project

fubu.exe has a default template zip included when invoking the new command. After getting FubuMVC you should add the fubu.exe to the PATH. Now that fubu.exe is on the path, open a terminal and navigate to a writable directory that you would like the new FubuMVC project, and type:

$ fubu new My.NewProject

This will create the folder NewProject with the default FubuMVC project using My.NewProject as the project Namespace. Lets have a quick look at what the new command generated:

NewProject/
    NewProject.sln
    src/
        NewProject/
            Controllers/
            Models/
            Properties/
            Views/
            NewProject.csproj
            NewProjectHtmlConventions.cs
            NewProjectRegistry.cs
            Global.asax
            Web.config

And there you have it! A new FubuMVC project ready to go.

Using a different Fubu Template zip

fubu.exe by default uses a zip file placed in the same directory as itself, but if you have other template zip files, you can use the -z flag on new.

$ fubu new -z ../MyTemplate.zip My.NewTemplateProject

This will unzip the contents of the MyTemplate.zip to the folder NewTemplateProject and run the template transformation on the contents of the zip file.

Creating your own template zip

Creating your own template zip for fubu new is a very simple process. The easiest way to start is to unzip The fubuTemplate.zip file that resides with fubu.exe.

Once you’ve extracted the fubuTemplate.zip you will see this structure:

FUBUPROJECTNAME.sln
src/
    FUBUPROJECTNAME/
        Controllers/
        Models/
        Properties/
        Views/
        FUBUPROJECTNAME.csproj
        FUBUPROJECTNAMEHtmlConventions.cs
        FUBUPROJECTNAMERegistry.cs
        Global.asax
        Web.config

Inside of the files will look much like this:

From this, we can see that there are a few keywords that get replaced when using fubu new. This is the list of keywords and corresponding replacements:

Keyword	Replacement
FUBUPROJECTNAME	Name put in the fubu new command
FUBUPROJECTSHORTNAME	Last part of fubu new name (after last .)
FACEFACE-FACE-FACE-FACE-FACEFACEFACE	Guid.NewGuid()

Modifying the template can be as simple as adding extra classes to adding entirely new Projects.

When you’re happy with the results of your template, you simply need to zip up the directory. You can then use the -z flag to use the new template, for example:

$ fubu new -z ../../Templates/MyNewTemplate.zip My.NewProject

Using a Git repository as a Fubu Template

fubu.exe can also use a git repository as a template source as well as using a zip file. If you have a Git repository that has a fubu template, you can use the -g flag on new.

$ fubu new -g https://github.com/MyGithubUsername/MyFubuTempmlate.git My.NewGitBasedProject

This will clone the git repository MyFubuTemplate to the folder NewGitBasedproject and run the template transformation on the contents of the cloned repository.

Creating your own template with git

Creating a template using Git is easy and fun to do, it is very much like creating a template zip file.<fubunew-zip>. The main difference when creating a template git repository is that you initialize a git repository and add the code to the repository.

$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in c:/
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "New Fubu Template project"

Once you have committed your git repository, you can push the code up to a central place such as Github or Gitorious if that helps sharing the template project. Once you’ve got your git repository set up, using the repository <fubunew-using-git> is simple.