Sorry in advance for the long problem description...
I recently had to re-image one of my machines and reinstall all of my apps/development tools. After getting back up to speed, I noticed something strange...
I created a new website project and when I went to add a new Web Form, the “Add New Item” dialog displays only 1 control at the bottom – a “Name” textbox to enter the filename. What I expected was 4 controls – “Name” textbox, “Language” dropdown list, “Place code in separate file” checkbox, and “Select master page” checkbox (this is what appears on another machine).
Also, on the rebuilt machine there is a template called Web Content Form which, if you select it, prompts for a master page in a separate dialog. On the other machine there is only a Web Form template (because the dialog allows you to check the "“Select master page” checkbox" at the bottom).
AND, on the rebuilt machine, once a Web Form was added, the Solution Explorer shows 3 files (filename.aspx, filename.aspx.cs, and filename.aspx.designer.cs).
All of this behavior was sounding "old" (like beta days).
Anyway, looking more closely I also noticed that when I right-clicked on the solution, the context menu contained an "Add" menu item with a flyout that has "New item..." and on the other machine the context menu contained an "Add new item..." menu item (no flyout).
So to me, it looks like I’m using two different IDEs. The versions of VS 2005 are the same on both machines – Version 8.0.50727.762 (SP.050727-7600) – and the versions of the framework are the same on both machines – Version 2.0.50727.
The only thing that I can think of is that I installed SQL Server 2005 with Reporting Services, etc. BEFORE installing VS 2005 and I think SQL Server installs some kind of VS 2005 IDE “lite”. Perhaps when the VS 2005 install came along it saw some template files from the SQL Server install and didn’t bother to install the newer template files? (BTW, I’ve already tried the “devenv /installvstemplates” thing to no avail).
Could I maybe copy the template hierarchy from one machine to another? Is the “Add New Item” dialog’s appearance really driven off of the template files or am I really looking at two different IDEs?
Someone else is having this same problem. See:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet/browse_thread/thread/6314f08010369981/c7c979dd849803e9?lnk=st&q=vs+2005+%22add+new+item%22+dialog&rnum=4#c7c979dd849803e9
Thanks,
Jay
UPDATE: "Never mind..."
This is a new feature of VS 2005 SP1. SP1 introduced the ASP.NET Web Application (notice the subtle difference between this and ASP.NET Web Site). See:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336618.aspx
"The Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project model uses the same project, build and compilation semantics as the Visual Studio .NET 2003 web project model..."
What was old has become new again!