How do you default a new class to public when creating it in Visual Studio?

Question

When I right click in the Solution of a C# Visual Studio project and select Add... > Class... it creates a class without a public modifier. How do I get Visual Studio (2008) to default the class to a public class?

Answer 1

Hi there,

You need to modify the file located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Code\1033. There is a zip file in there called Class.zip, unpack this, edit the file to put in your public keyword then re-pack it (make sure you backup the original).

Answer 2

You need to change the class template, as described here.

It's slightly more involved than just editing a single file (which is what you might expect) but it doesn't sound too bad.

Answer 3

You could either create your own project template, or modify the existing one. All these project files are template-driven, so you can alter them and/or add your own.

Check out these links:

• MSDN on VS Project Templates
• Create your own VS Project Templates
• CodeProject on VS Project Templates

Marc