Microsoft has introduced the Visual Studio code extension Web Template Studio (WebTS). The open source extension, designed to create cloud-based web apps and is available as a very early nightly build.

A new extension for VS Code is in the starting blocks: Microsoft Web Template Studio (WebTS) is ready for download as a very early nightly build. The goal of WebTS cloud-based full-stack web development using Azure services. WebTS released as a Nightly Build at a very early stage for feedback from the developer community.

What Is Microsoft Web Template Studio?

The new extension Web Template Studio should serve the purpose of creating cloud-based web apps easier. The most common UI pages offer as App Page Templates and can added through the included wizard. A ReadMe.md provides a detailed overview of using WebTS.

So far, WebTS supports React.js as the frontend and Node.js as the backend framework. As an experimental version Angular can used, Vue support should follow soon. Currently supported Azure cloud services include Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Functions.

To use the extension, Node and Yarn must installed in addition to Visual Studio Code. So Web Template Studio is open source and cross-platform usable.

All other information about WebTS can found in the GitHub repository and in the latest post on HelpDev.

Features Of Microsoft Web Template Studio

Web Template Studio approaches web app creation using the following four attribute sets:

• Project Type :
  • First, what type of application are you building? We currently support only one type: Fullstack Application.
• Frameworks:
  • Next, which frameworks do you want to use for your frontend and backend? We currently support one framework for frontend: React.js and one framework for backend: Node.js.
• App pages:
  • To accelerate app creation, we provide a number of app page templates that you can use to add common UI pages into your new app. The current page templates include: blank page, common layouts (*e.g., master detail) and pages that implement common patterns (*e.g., grid, list). Using the wizard, add as many of the pages as you need, providing a name for each one, and we’ll generate them for you.
• Cloud Services:
  • Lastly, you specify which Azure cloud services you want to use, and we’ll build out the framework for the services into your app including tagging ‘TODO’ items. Currently supported services cover storage (Azure Cosmos DB), and compute (Azure Functions).

Once you make the selections you want and click generate, you can quickly extend the generated code.