I've created about 10 T3 templates which show up in the Project and Project Add CommandBars. I now want these exact templates to show up in the Add / New Item... list as well. It appears that I can't do this without having at least one <TemplateContent> in the *.vstemplate file. I'm using functionality that is only in T3 templates and I really really only want to have to use one kind of template engine. Otherwise, I will have to maintain two complete different sets of templates to produce exactly the same thing.

My initial hope was that I could just leave out the <TemplateContent> element, run my recipe to build the code files and return the corrrect ProjectItem to the VS template framework.

Am I missing something simple?

This is one improvement we're working on for the next drop of GAT, where a new (although very very similar text template engine codenamed T4) engine will be in-place. Hopefully you will be able to do exactly the same you're trying right now.

For now, however, there's no way to achieve what you're looking for, other than having an empty template and have an action that overwrites its "output" with the contents of a T3 transformation.

This is one improvement we're working on for the next drop of GAT, where a new (although very very similar text template engine codenamed T4) engine will be in-place. Hopefully you will be able to do exactly the same you're trying right now.

For now, however, there's no way to achieve what you're looking for, other than having an empty template and have an action that overwrites its "output" with the contents of a T3 transformation.