Microsoft today announced the launch of Web Template Studio, an extension for Visual Studio Code that aims to make it easier for developers to create full-stack web apps. Microsoft says the Web Template Studio is meant to address feedback from the developer community, who wanted it to be easier to create cloud-based apps. The project is somewhat similar to the Windows Template Studio, according to the company, except it"s meant for web apps rather than native UWP apps.
Microsoft"s goal is to provide enough to help developers get their app running, but not so much that code needs to be deleted and things start breaking. The Visual Studio Code extension is cross-platform, and it"s currently only available in preview form, as Microsoft is looking for more feedback on how it can make it better.
The project is actually developed by Microsoft Garage interns, and it"s also open source and available on GitHub. It"s still in very early stages of the development, so much so that Microsoft doesn"t yet have a roadmap for it, but it says it"s working on it. You"ll be able to find it here when it"s available.
To get started with Web Template Studio, you"ll need to download the nightly build from the Visual Studio Marketplace, and you have to have Node and Yarn installed as well. As of right now, WebTS is only officially supporting the React framework with Node.js, but the company is working on experimental versions for Angular, and Vue support is coming soon, too. If you"d like to test these experimental features, you can enable preview mode in the settings.