Now that you have the templates. Lets check where you have the files.
Default location is C:\projects\helix.templates
First items on the list are the templates for the Visual Studio Project and the last 2 are Solution type. So when we first created the solution, we saw these two templates.
Let’s take a peek.
This looks very similar to your solution structure that was created. Take a look at the template manifest. You will see how it is creating the folders and files there. This is where you can customize your solution.
Now let’s take a peek in one of the project folder. You will see it also has a template manifest file and a src folder. Let’s go to src first and you will see $layerName$ then if you if you dig in it will be $modulename$ then $projectrootfolderName$ (also a tds folder depending on which project you choose) and then you see you standard files that come with a project. This is what will get in the project of the folder.
Let’s check the manifest.
You will see all the tokens and dropdown values. You might want to do the changes here. But wait. There is one more item that is important for customizing the templates.
Let’s add a new project and find out what we see.
You will select Feature folder on the Solution, right click and add a new project.
Select Sitecore Helix Modules and Solutions template
Configure your project with the proper name and location
Next you will see a message about local module templates.
This is trying to install the templates locally. I found it helpful for mine. This way I can locally update my templates as needed per project. You can do all the token update as needed.
Your newly create project looks like this pic
If you look under the solution folder you will have a HelixTemplates folder and a has all the Helix templates. Do your changes here on those items. This way you are not changing it globally.
Thank you for reading this. I will go more on customization in the next blog.
If you want to learn more about Sitecore / Helix template use the following links. I highly suggest Shelley Benhoff’s PluralSight courses. the following one has Helix template
https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/building-sitecore-helix-website
Anders Laub’s Github for the helix template https://github.com/LaubPlusCo/LaubPlusCo.Helix.VsTemplates