Removing a Previous Version

While it is generally safe to install the new version without uninstalling the previous version, to ensure a clean system you may want to follow the Uninstalling NPanday instructions.

Set the PATH

All Maven commands must be run with the PATH set for the .NET SDKs. This can usually be achieved by starting the appropriate command prompt shortcuts supplied with the SDK or Visual Studio.

In addition, at present the NPanday Add-in runs Maven directly and so also requires that all the SDKs are already on the path - something which is not usually the case when Visual Studio is run.

The method you use to set the PATH environment can vary, depending on how you usually launch Visual Studio:

• If you are starting Visual Studio from the Windows Start menu, use the following to set the PATH environment variable in the System Properties: Start > My Computer > View System Information > Advanced > Environment variables. The variable must have all the additional elements that are added when you run the Visual Studio Command Prompt.
• From within the Visual Studio Command Prompt, you can start Visual Studio using the devenv command.

The easiest way to obtain the full PATH is to call set path from the Visual Studio Commmand Prompt of the corresponding Visual Studio version. Then use copy-paste to set this PATH permanently to your Environment Variables.

The correct PATH should include the following:

• The .NET framework runtime(s) - all that are needed (C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 and/or C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5 and/or C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727)
• The .NET SDK - only the latest (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools or C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\bin or other location if installed aside from Visual Studio)
• The Maven bin directory
• The NUnit bin directory if writing NUnit tests

If you are building .NET SDK 3.5 or Visual Studio 2008 projects, you must ensure that the elements for that environment are before any previous SDK versions.

The additional PATH fragment for Visual Studio 2008 will probably look like the following:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\BIN;
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5;
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\VCPackages;
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin;

For Visual Studio 2005, it will likely be:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\BIN;
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools\bin;
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\bin;
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\VCPackages;

Installing NPanday's Maven Plugins

Whether you are using just the Visual Studio integration or the full set of capabilities, you must have the Maven environment installed.

For the purposes of this guide, we will copy the artifacts to our local environment only - however in most developer groups you will host the repository on a shared server that all developers can use to obtain the correct release.

After downloading the binary repository, unpack the contents (you may need a 3rd party application to expand the tar.gz format on Windows). Next, copy the contents of repository/releases from the archive to %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\.m2\repository. This is the default local repository of a Maven installation if it has not been modified in Maven's settings.xml.

For example, you may end up with a structure containing C:\Documents and Settings\User\.m2\repository\npanday\npanday-project\1.3-incubating\npanday-project-1.3-incubating.pom.

To confirm your installation, run the following command, replacing 1.3-incubating with the version you are installing:

mvn help:describe -DgroupId=npanday.plugin -DartifactId=maven-vsinstaller-plugin -Dversion=1.3-incubating

If successful, you should receive the following output:

Name: NPanday :: Visual Studio Addin Installer Maven Plugin
Description: Maven Plugin for .NET: Installs the Visual Studio Addin
Group Id: npanday.plugin
Artifact Id: maven-vsinstaller-plugin
Version: 1.3-incubating
Goal Prefix: vsinstaller

This plugin has 1 goal:

vsinstaller:install
  Description: Installs Visual Studio 2005 addin.

If you don't intend to use the Visual Studio Add-in, you can now get started using Maven.

Installing the Visual Studio Add-in

To install the Add-in, first ensure that Visual Studio is not running.

Next, from a command prompt with the path set as indicated above, run the following command. This command will generate the addin and copies the necessary libraries needed to run the addin to a default location C:\[PROGRAMFILES]\NPanday>.

mvn npanday.plugin:maven-vsinstaller-plugin:[version]:install

You can also specify the location where you want the libraries to be copied by running the following command:

mvn npanday.plugin:maven-vsinstaller-plugin:[version]:install -DinstallationLocation=url

Note: On Windows Vista, Windows 7 and above, you will need to run the command as an administrator. This can be done by starting the command prompt using the Run as administrator option.

After running the maven-vsinstaller-plugin the add-in will be located here: C:\Documents and Settings\[user_home]\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Addins\NPanday.VisualStudio.AddIn (or equivalent for Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2010).

More information on how to verify the Add-in installation are located at the end of this guide.

Getting Started with the Visual Studio Add-in

You can now start Visual Studio and test the Add-in. The next section of this guide will focus on using the Visual Studio Add-in.