At the moment when I want to create a new project within a solution, I open the contextual (right-click menu) on the solution, select 'Add' but there is only the option to 'Add Existing Sketch Project'. There is the standard VS Project menu under 'Add' but 'Sketch Project' does not appear there as a template.

I find myself having to open the Arduino IDE, create a blank sketch located and named how I would like, save it, close the Arduino IDE then adding that project from the Add menu mentioned above.

Is there a way to streamline this? Am I missing something?

Ah excellent this does work - I have always used the contextual menu in VS (right click on the solution file in the Project Explorer).

However there does not seem to a way to specify which sub-directory within my 'Arduino' folder the new project should be in - it is created at the root. This still means to create the project in the folder of my choosing I have to use the method I use above.

I did find a workaround where I created a new template in VS following this guide http://blogs.msdn.com/b/akirsman/archive/2012/10/11/creating-visual-studio-templ... but it would be nice to have this template included in the VisualMicro plugin by default with the icon and categorised somewhere more accessible than buried deep in the Visual C++ list.

Cheers,

Brendan

Great info for others thanks. We do plan to add some standard templates and some examples but you guide is nice.

It doesn't matter where you create a new project as long as the folder that contains it and the name of the project and a .ino all have the same name.

If the above few rules are applied then you could also create an empty win32 C++ application, replace the ProjName.cpp with a ProjName.ino and visual micro should spring to life. 

I know you have a great solution of your own but thought it might be useful to explain that the projects are just cpp projects with the right combination of file/folder names.

Thanks again