Specflow with Visual Studio express

Question

I have used Specflow in Visual Studio 2010 Pro at work but would like to use it on my personal projects. Unfortunately I only have VS210 Express.

I have not managed

Answer 1

The main idea is: SpecFlow generates fixtures for one of the common Unit-Test-Frameworks. More information you can find here.

I suppose that you loose some Item templates that appear in the Visual Studio Professional but disappear for Visual Studio Express versions. To overcome this problem you should take all templates files from SpecFlow application folder on computer where you have Professional version installed. On my computer it is located here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\TechTalk\SpecFlow\ItemTemplates

There should be the files like: SpecFlowFeature.zip and etc, all with *.zip extension. Then you should copy its to your computer for this place:

C:\Users\[User name]\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Templates\ItemTemplates\Visual C#

And finally, open Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express. Create console application, for example. And choose Project -> Add new item. There is only possible to open these templates with Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express. Because inside template files it was defined that templates could be open only with C# project type.

Answer 2

I have managed to do this, and I have written a blog post on how to do this entitled: "C# ATDD on a shoestring (or the complete guide to SpecFlow & NUnit in VS2010 Express)"

Answer 3

You can't use 3^rd party add ons (like Specflow, ReSharper etc.) with the Express editions of Visual Studio. I can't find the reference right now, but this will be why you can't integrate Specflow.