TypeScript HTML Application Template

A template for new projects in Visual Studio 2019 and Visual Studio 2017 that creates an HTML application with TypeScript. There is a separate version of this template targeting Visual Studio 2022.

The project contains an HTML file, a CSS file and a TypeScript file with some basic sample code.

One advantage of this template is that it allows debugging from Visual Studio in Chrome, Edge and Internet Explorer. Just create a project with the template, set a breakpoint in Visual Studio, and hit F5. There is no need to install packages or bring up browser development tools. This makes the template useful as an HTML plus TypeScript playground.

This is the same template that that used to be in Visual Studio 2015.  In Visual Studio 2017 it will appear under 'TypeScript' under 'Other Languages' assuming the correct dependencies are installed, see below. In Visual Studio 2019's new 'open project' dialog the easiest way to find it is to filter by Language = TypeScript. In both cases it appears as 'HTML Application with TypeScript'.

When started with F5 it will start a web server, by default IIS Express, and show a ticking time in the selected web browser.  The code to show the time is in a TypeScript class.  If the browser is Internet Explorer, Edge or Chrome the code will break at breakpoints directly in Visual Studio, and the usual Visual Studio debug tools and windows will be available.  Note that if you are using Chrome you may need to hit refresh in the browser for breakpoints in startup code to be hit.

Please be aware that this template is based on ASP.NET, so you will need the ASP.NET workload installed in Visual Studio.  If the workload is not there the template will not appear.  It does not need Node.js development or .Net desktop development workloads.