Getting rid of the DSL model explorer

I could not find any option in the DSL design to remove the model explorer, but if you look at some of the .tt files you will find somewhere a query for this.Dsl.Explorer != null. For example in thepackage.tt file that generates thepackage.cs which is responsible for registering the tool window for the model explorer:

<#

    if(this.Dsl.Explorer != null)

    {

#>

[VSShell::ProvideToolWindow(         typeof(<#= dslName #>ExplorerToolWindow),          MultiInstances = false,          Style = VSShell::VsDockStyle.Tabbed,          Orientation = VSShell::ToolWindowOrientation.Right,          Window = "{3AE79031-E1BC-11D0-8F78-00A0C9110057}")]

    [VSShell::ProvideToolWindowVisibility(         typeof(<#= dslName #>ExplorerToolWindow),          Constants.<#= dslName #>EditorFactoryId)]

<#

    }

#>

Even if I did not find any option to set theDsl.Explorer property of the model tonull (you did not see the Explorer property anywhere in the DSL diagram) it seems that the developers of the DSL Tools had this use case in mind.

To remove theDsl.Explorer from your DSL model open the.dsl file with a text editor and go to the end. There you will find some XML tags like the following:

<ExplorerExplorerGuid="6c276297-6acd-4e9a-8740-b61ba834004b" Title="HardwareDescription Explorer">

    <ExplorerBehaviorMoniker     Name="HardwareDescription/HardwareDescriptionExplorer"/>

</Explorer>

Just delete these three lines and generate your code once again. Maybe you should reset your Experimental Hive, too.

I tested a DSL with a removed Model Explorer without any problems. It seems the developers of the DSL Tools did a very good job on the code generation templates . The generated ModelExplorer.cs file contains only a single line:

// This source file is empty because    this DSL does not define a model explorer.

That should be a good proof that a DSL can run without the model explorer even if it might be not supported by the DSL Tools.