A short while ago, Damian Edwards released Visual Studio 2008 XHTML 1.1 templates on CodePlex that gave you a “set of item and project templates for ASP.NET developers using Visual Studio 2008 that provide XHTML 1.1 compliant alternatives to the standard web form and master page templates”. This is a great starting point to ensure that your new websites start off on the right foot by providing a set of files (web forms, master page, stylesheets, etc.) that are preconfigured to be XHTML 1.1 strict compliant.

I decided that since this is such a great thing that I’d re-release the template as a Windows Azure Web Role, meaning that you can all create new cloud services that start off as being XHTML 1.1 compliant.

Installation

I didn’t mess about creating a fancy installer, so you’ll have to do 2 things.

  1. download the file and place it into the visual studio Azure template folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Cloud Service\Roles or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Cloud Service\Roles if you are on x64)
  2. Start the visual studio 2008 command prompt in administrator mode and type ‘devenv /installvstemplates’

Using the template

  1. Create a new blank cloud service
  2. In the solution explorer, right click the roles folder and add a new “web role project”
  3. The “Add a new project” window will appear and the new Web Role (XHTML 1.1) template should be there ready to use!
    image
  4. Read the FAQ on codeplex for the template. You'll have to modify one of the references to use the CSSfriendll.dll

Download
http://cid-fc3a2c38819e3e29.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog/XHTML11.CS%7C_IndiWebRole.zip

By David Burela