Microsoft announces first early release of Web Template Studio, a VS Code extension for making cloud based web apps

Microsoft continues to build on the success of Visual Studio Code, a free, cross platform code editor that’s rapidly becoming one of the most popular IDEs (integrated developer environment), and today has announced an early look at the Microsoft Web Template Studio. This cross-platform extension for VS Code, open sourced on GitHub and created by Microsoft Garage interns, starts out using a single full stack app path using React and Node.js, but the community driven extension is seeking input on what else developers are looking for. The installation page for the dev-nightly builds of Web Template Studio describes the new extension:

Web Template Studio (WebTS) is a Visual Studio Code Extension that accelerates the creation of new web applications using a wizard-based experience. WebTS enables developers to generate boilerplate code for a web app by choosing between different front-end frameworks, back-end frameworks, pages and cloud services. The resulting web application is well-formed, readable code that incorporates cloud services on Azure while implementing proven patterns and best practices. Sprinkled throughout the generated code we have links to Docs to provide useful insights.

If this sounds familiar, Microsoft already has a Windows Template Studio for building native UWP apps, but now developers can build web applications using the same familiar tools and workflow. You can learn more about Microsoft Web Template Studio from the blog post or try it out with Visual Studio Code.