VS2017: separate layout options in a separate file

[rismoney]

recommended by @majkinetor

• easier to customize without changing update.ps1
• link to see all available packages

[gep13]

@rismoney have you seen this:

https://github.com/jberezanski/ChocolateyPackages/blob/master/chocolatey-visualstudio.extension/EXAMPLES.md

Is what you are suggesting in this issue similar to what is possible using that package?

[rismoney]

i think that stuff is great there, but it is far too abstracted and/or segmented.

Many enterprises just want a prefab set of workloads. The updater side can include as many workloads as you want, but the installer must always be a subset. I maintain 1:1, but it's trivial to create "spinoff" packages or parameter packages using the same source, and a different json, but I avoided that and created a standard install after polling the devs to provide a workload spec. I think the alternate json files approach provides a better wrapper versus micromanaging workloads in an enterprise. If you really had to partition your devs, i'd prefer groups of workloads versus individual specification.

Finally while those scripts/packages handle creating layouts and whatnot, my goal was also not to treat VS like a snowflake, and instead manage it like any other package. Thats why I put the package assembly into AU. Anytime a new version is published, it is easily consumable via choco upgrade. Totally hands off.

[gep13]

@rismoney thanks for getting back to me. That makes perfect sense, I just wanted to make sure that we were avoiding duplication of effort.