The General settings tab is the tab where you start with when configuring the code generation process. It contains various parameters for the code generation process which allow you to setup and start the code generation process. By default the General settings tab is the only tab visible in the dialog (Simple view). Clicking Advanded... will show the two additional tabs, the Template Bindings tab and the Task Queue to Execute Tab. Choices made on the General Settings tab will influence the contents and options available to you on the other two tabs.
Start by selecting the Target language you want to use. This is the language the generated code
will be in.
The next step will be to select which Target platform you are generating code for. Make sure you select the right platform, as it influences the
templates available to you and for example the visual studio project file formats.
.NET 3.5 will
generate VS.NET 2008 projects and .NET 4.0 / 4.5 / 4.5.1 / 4.5.2 / 4.6 will generate VS.NET 2010
/ 2012 / 2013 / 2015 projects.
After you've made the selection for the target platform, specify the Root namespace in the root namespace textbox. This root namespace textbox is filled with the root namespace defined in the Project Settings. Say, you've defined it as "SD.Northwind", then the namespaces in the generated code all start with 'SD.Northwind', so the namespaces in the code will look like 'SD.Northwind.CollectionClasses' or 'SD.Northwind.Entities'.
When the root namespace has been defined, select the template group you want to use for your generated code. A template group is the grouping construct of a set of templates. It depends on the project's target framework which template groups are available.
After the template group has been chosen, select one of the available presets. A preset, is a definition of a run queue, with tasks and task groups in the right order, with the right values for the task parameters. You can alter these presets on the third tab, when clicking Advanced... however this is not necessary in general. The available presets are documented in detail in the manual for the target framework chosen.
The generated code has to be stored in a directory, and you can define that directory in the Destination root folder textbox. You can specify a relative path from the location the project file was loaded from. For example, you have a folder called 'MyBigProject' and in that folder you've defined two folders: LLBLGenProProject and VS.NETProject, the LLBLGen Pro project file is located in the LLBLGenProProject folder. To generate code in the VS.NETProject folder, simply specify ..\VS.NETProject as the Destination root folder. Paths starting with '..\' or '.\' (without the quotes) are recognized as relative paths.
The General Settings tab is enough to specify the information needed to start a code generation process. Specify for every element a value and click Start Generator (Normal).