PFC3D C++ Plugin Template Error

I followed the instructions on the “Creating Contact Model DLLs from the MSVS Project Template” page of the Contact Model Plug-Ins site on the Itasca website, but when I try to create the new project from the Itasca Contact Model template in Visual Studio 2019 (as recommended), I get this error:
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I checked the documentation available on the Microsoft website but could not find a viable solution because I do not directly have access to the template file (from my understanding of .vsix files). I am guessing that the template it is referencing is the one created when executing “ItascaProjectTemplates.vsix” because I am able to create new projects from other templates not provided by Itasca. How do I fix this error (or get around it) to be able to create my own C++ plugin contact model for PFC3D, as I can’t edit the template created by the .vsix file provided from the PFC3D version 7 installation?

For future PFC3D Version 7 users attempting to make their own contact model that ran into an error opening and compiling the example.sln found in \PluginFiles\contactmodel\example:

I found that the example file example.sln works when you configure it in Visual Studio 2019 - it does not compile correctly by default. You have to right click on the solution (which at first displays around 1800 errors) in the solution explorer menu at on the right then go to → Qt → Qt Project Settings and add the following value under Version (by default, this line is empty):


This resolves the errors with the example contact model, but not with the template. Itasca reached out to me and said they are working on fixing the template.