I am using Visual Studio Community:
Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019
Version 16.4.5
VisualStudio.16.Release/16.4.5+29806.167
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 4.8.03752
I have a very simple ASP.Net Core website / app project, with the following directory structure:
website
/bin
/www
/about
/images
NOTE: The webroot directory is NOT wwwroot, but instead just www
The project file (.csproj) contains the following (to copy all sub-directories/files to the output directory):
<ItemGroup>
<Content Update="www\**\*">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
Using Visual Studio (Config = Debug)
BUILD -> Rebuild Solution
Result:
/bin
/Debug
/netcoreapp3.0
/Properties
/runtimes
(missing /www and all sub-directories and files!) - WHY???
The same results are obtained if I use msbuild.exe from the developer command prompt; makes no difference with regard to configuration (Debug vs Release).
I assumed that the www directory (and all sub-directories) and files would be copied to the output directory -- but clearly, this is not happening. I do not understand why the CopyToOutputDirectory is being ignored; I am missing something, but a search of the documentation did not yield any answers.
Any ideas / advice would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Update:
Just changed the following in the project (.csproj) file:
<ItemGroup>
<Content Update="www\**\*">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
To:
<ItemGroup>
<None Update="www\**\*">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</None>
</ItemGroup>
Using Visual Studio: BUILD -> Rebuild Solution (success)
Also tried with msbuild.exe (success)
Now the www directory and all sub-directories / files are present in the output -- why? I suspect because I am not using the default "wwwroot" as the content directory, using <Content> does not work whereas <None> does; but that is only a theory; all I know is it works.
Also found this SO link useful in describing the differences between <Content> and <None>, for those who are curious:
What are the various "Build action" settings in Visual Studio project properties and what do they do?
My solution creates a Visual Studio Package from multiple projects, using multiple NuGet packages.
All of the Nuget packages are specified in the project files using PackageReference (rather than the older packages.config file). I am using Visual Studio 2019.
I have had a problem, that the DLLs referenced by NuGet Packages are not included in the VSIX installation.
There is a solution to this problem, described in this article by Daniel Cazzulino, by adding the following code to the project file:
<PropertyGroup>
<GetVsixSourceItemsDependsOn>$(GetVsixSourceItemsDependsOn);IncludeNuGetResolvedAssets</GetVsixSourceItemsDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="IncludeNuGetResolvedAssets" DependsOnTargets="ResolveNuGetPackageAssets">
<ItemGroup>
<VSIXCopyLocalReferenceSourceItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" />
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
This does work, but it blows up the size of the installation from about 20MB to about 40MB.
The installation now includes a lot of PDB files, which I don't really need.
More significantly, it brings in about 46MB of Visual Studio DLLs which are not necessary, because they are part of Visual Studio.
Is there a better way to ensure that the referenced NuGet packages are included in the VSIX, without inflating the installation with these other files?
You can use a simple script like this:
<Target Name="IncludeNuGetPackageReferences" AfterTargets="GetVsixSourceItems">
<ItemGroup>
<VSIXSourceItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" Condition="'%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.NuGetPackageId)' == 'Newtonsoft.Json'" />
<VSIXSourceItem Include="#(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths)" Condition="'%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.NuGetPackageId)' == 'xxx'" />
... </ItemGroup>
</Target>
You can specify what assemblies should be included into .vsix . And it won't copy the unnecessary VS assemblies after tests in my machine. Hint from smourier, thanks to him.
Hope it helps:)
I am working with a web application that was written using VS2015, and is being maintained using VS2017. I am trying to write another application to build the full web stack locally using the MSBuild API and other tools. In VS2015 or VS2017 the ASP.NET Web Application project will build successfully, but when running MSBuild programmatically, I keep getting this error:
The imported project "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
I have the following build packages installed in my app:
Microsoft.Build
Microsoft.Build.Framework
Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Core
Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core
The standard advice I've seen in forums for this error is to install Visual Studio on the build server, but I am doing this locally and I do have Visual Studio installed. I've also read that MSBuild 15 does not come with the WebApplication.targets file. There is also a toolsVersion parameter on the constructor for Microsoft.Build.Execution.BuildRequestData that I've tried setting manually to 14.0 but it still seems like my app is trying to use MSBuild 15. (I do have MSBuild 14 installed.)
Questions:
Can I make this build run in MSBuild 14 programmatically without updating any csproj files?
Where can I get WebApplication.targets for MSBuild 15?
Solution:
Thanks in large part to #Leo-MSFT I was able to get this working. Here's how:
Uninstalled the VS2017 ASP.NET and Web Application Development workload, then reinstalled with all of its optional components. This downloaded the missing .targets file.
In my builder application, added this property to my instance of BuildRequestData to make MSBuild look in the folders used by v15, rather than using the folders used by v14.
["MSBuildExtensionsPath32"] =
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild"
Can I make this build run in MSBuild 14 programmatically without updating any csproj files?
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 is set internally by MSBuild. If you do not want update you .csproj file, you can try to override the value in your project file:
<PropertyGroup>
<MSBuildExtensionsPath32>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild</MSBuildExtensionsPath32>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<VisualStudioVersion Condition="'$(VisualStudioVersion)' == ''">10.0</VisualStudioVersion>
<VSToolsPath Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' == ''">$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)</VSToolsPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<Import Project="$(VSToolsPath)\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" Condition="'$(VSToolsPath)' != ''" />
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" Condition="false" />
But I'm not sure if it will introduce other error(Not tested).
Where can I get WebApplication.targets for MSBuild 15?
The path of WebApplication.targets for MSBuild 15 is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v15.0\WebApplications
Has anyone seen this error and know how to fix it?
The "TransformXml" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll.
Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
Confirm that the declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask.
I read elsewhere that the problem is when you don't have SQL Server installed. But I do have SQL Express 2012 x64 installed with SP1. I am also running VS 2013 Professional.
I have ran this exact same solution in VS 2012 express with no problems.
The answers provided by Dai Bok and emalamisura work fine as long as you use Visual Studio 2012.
For VS 2013 this fails as well. In order to make this work with all versions of Visual Studio you should:
Open the project file (.csproj) of the project failing to load
Search for <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />
Change it to <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />
Reload the project
That will set the correct version of Visual Studio dynamically and properly.
To get mine to work, I just copied my v10.0 folder and renamed it to v11.0, and things seems to work well from then on. That's the quick fix for now.
As this is probably not the best solution, and although it works, I was going to try installing the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4, but it is taking to long to download.
To fix the issue,
Find the Visual studio Installer in your computer
Click or tap to start the installer, and then select Modify.
From the Individual Components screen, select Asp.net and web development tools and then select Modify/Install.
This solved the issue as it creates the dll's in the mentioned path.
I've been combating this problem on our build server for several days, so I figured I'd document the resolution I came to. First, my build server has the web publishing extensions installed. I can use the TransformXml task to my heart's content inside of a web application project.
To use it outside of a web application project, I tried to add the UsingTask element to my project and point it to the right place using ms build properties (as Benjamin demonstrated). However, they weren't there on my build server (those with easy access to the file system of their build server can probably skip this and just install the relevant package to Visual Studio). I even went so far as to hard code visual studio versions, but it always dropped that error on me.
I finally gave up, pulled the DLLs from my local PC:
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll
I uploaded them to source control and added that folder to my build's workspace (Edit Build Definition -> Source Settings -> Source Control Folder). From there, I don't even need to reference the folder -- here's what my UsingTask looks like:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
Now I can use the TransformXml task to my heart's content from any project.
For VS2019
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(MSBuildToolsVersion
I replaced MSBuildToolsVersion with VisualStudioVersion.
Because there are only v12.0, v14.0 and v15.0 in my VisualStudio folder, I edit my project file and change the reference path from v10.0 to v14.0. Then the project builds successfully.
Before:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
After:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
Solutions provided seem to work for using VS as an IDE, but if you use DotnetCore via CLI or on a unix based system this does not work.
I found that the following seem to work
<PropertyGroup>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="'$(XmlTransformDllPath)' == '' AND '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)' == 'core'">$(MSBuildSDKsPath)/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish/tools/net5.0/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="'$(XmlTransformDllPath)' == '' AND '$(MSBuildRuntimeType)' != 'core'">$(MSBuildSDKsPath)/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish/tools/net472/Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Publish.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
<XmlTransformDllPath Condition="!Exists($(XmlTransformDllPath))">$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll</XmlTransformDllPath>
</PropertyGroup>
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(XmlTransformDllPath)" />
This solution takes into account netcore, full .net
For some reason MSBuildSDKsPath and MSBuildExtensionsPath32 are different on windows when using CLI vs VS2019
CLI:
MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.103\Sdks
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 = C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.103
Vs2019
MSBuildSDKsPath = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Sdks
MSBuildExtensionsPath32 = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild
Which on my Mac returns /usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/5.0.201
Only problem I see is with the tools/net5.0 part of the name which changes ever release
Also created https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/16469 and answers this on The "TransformXml" task was not found (error MSB4036) on TeamCity build
The correct answer to this is to unload the project in question and then edit the csproj file, look for an entry where they are referencing the 10.0 path and change it to point to 11.0 instead.
You need two things to make it work:
1) Install Visual Studio Build Tools (You don't need the whole Visual Studio, only the VS Build Tools) with selected "Web development build tools" option on your build server
https://www.visualstudio.com/pl/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=BuildTools&rel=15
2) Ensure that path to Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll is correct
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(MSBuildToolsVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
For me it started working just by adding reference to the NuGet package MSBuild.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.targets v14.0.0.3
Even no need to add UsingTask element to the project file as it mentioned by the package author
https://github.com/pdonald/nuget-webtargets
Just install the NuGet package. The package automatically sets the
$(VSToolsPath) property to use the targets file in the tools folder.
And then I was able to use TransformXml and other tasks, defined in the package, for instance to transform app.config
<Target Name="app_config_AfterCompile" AfterTargets="AfterCompile" Condition="Exists('app.$(Configuration).config')">
<!--Generate transformed app config in the intermediate directory-->
<TransformXml Source="app.config" Destination="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).config" Transform="app.$(Configuration).config" />
<!--Force build process to use the transformed configuration file from now on.-->
<ItemGroup>
<AppConfigWithTargetPath Remove="App.config" />
<AppConfigWithTargetPath Include="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).config">
<TargetPath>$(TargetFileName).config</TargetPath>
</AppConfigWithTargetPath>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
Just in case someone is using an SDK-style csproj, you can achieve this without having to install Visual Studio on the build server.
First you should install the SlowCheetah nuget package to your project. Once you install it, you'll see the following in your SDK-style project.
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah" Version="3.2.20">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
Then make sure you add the GeneratePathProperty="true" attribute (see below). This is very important for the next part because it'll help you grab the path of where the nuget package is restored on your machine. George Dangl explains it in his article here.
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah" Version="3.2.20" GeneratePathProperty="true">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
Import the SlowCheetah targets into your project:
<Import Project="$(PkgMicrosoft_VisualStudio_SlowCheetah)\build\Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlowCheetah.targets" />
You can now use an target command (in this case after publish) to apply some custom transformations. If you need to, you can always hard-code the file names below instead of using the variables in the below example.
<Target Name="AfterPublishs" AfterTargets="Publish">
<TransformTask Source="Web.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).MyCustomTransformFile.config" Destination="$(PublishDir)\Web.config" />
</Target>
If you haven't used SlowCheetah before, I recommend checking it out. They have a Visual Studio extension that will make it easier for you to preview transform files.
I have a Visual Studio 2010/2012 solution with several SharePoint 2010 projects. On build or package event I want VS to auto-copy the output WSP and PDB files to a common folder at the root of my solution so I don't have to manually grab them from each project's bin\$(Configuration) folder.
I added the following elements to each project file:
<Target Name="CopyPackage">
<Exec WorkingDirectory="$(PackagePath)" Command="copy "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).wsp" "$(SolutionDir)Builds\$(TargetName).wsp"" ContinueOnError="False" />
<Exec WorkingDirectory="$(PackagePath)" Command="copy "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb" "$(SolutionDir)Builds\$(TargetName).pdb"" ContinueOnError="False" />
</Target>
<PropertyGroup>
<BuildDependsOn>$(BuildDependsOn);CreatePackage;CopyPackage</BuildDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
So far so good, that works fine.
Each project Package name controls the name of the output WSP file and can be different than the name of the output assembly DLL file.
Visual Studio SharePoint Project Package Name http://imageshack.us/a/img842/322/vsspprojectpackagename.png
In this example the WSP will be named Acme.Edms.SP.ContentTypes.WSP.
It happens that I want my WSP to use a somewhat different name from the project and assembly. But if I change the Package name it breaks the CopyPackage target which uses $(TargetName) that maps to the assembly name.
Is there an MSBuild macro for the (SharePoint) package name so I can fix the above MSBuild elements in my project files?
More generally, does MSBuild have a set of macros specific to the SharePoint project and item types?
Something equivalent to Macros for Build Commands and Properties.
Thanks
Here is the list of SharePoint specific MSBuild properties and there is nothing about package name. So you have to use workaround for that e.g.
First you get lists of package files and pdb files like that:
<ItemGroup>
<PackageFiles Include="$(BasePackagePath)\*.$(PackageExtension)" />
<PdbFiles Include="$(BasePackagePath)\*.pdb)" />
</ItemGroup>
And then you can use it in regular copy command.
I didn't test it but it should work.