How to extend the Visual Studio web publish pipeline? - visual-studio-2013

Question

I'd like to tweak how visual studio publish a website to a package, generally the package is created by picking up the whole list of files inside the root directory, compile, perform optimizations and so on.
In my case the problem is that I'm developing a SPA using angular.js and Grunt to build (optimize) the app, the tasks are configured to drop the "optimized" version of the site into "dist" which is located bellow the root folder, which is the typical scenario for this workflow using grunt.
These are the details for scenario,
The folder structure is the following:
/root
bower_components
lib1 <- angularjs, jquery, etc
lib2
module1
directives
partials
/page1
page1.html <- view
page1.js <- controller
page1.less <- obviously a less file
page1.spec.js <- test
module2
module3
etc, etc, etc
After build on Grunt I get the optimized version like this
/root
bower_components
module1
module2
module3
dist <- how can I pick up this folder instead of the content in root?
bower_components <- minified versions
app.min.js
app.min.css
index.html
I'd like to have the package for deployment as the following:
/root
libraries (dlls) <- server side libraries
bower_components <- minified versions of libraries
app.min.js <- from dist but in the root folder of the published package
app.min.css
index.html
I know that there is a .pubxml file configuration, Is it possible to do it by modifying this file?

Answer 1

I just did my own research and I found a way to do it.
you need to create a wpp.targets file in your root, the name should be [projectName].wpp.targets for example.
then in the file you'll need to setup msdeploy with the following instructions:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<BuildDependsOn Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Release'">
gruntBuild
</BuildDependsOn>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
foldername1, foldername2
</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
filename.extension, filename2, filename3, etc
</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
CustomCollectFiles;
$(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn);
</CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
<CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn>
CustomCollectFiles;
$(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn);
</CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<!--
you can try to run the grunt build for me it takes too long and the visual studio just gets freeze so I run the grunt task before doing the deploy, but it's up to you
<Target Name="gruntBuild">
<Message Text="=== buil on publish ===" Importance="high" />
<ItemGroup>
<Binaries Include="*.dll;*.exe"/>
</ItemGroup>
<Exec Command="bower install" />
<Exec Command="grunt build" />
</Target>-->
<Target Name="CustomCollectFiles">
<Message Text="=== CustomCollectFiles ===" Importance="high" />
<ItemGroup>
<CustomFiles Include="dist\**\*.*" />
<FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="%(CustomFiles.Identity)">
<DestinationRelativePath>%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
</FilesForPackagingFromProject>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
</Project>