What are the various "Build action" settings in VS.NET project properties and what do they do?

Question

For the most part you just take whatever Visual Studio sets it for you as a default.. I'm referring to the BuildAction Property for each file selected in your solution explorer. There are a number of options and its difficult to know what each one of them will do.

Answer 1

From the documentation:

The BuildAction property indicates what Visual Studio does with a file when a build is executed. BuildAction can have one of several values:

None - The file is not included in the project output group and is not compiled in the build process. An example is a text file that contains documentation, such as a Readme file.

Compile - The file is compiled into the build output. This setting is used for code files.

Content - The file is not compiled, but is included in the Content output group. For example, this setting is the default value for an .htm or other kind of Web file.

Embedded Resource - This file is embedded in the main project build output as a DLL or executable. It is typically used for resource files.

Answer 2

I got a few... I know I'll stand vote-corrected if I falter.

• "Embedded resource" : embeds the file in an exclusive assembly manifest resource.
• "Resource" : embeds the file in a shared (by all files in the assembly with similar setting) assembly manifest resource named AppName.g.resources.
• "Content": Allows you to retrieve a file (in same dir as assembly) as a stream via Application.GetContentStream( uri ). For this method to work, it needs a AssemblyAssociatedContentFile custom attribute which VS graciously adds when you mark a file as "Custom"
• "ApplicationDefinition": Mark the XAML/class file that defines your application. You specify the code-behind with the x:Class="Namespace.ClassName" and set the startup form/page with StartupUri="Window1.xaml"
• "Page" : I am guessing is for any XAML file ??

Answer 3

Page -- Takes the specified XAML file, and compiles into BAML, and embeds that output into the managed resource stream for your assembly (specifically AssemblyName.g.resources), Additionally, if you have the appropriate attributes on the root XAML element in the file, it will create a blah.g.cs file, which will contain a partial class of the "codebehind" for that page; this basically involves a call to the BAML goop to re-hydrate the file into memory, and to set any of the member variables of your class to the now-created items (e.g. if you put x:Name="foo" on an item, you'll be able to do this.foo.Background = Purple; or similar.

ApplicationDefinition -- similar to Page, except it goes onestep furthur, and defines the entry point for your application that will instantiate your app object, call run on it, which will then instantiate the type set by the StartupUri property, and will give your mainwindow.

Also, to be clear, this question overall is infinate in it's results set; anyone can define additional BuildActions just by building an MSBuild Task. If you look in the %systemroot%\Microsoft.net\framework\v{version}\ directory, and look at the Microsoft.Common.targets file, you should be able to decipher many more (example, with VS Pro and above, there is a "Shadow" action that allows you generate private accessors to help with unit testing private classes.

Answer 4

My favourite new Build action is SplashScreen! Read more about it here

Answer 5

In VS2008, the doc entry that seems the most useful is:

Windows Presentation Foundation Building a WPF Application (WPF)

ms-help://MS.VSCC.v90/MS.MSDNQTR.v90.en/wpf_conceptual/html/a58696fd-bdad-4b55-9759-136dfdf8b91c.htm

ApplicationDefinition Identifies the XAML markup file that contains the application definition (a XAML markup file whose root element is Application). ApplicationDefinition is mandatory when Install is true and OutputType is winexe. A WPF application and, consequently, an MSBuild project can only have one ApplicationDefinition.

Page Identifies a XAML markup file whose content is converted to a binary format and compiled into an assembly. Page items are typically implemented in conjunction with a code-behind class.

The most common Page items are XAML files whose top-level elements are one of the following:

Window (System.Windows..::.Window).

Page (System.Windows.Controls..::.Page).

PageFunction (System.Windows.Navigation..::.PageFunction<(Of <(T>)>)).

ResourceDictionary (System.Windows..::.ResourceDictionary).

FlowDocument (System.Windows.Documents..::.FlowDocument).

UserControl (System.Windows.Controls..::.UserControl).

Resource Identifies a resource file that is compiled into an application assembly. As mentioned earlier, UICulture processes Resource items.

Content Identifies a content file that is distributed with an application. Metadata that describes the content file is compiled into the application (using AssemblyAssociatedContentFileAttribute).

Answer 6

I am not able to see Build Action property in property window in VS 2008.Is there any other option?