I just received a message from a reader asking about how he can extend the package process in Visual Studio 2010 RC to include files that his web project doesn't contain or reference. If you are not familiar with this Visual Studio 2010 has support for creating Web Packages now. These packages can be used with the Web Deployment Tool to simply deployments. The Web Deployment Tool is also known as MSDeploy.

He was actually asking about including external dependencies, but in this post I will show how to include some text files which are already written to disk. To extend this to use those dependencies should be pretty easy. Here is what I did:

1. Created a new ASP.NET MVC 2 Project (because he stated this is what he has)
2. Added a folder named Extra Files one folder above where the .csproj file is located and put a few files there
3. In Visual Studio right clicked on the project selected “Unload Project”
4. In Visual Studio right clicked on the project selected “Edit project”

Then at the bottom of the project file (right above the </Project> statement). I inserted the following XML fragments.

<PropertyGroup>
  <CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
    CustomCollectFiles;
    $(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn);
  </CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CustomCollectFiles">
  <ItemGroup>
    <_CustomFiles Include="..\Extra Files\**\*">
      <DestinationRelativePath>%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
    </_CustomFiles>

    <FilesForPackagingFromProject  Include="%(_CustomFiles.Identity)">
      <DestinationRelativePath>Extra Files\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
    </FilesForPackagingFromProject>
  </ItemGroup>
</Target>

Here I do a few things. First I extend the CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage target by extending its DependsOn property to include my target CustomCollectFiles. This will inject my target at the right time into the Web Publishing Pipeline. Inside that target I need to add my files into the FilesForPackagingFromProject item group, but I must do so in a particular manner. Specifically I have to define the relative path to where it should be written. This captured inside the DestinationRelativePath metadata item. This is required because sometimes you may have a file which is named, or in a different folder, than it was originally. After you do that you will see that the web package that is created when you create a web package from Visual Studio (or from the command line using msbuild.exe for that matter) contains your custom files.

I just posted a blog about my upcoming talk discussing Web Deployments and ASP.NET MVC, once again check it out :)

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi

I will be giving an online LiveMeeting Session hosted by Microsoft next week on Wednesday October 14, 2009 at 4 PDT (Redmond Time). The title is Simplifying Deployment with the Web Deployment Tool (MSDeploy). If you are not aware of MSDeploy it is a newly released tool to ease the pain of deploying ASP.NET sites. If you are doing any type of deployment of ASP.NET sites (Manual or Automated) then you must check out MSDeploy, it will change how you look at deployment of ASP.NET sites all together. Right now there is not an abundant amount of knowledge or material available on this tool, but I think that will change soon. Hopefully I can contribute to some of that. In any case, if you are available I would love to have you check out my session. There will be some guys from Microsoft on the line including the Program Manager of the Web Deployment Tool Vishal Joshi. I'm sure he will chime in when I try to mislead you guys by feeding your mis-information.

Here is the info about the presentation.

Simplifying Deployment with the Web Deployment Tool (MSDeploy)

You are invited to join the talk which is scheduled for

Wednesday, October 14^th, 2009 | 4:00pm – 5:00pm (PDT, Redmond time)

Abstract

Deploying ASP.NET Websites has always been a challenge and different teams have used different approaches to overcoming those challenges. Microsoft has offered some support for making deployment easier in the past. For instance they first introduced Web Deployment Projects for Visual Studio 2005, and also have a version for 2008. Web Deployment Projects do greatly simplify the process of calling the aspnet_compiler and aspnet_merge tool but even though their title states "Deployment" they had no support for physically deploying the site. Now Microsoft has introduced the Web Deployment Tool, also known as MSDeploy. MSDeploy will bridge the gap between taking a web site and physically deploying it to its destination. With MSDeploy you can easily and very effectively perform tasks such as pushing an ASP.NET site (Web site, Web Application Project, ASP.NET, etc) from one machine to several other machines. This is achieved by the target machines having the MSDeploy Remote Agent Service installed and running. You can sync two different Web Sites that are hosted in IIS, you can create a web package (simply a .zip file) and use that as your source, you can sync two different folders, and many other options. Another compelling feature of MSDeploy is that it will be integrated into Visual Studio 2010. From Visual Studio 2010 you can compile your ASP.NET Web Application Project and then create the Web Package which contains all your content files plus IIS settings. This one file will full describe your web.

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Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi

On Friday August 28 and Saturday August 29 there will be a conference in St. Louis called St. Louis Day of .NET that I will be speaking at. Here is the outline

Simplify build and deployment of ASP.NET sites with Web Deployment Projects

When you are creating ASP.NET sites, (either ASP.NET web site / ASP.NET Web Project / ASP.NET MVC Project / etc) you will need to deploy the site to machines which will host them. Classically there were two options; xcopy the actual source to the live server and let them be compiled on demand or you could use the aspnet_compiler.exe and aspnet_merge.exe tools to pre-compile the website for you. The little known, yet extremely useful, Web Deployment Projects (an add on for Visual Studio) can greatly simplify the process of build and deployment. Web Deployment Projects will take care of the complexities of the aspnet_compiler.exe and the aspnet_merge.exe tool for you by way of a tight UI integration into Visual Studio itself. Aslo Web Deployment Projects are MSBuild files so you can extend and customize the process to suit your exact needs. In this session we will introduce Web Deployment Project, show that you can perform very powerful actions without writing a single line of code (or even text)! We will also dive into the MSBuild file that is the Web Deployment Project and show how to customize the process.

This session talks about Web Deployment Projects (2005 version) and how they can help in the build and deployment process. If you are going to be attending and interested in build and deployment of ASP.NET web sites and projects then you don't want to miss this session.

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi