I have a c# .net winforms solution and I want to create two different builds: one that supports IE6 and one that supports IE7. A few of the files in one of my projects are different for the IE6 build versus the IE7 build, so I want to include the IE6 files when I build for IE6 and the IE7 files when I build for IE7. What’s the best way of structuring my solution for this situation?
Due to other constraints I do not want to create a separate assembly that contains the shared items; I want the project to compile to a single assembly ‘foo.dll’ regardless of which build I’m making.
I thought I could just create two separate projects that compile to ‘foo.dll’, then create two Release Configurations and only include the relevant project in the relevant configuration. However I’d need to include the files that are the same for IE6 and IE7 in both projects, and I can’t see how to use a single copy of a file in two projects (when I Add Existing Item it creates a copy in the project directory). I’m using SVN for source control so could perhaps use that to do the ‘sharing’ between folders, but doubt that’s the best way..
NB: Different builds are needed due to API differences in IE, details of which aren’t relevant to the question – just believe me that there are two builds required.
In MSBuild, you can specify conditions to item groups. You can then bind those conditions to the target device.
Example:
Note that all files will appear in the IDE, but at compile time everything should align correctly.
Then, all you need to do is create your platforms (IE6 and IE7) in the configuration management.
You can also directly use the platform property instead of creating an intermediate property.