Question

Is there an equivalent to MvcBuildViews for webforms?

Answer 1

no.

An alternative is to add a postbuild action to the visual studio project and have it run the aspnet_compiler.exe to “compile an application in place”.

Compiling an Application in Place

The ASP.NET Compilation tool can
compile an application in place, that
is, it mimics the behavior of making
multiple requests to the application,
thus causing regular compilation.
Users of a precompiled site will not
experience a delay caused by compiling
the page on first request.

Note that if you are using an
impersonated account, both the account
and the logon user account must have
write access to the target for
precompilation to succeed.

When you precompile a site in place,
the following items apply:

• The site retains its files and
  directory structure.

• You must have compilers for all
  programming languages used by the site
  on the server.

• If any file fails compilation, the
  entire site fails compilation.

You can also recompile an application
in place after adding new source files
to it. The tool compiles only the new
or changed files unless you include
the -c option.