C# – MSBuild is not generating publish web page (ClickOnce)

cclickoncemsbuildnetpublish

I am facing a problem that when I publish my ClickOnce application through MSBuild (4.0), the publish.htm (or default.htm) isn't created in the app.publish folder.

When publishing through Visual Studio, it gets crated…

In my .csproj file I have the following properties set, and it still not working…

<CreateWebPageOnPublish>true</CreateWebPageOnPublish>
<WebPage>default.htm</WebPage>

Any ideas?

Thanks

Best Answer

I found a good solution here. You can use a template for publish.htm with {VERSION} placeholder inside. MSBuild Community Tasks are required for the FileUpdate task.

BUILD_VERSION - environment variable, set by my build script. PublishDir property is set in argument for msbuild.

  <!-- .... -->

  <Target Name="DoPublish">
    <MSBuild Projects="$(ProjectFileName)" Targets="Publish" Properties="ApplicationVersion=$(BUILD_VERSION)" />
    <!-- Write publish.htm file for ClickOnce -->
    <Copy SourceFiles="$(ProjectDir)\publish.htm" DestinationFiles="$(PublishDir)\publish.htm"/>
    <FileUpdate Files="$(PublishDir)\publish.htm"
                IgnoreCase="true"
                Multiline="true" 
                Singleline="false"
                Regex="{VERSION}" 
                ReplacementText="$(BUILD_VERSION)"/>
  </Target>

</Project>
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