re: Adding Intellisense to your custom MSBuild tasks

stevew — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:04:19 GMT

This seems very easy but I don't like the idea of having to modify files that are part of the VS.2005 distribution.

What happens when Microsoft creates a patch that changes Microsoft.Build.xsd?

Also I now need to have all my developers copy our schema file into their VS.2005 installation. Wouldn't it have been better if I could create my own schema that references the MSBuild schema and then have my project files reference my schema files. This would allow me to update our schema and developers get it automatically. No further installation is required. Of course it would be possible that our schema could be included directly from source control by Microsoft.Build.xsd but all developers would need to use the same directory or at least the same relative directory for this to work.

re: Adding Intellisense to your custom MSBuild tasks

Srivatsn — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:56:42 GMT

Steve,

I agree that it feels fishy to be changing files part of the distribution. But I dont see much of a problem if Microsoft releases a patch for the file. We are just adding one include statement in the file.

The one issue I thought of in creating my own schema is that since the MSBuild schema must be referenced in my proj file, I'll have to preface every custom task with a namespace reference <myTasks:myTask> and I dont know if MSBuild engine will accept this.

Like you said you could store your schema in a fixed location and reference it from Microsoft.Build.xsd. This way changes can be made centrally.