Some months ago, I posted info about minifying js & css files automatically, with web deployment projects:
http://www.luuuukke.net/post/minify-css-and-jss-script-with-visual-studio-web-deployment-projects.aspx

Now, that I plan to migrate some websites to Azure, I have to migrate my websites to web applications (easy, but quite annoying …)
So, I of course wanted to keep minifying those static files also, with web applications projects..;

I found an excellent article here, about minifying with the Ajax minifier
http://thefrontend.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/minify-javascript-and-css-files-when-publishing-web-applications/
Worth to read, as it explains all steps very clearly.

After testing, I preferred to keep using the Yahoo YUI Compressor…
(Got strange results sometimes with the Ajax minifier.)

It is in fact quite easy…  all you have to do is:

Edit the application project file with a text editor  (right click the application, “edit xxxx project file”)
(I did it even with the project open in Visual Studio, no problem, VS reloads it after saving in the text editor)

and then add a few lines of code at bottom, under “ </ProjectExtensions>”

The code should be something like:

  <UsingTask TaskName="CompressorTask" AssemblyFile="..\..\..\..\SharedReferences\Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.dll" />

  <Target Name="CompressJsAndCss" AfterTargets="CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage" Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release'">
    <ItemGroup>
      <CssFiles Include="$(_PackageTempDir)\App_Themes\**\*.css;$(_PackageTempDir)\CSS\*.css" />
      <JavaScriptFiles Include="$(_PackageTempDir)\JavaScript\*.js" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <Message Text="Compressing JavaScript and CSS files..." Importance="high" />
    <CompressorTask CssFiles="@(CssFiles)" DeleteCssFiles="No" CssOutputFile="%(rootdir)%(directory)%(Filename).css" 

CssCompressionType="YuiStockCompression" JavaScriptFiles="@(JavaScriptFiles)" ObfuscateJavaScript="FoSho" 

PreserveAllSemicolons="Yeah" DisableOptimizations="Nope" EncodingType="Default" DeleteJavaScriptFiles="No" 

JavaScriptOutputFile="%(rootdir)%(directory)%(Filename).js" LoggingType="ALittleBit" />
  </Target>

You’ll have to adapt the path to YUI compressor (mine is in a folder where I put shared libraries, under source control too)
and also, adapt the files selector up to your needs (values of the “include” parameters of the CSSFiles & JavascriptsFiles nodes)
A few trial & error should bring you the results you wish.

The YUI Compressor has lots of options, which you can find here:  http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/

And, at the time you read this, Visual Studio 2012 will certainly be released, and doing this automatically

Visual Studio fail to launch debugging on my local IIS7 webserver, with this error:

The responsible is IIS rewrite module…

Visual Studio, when starting up, will attempt to access the URL: /debugattach.aspx

If a rule rewrites / redirect .aspx files, you get this error…

The solution is to add this section to the beginning of your web.config's system.webServer/rewrite/rules section:

<rule name="Ignore Default.aspx" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url="^debugattach\.aspx" />
    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false" />
    <action type="None" />
</rule>

Solution found on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4653236/unable-to-start-debugging-on-the-web-server-could-not-start-asp-net-debugging-v

(Thanks Kirk !)

Edit: I also had to remove the following rules :

<rule name="RemoveTrailingSlashRule1" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url="(.*)/$" />
    <conditions>
     <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
     <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
    </conditions>
    <action type="Redirect" url="{R:1}" />
</rule>

<rule name="LowerCaseRule1" stopProcessing="true">
  <match url="[A-Z]" ignoreCase="false" />
  <conditions>
   <add input="{URL}" matchType="Pattern" pattern=".*/Pictures/.*" ignoreCase="true" negate="true" />
   <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="Pattern" pattern="^.*\.(axd|asmx|css|gif|jpg|png|js)$" ignoreCase="true" negate="true" />
  </conditions>
  <action type="Redirect" url="{ToLower:{URL}}" />
</rule>

Got this message,  checked all files… deleted the solution file, re-linked all projects & references… nothing was helping.

And this error suddenly came after my computer crashed (overheating, nut that’s another problem).

Hey, but wait…. the computer crashed while visual studio was building the solution…
The problem was easily solved by deleting asp.net framework temporary files

Visual studio was consistently crashing when exiting, with 2 specifics solutions…
I had to close all documents, collapse all sub projects, and select the solution in the Solution explorer to avoid VS to crash…

Yesterday, I found the cause: one child class library project was set to compile in asp.Net 2.0,
while all other projects were set to compile for asp.Net 4.0…

To change the target framework of a class library project,
open its properties,
select the tab “compile”,

go to the advanced options :

And select the target network:

That’s all folks

With the new IIS 7 integrated configuration model, you may want to use the add-in URL rewriting

Unfortunately, Visual Studio intellisense does not natively understand the rewrite tags...
So you need to update the schema.. See http://ruslany.net/2009/08/visual-studio-xml-intellisense-for-url-rewrite-1-1

To install this schema, you will need to execute a C# Script "cscript UpdateSchemaCache.js",

On my windows 7 , I was not able to run that script, and received the error: There is no script engine for file extension "js"

The solution is here:
http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/230/1/Error-There-is-no-script-engine-for-file-extension-when-running-js-files.html

You need to register the jscript.dll and apply and patch...

Enjoy :-)

After googling for some time, i finally found the perfect solution to minify css stylesheets and javascripts .js files.
I wanted to automaticaly compress releases files when building my websites, using web deployment projects...

The solution uses the Yahoo YUI Compressor, especially the compressor for .NET release,
(see the sample web deployment project solutions in the other downloads available !)

to put it into work, edit the web deployment project as following:

add a reference to the YUI Compressor on top of your project file:

<UsingTask TaskName="CompressorTask" AssemblyFile="..\{path to the YUI Compressor}\Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.dll" />

Then add an item group to select the input css & js files, and a compressor task in the After merge event

<Target Name="AfterMerge">

<ItemGroup>
<CssFiles Include="$(TempBuildDir)App_Themes\**\*.css;$(TempBuildDir)CSS\*.css" />
<JavaScriptFiles Include="$(TempBuildDir)\JavaScript\*.js" />
</ItemGroup>

<CompressorTask
CssFiles="@(CssFiles)"
DeleteCssFiles="No"
CssOutputFile="%(rootdir)%(directory)%(Filename)%(extension)"
CssCompressionType="YuiStockCompression"
JavaScriptFiles="@(JavaScriptFiles)"
ObfuscateJavaScript="FoSho"
PreserveAllSemicolons="Yeah"
DisableOptimizations="Nope"
EncodingType="Default"
DeleteJavaScriptFiles="No"
JavaScriptOutputFile="%(rootdir)%(directory)%(Filename)%(extension)"
LoggingType="ALittleBit" />

</Target>

More information about the MSBuild selectors, commands, ...: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171452(VS.80).aspx

An excellent article on Visual Studio 2010 new features, and asp.NET 4 ,
a lot of tips to improve your development environment.

Personnaly i love the [tab] [tab] code snippets and the intellisense improvments,

and also, at least available, the implicit line continuation and the automatic properties

A pitty that your website needs to be in asp.NET 4 to have VB 2010 enabled,
otherwise, with say asp.NET 3.5,  it compiles in VB 9., and you get a "bla bla bla not supported in visual basic 9..." when trying to use Automatic Properties... weird

I was getting a lot of error when compiling a project with a custom resource provider:

The resource object with key 'xxxxx' was not found.

cause: in my resource provider, somme calls are made to HttpContext.Current...
However, at compile time, there is NO current context... bang
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AmIRunningInDesignMode.aspx

Solution: add a test before calling the context to see if you are in compile mode..

If Not HttpContext.Current is Nothing Then...

.. End If

See also: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/4008.aspx

With SQL Server Express, i had 2 different databases in the App_Data folder of an application, and i was getting constant connection errors.

After googling, i tried any solution, from changing cacls on the db folder, adding users in the sql server security, database roles, to changing identity of the iis application pool, and so on...

NOTHING Worked !

Even with 1 database alone, i was getting errors if the database was opened at the same time in visual studio and by IIS...

I ended up by regrouping the 2 databases in one,
and attached it the classic way to the server through sql server management studio.

with this connection

<

The problem when builiding with Visual Studio and a Web Deployment Project:

Error 8 An error occurred when merging assemblies: ILMerge.Merge: 
ERROR!!: Duplicate type 'site' found in assembly 'App_Web_ilcyydph'. 
aspnet_merge 1 1 Website_deploy

This comes becauses some page classes have the same name...
Seach for the duplicate name in the whole site... and rename a class...

In my case, i added all Themes from the Mega Pack in my test blog,
some masterpages inherits classes with the same name:

<%

base class: public  partial class site : System.Web.UI.MasterPage

Renaming classes does the trick:

<%

public  partial class ZZZsite : System.Web.UI.MasterPage

Et hop online