How to include the umbraco_client folder when publishing with Web Deploy? - msbuild

Question

When installing Umbraco as a NuGet package only the umbraco folder is included into the Visual Studio project, but not the umbraco_client folder. The reason for this is that the contents of the umbraco_client folder shouldn't be referenced from Visual Studio. But when publishing the website with Web Deploy I need to have the umbraco_client folder deployed.
One solution is to include the umbraco_client folder into the VS project. The downside to this solution is that upgrading Umbraco via NuGet gets annoying and error prone. You have to remember to exclude and re-include the umbraco_client folder into the project.
So is there a better approach?

Answer 1

You can add the following MSBuild script to the .csproj file.
<Project>
...
<PropertyGroup>
<CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
CustomCollectFiles;
$(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn);
</CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="CustomCollectFiles"]]>
<ItemGroup>
<_umbraco_client_files Include="umbraco_client\**\*" />
<FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="%(_umbraco_client_files.Identity)"]]>
<DestinationRelativePath>umbraco_client\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
</FilesForPackagingFromProject>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
</Project>
If you want to automate the process of adding the above code into all new Umbraco projects you can create your own NuGet package. Firstly have Umbraco as a dependency. Then add a Build folder and then a .targets file. In the .targets file you add the above code.
For details on the MSBuild script see this article: http://blog.samstephens.co.nz/2010-10-18/msbuild-including-extra-files-multiple-builds/