MSBuild Extension Pack (Think “FreeToDev MSBuild Tasks Suite” but now they’re cooking with gas! ;)

Monday, October 06, 2008

MSBuild Extension Pack (Think “FreeToDev MSBuild Tasks Suite” but now they’re cooking with gas! ;)

“The MSBuild Extension Pack is the successor to the FreeToDev MSBuild Tasks Suite and provides a collection of over 170 MSBuild tasks designed for the .net 3.5 Framework. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following:

System Items: Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound

Code: Assemblies, CAB Files, Code Signing, File Detokenisation, GUID’s, Mathematics, Strings, Threads, Zip

Applications: BizTalk 2006, Email, IIS7, MSBuild, SourceSafe, StyleCop, Team Foundation Server, Visual Basic 6, WMI

It implements a TaskAction based design which improves usability and maintenance whilst reducing the code base, e.g. to start or stop a website, typically two task files would be created to perform each task, whereas the pack accomplishes this in a single task files using TaskAction=”Stop” and TaskAction=”Start”.

Each task is documented and provided with an example in the help file. Where applicable, tasks are remote enabled, simply specify a MachineName and the task will target the remote machine.

…”

Mike (aka FreeToDev) just gave me the heads up (Thanks Mike!) about his new and improved project. This is the FreeToDev MSBuild Tasks Suite, but with a ton of enhancements based on feedback from a number of different sources.

I have word that if you are interested in this project, MS Build, etc that you should keep your eyes open for more news coming soon (which when/if I get it, I’ll make sure to share it… ;)

And again, the project is looking help. They have a backlog of 100 tasks which need… well… someone like YOU to help them code up. Here’s your chance for fame and fortune! (Well… okay… maybe not all that, but there’s no better resume-ware than helping out on an open source/source available project…)