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Hi, We're using Web Workbench 3.2.1115.23102 and would love to have Web Workbench compile and concatenate all our Sass and JavaScript (which are also minified), as it does in Visual Studio using our .csproj file, but as part of an MSBuild process. We use Jenkins (not TFS) and this is the last remaining part of the puzzle to solve. I've read on a previous post on your blog that it is possible to run Web Workbench on the command line, but I can't find any documentation anywhere about how we go about setting this up in Visual Studio 2013. Ideally, we'd want the command line tool to use the Visual Studio project file to work out which files to compile, concatenate and minify (because the information's there already). Can you point us to the documentation, or is there a developer I can talk to? Thanks, |
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Hi Anthony, You will want to download the command line tools from under your Web Workbench downloads in My Account and install this on your build server (and developer machines if needed for running the same command line process locally). You will then need to build up a batch file or equivalent of the compilation steps you want it to take as it doesn't read in a project file so you dont set it up inside Visual Studio as such, you will need to add this in as part of your build script. Are you currently calling out to msbuild from Jenkins?
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Hi Jeremy, Yes, I'd managed to get that approach from the various bits of information I've managed to scrabble together. It's okay, but it means that we now have to maintain two separate lists of files to be managed by Web Workbench. It seems odd to me that no-one has, as yet, explored the potential for an MSBuild-integrated approach. I've been looking at a way of using an MSBuild targets file to loop through the SCSS files in the Visual Studio project file that are marked as "compile" (it may take a while for me to get to this point) which – to me – makes more sense than writing a batch file which would need to be kept up to date with the changes we made in the project file(s), and then piping this to the command line utility, all from within MSBuild. The concatenation and minification of the JavaScript files could pose more of a challenge, due to the way the file list is stored as a pipe-delimited list, but I expect it's possible. Have Minsdcape considered such an approach for the Pro version? Perhaps to the point where, as NuGet offers, you create a Solution Folder within the Solution project – let's say it's called .webworkbench - into which you put the command line executable and supporting files, along with a .targets MSBuild file, which is then called upon to do the heavy lifting? This would make our workflow so much cleaner. Thanks, |
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Hi Anthony, Yep its something which has been previously raised as a feature request (http://www.mindscapehq.com/thinktank/suggestion/612842) but we haven't had much demand for this to date.
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Hi Jeremy, Thanks for the update. I've just added another vote to the tally. In the meantime, can you let me know if the wwcmd.exe utility is up to date with all the recent changes in the WebWorkbench Visual Studio plugin. Having downloaded the package and looked in the command line folder, the latest modified dates of the files is May 3rd 2012. Are wwcmd.exe and the VS plugin on par in terms of features? I'm reluctant to go much further with a wwcmd.exe-based solution if there are likely to be differences between the Sass and JavaScript compilation-and-minification in the command line version and the VS plugin version. Thanks, |
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Yes its updated nightly as part of our build process - did you download the nightly build for the Command Line Compiler? That file date would be right for the original 3.2 release version of the tools - that is well out of date now though :)
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Follow-up question: Why is it out of date? Why aren't you posting newer, stable, non-nightly versions of the command line tools? |
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Also, nnngghhh, why can't the nightly build be installed over the top of the existing build? I have to uninstall and then reinstall? |
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3.2 is the latest release so we provide the original download and then the nightlies. We haven't had cause to checkpoint as such since primarily people are getting updates from the gallery. Its a fair point though so Ill look at making some improvements here - thanks for the feedback on this. In terms of the installer, its just not set up that way currently - Ill have a look at making an update for it to do the prior version check.
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