What are the various “Build action” settings in Visual Studio project properties and what do they do?

Question

For the most part, you just take whatever Visual Studio sets it for you as a default... I\'m referring to the BuildAction property for each file selected in Solution Explore

Answer 1

From the documentation:

The BuildAction property indicates what Visual Studio does with a file when a build is executed. BuildAction can have one of several values:

None - The file is not included in the project output group and is not compiled in the build process. An example is a text file that contains documentation, such as a Readme file.

Compile - The file is compiled into the build output. This setting is used for code files.

Content - The file is not compiled, but is included in the Content output group. For example, this setting is the default value for an .htm or other kind of Web file.

Embedded Resource - This file is embedded in the main project build output as a DLL or executable. It is typically used for resource files.