i want to have some shared code (code library, controls, utilities, helper classes, etc) in Visual Studio. i do not mean shared assemblies, i mean shared code (i.e. i want to sh
I could propose two solutions:
At my work we starting to solve this problem using Subversion´s external folders. You just need to put a 'external' property on yor root folder (or any folder), like:
ExternalLib https://yourrepo/SharedLibs/trunk
When you update the project, the folder ExternalLib will be created and populated with the repo´s contents. Any commit will be reflected on the respectively repo.
So, you can make your back-up hack solution works with SVN too =)
We use ClickOnce deployment, which has been very reliable. With ClickOnce, there is conceptually a single object, the application, although many files (including DLLS) are downloaded, although hidden to the user. Shared code is then dealt with through shared projects.
But if you actually physically require just a single file, ClickOnce won't work for you...
maybe consider having shared assemblies and use a tool like ILMerge during your build process to merge them all to one bug assembly.