Embed resource conditionally at compile-time?

Question

I have a project that in RELEASE mode, with all resources, weighs in at a modest 47MB. The problem is that I have to deploy to a device over a slow network and the 47MB is kinda painful. There are a lot of rarely used language translations, images, etc that are embedded into the final application that could be removed from a DEBUG version and bring the total down to under 10MB.

Is there any way to conditionally exclude certain resources at compile-time (specifically if the build is DEBUG, but include if set to RELEASE)?

Using Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2003.NET.

Thanks!
Alain

Answer 1

Hi Alain,

You can modify the .csproj files to have a resources (or the ItemGroup for resources) include a condition for the buildtype. this way the resources are only compiled into the application when you want them to.

Sample:

<EmbeddedResource Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release' "

A different approach would be to move your resources to a separate assembly and 1. only update the resources assembly when needed, or 2. have a small resources assembly in place for debug builds.

Hope this helps 

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Please mark the best replies as answers - Twitter: @rickvdbosch - Blog: http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/rick

Answer 2

Hi Rick,

Thanks! I've manually modified the .csproj file as follows:
<EmbeddedResource Include="Resources\Help\Vietnamese\logon_settings_vi.txt" />

gets changed to:
<EmbeddedResource Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == 'Release' " Include="Resources\Help\Vietnamese\logon_settings_vi.txt" />

as you suggested. With the hundreds of help files included in the full release build, I've dropped the size from 47MB to 12MB! I'm sure I'll be able to knock off a few MBs by identifying some other resources, but thats already a huge help.

Thanks very much!
Alain

<Rick van den Bosch> wrote in message news:[e-mail]...

Hi Alain,

You can modify the .csproj files to have a resources (or the ItemGroup for resources) include a condition for the buildtype. this way the resources are only compiled into the application when you want them to.
Sample:

<EmbeddedResource Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release'
"

A different approach would be to move your resources to a separate assembly and 1. only update the resources assembly when needed, or 2. have a small resources assembly in place for debug builds.

Hope this helps

---

Please mark the best replies as answers - Twitter: @rickvdbosch - Blog: http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/rick