I am testing a technique that copies files using a grunt task: https://github.com/Nicholas-Westby/uformsia/blob/master/gruntfile.js

In case somebody comes across this thread in the future and that file has changed, here are the contents:

module.exports = function(grunt) {

    // Config variables.
    var projectName = "uformsia";
    var appProject = projectName + ".app";

    // Initialize Grunt tasks.
    grunt.initConfig({
        "pkg": grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
        copy: {
            main: {
                files: [
                    {
                        // Frontend files.
                        expand: true,
                        src: ["App_Plugins/**"],
                        dest: 'Website/',
                        cwd: appProject + "/"
                    }, {
                        // Binaries.
                        expand: true,
                        src: [
                            appProject + ".dll",
                            appProject + ".pdb"
                        ],
                        dest: 'Website/bin/',
                        cwd: appProject + "/bin/Debug/"
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    });

    // Load NPM tasks.
    grunt.loadNpmTasks("grunt-contrib-copy");

    // Register Grunt tasks.
    grunt.registerTask("default", ["copy"]);

};

If one were so inclined, one could create a watcher that automatically copies files when they are changed.

IIRC, I got the idea for this from Archetype, which is doing all kinds of neat stuff in the gruntfile.js: https://github.com/imulus/Archetype/blob/master/Gruntfile.js

In order to make testing easy, I included a web project with Umbraco installed using NuGet. That way, I don't have to include most of the files, and people get a full Umbraco install by building the solution (thanks to NuGet package restore).

Note that I currently have two solution files (one for the plugin, and one for the test website). I realize I could have gone with one, but I wanted to be sure to fully isolate them so I don't end up with (for example), and unintentional reference between the two of them. I did this both for myself and the hypothetical maintainers years down the road.

By the way, that GitHub repo above isn't really a package yet. I'm just using it as a testbed to flesh out the architecture of the package I intend on building.

Thanks Nicholas,

I'll take a look.

In the mean-time I managed to get something working within VS2013 with build events (xcopy).

Some updates?

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