tfs - Get Visual Studio to run a T4 Template on every build

Question

How do I get a T4 template to generate its output on every build? As it is now, it only regenerates it when I make a change to the template.

I have found other questions similar to this:

T4 transformation and build order in Visual Studio (unanswered)

How to get t4 files to build in visual studio? (answers are not detailed enough [while still being plenty complicated] and don't even make total sense)

There has got to be a simpler way to do this!

Answer 1

I agree with GarethJ - in VS2010 it is much easier to regenerate tt templates on each build. Oleg Sych's blog describes how to do it. In short:

1. Install Visual Studio SDK
2. Install Visual Studio 2010 Modeling and Visualization SDK
3. Open in text editor project file and add to the end of file but before </Project>

That's it. Open your project. On each build all *.tt templates will be reprocessed

<!-- This line could already present in file. If it is so just skip it  -->
<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<!-- process *.tt templates on each build  -->
<PropertyGroup>
    <TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>
</PropertyGroup>
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)MicrosoftVisualStudioTextTemplatingv10.0Microsoft.TextTemplating.targets" />