Invoking VS custom tool from msbuild

Question

I have a .NET Micro Framework project that contains a *.resx embedded resource file.

In VS, the custom build tool is set to ResXFileCodeGenerator (seems to be a .NET Micro Framework specific version as the generated code is of low quality and has concurrency bugs).

This custom build tool is run when the *.resx file is changed through Visual Studio. It is not run when the *.resx file is changed from outside Visual Studio or when the project is built. The tool is also run when the *.resx file is right clicked and "Run custom tool" is selected.

This is a problem, because I would like to build the project via msbuild. Having outdated *.Designer.cs files is not something nice to have in that environment ;-)

• How can I invoke a custom tool like ResXFileCodeGenerator from msbuild?
• If this is not possible: Where can I find documentation about how this ResXFileCodeGenerator works? How can I invoke it manually from command line?

• How does the ResXFileCodeGenerator deduce the numeric identifiers that are generated in the Designer.cs file?

  [System.SerializableAttribute()]
  internal enum BinaryResources : short
  {
      SomeBinaryResource = -7023,
  }
  

Answer 1

I think all build tools for NETMF are provided with the NETMF source code. You might want to look at the build tasks in the .NETMF source

The tools are located in client_(version)/Framework/Tools/

The configuration of the build tasks is located in client_(version)/tools/Targets.