How can I get the clickonce build script used by visual studio to publish my application

I have a pretty large multi-project solution. I currently build it in Visual Studio, and then publish using the right-click=> publish option. This works very well.

I am now in the position where I need to automate at least the clickonce publishing beyond what I can do in Visual Studio. I have successfully created a publish.xml file which I can use with msbuild and mage to create something that looks like a clickonce. However, there is a lot of complexity in the config I have in the visual studio interface that I would like to simply be able to copy into my publish.xml file.

Is it possible to get visual studio to generate a file that provides the properties used by MSBuild and/or Mage when visual studio publishes from the right click=> publish process?

Basically, I would like a configuration file that I could use to do something like msbuild publish.xml (or similar) and get exactly the publish result that visual studio makes.

I currently use VS2017. The application is winforms using c#

Here is my publish.xml. It is not supposed to be anything beyond a test

<Project> 
    <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputPathBuild>C:\Users\d_000\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects\CP\CP.UI.Winforms\bin\x86\Debug</OutputPathBuild>
        <Version>1.0.0.0</Version>
        <OutputPathDeployment>C:\Users\d_000\Documents\CP Deploy\test</OutputPathDeployment>
        <Mage>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6.1 Tools\mage.EXE</Mage>
    </PropertyGroup>
  <Target Name="Deployment">
    <Error Condition="'$(Version)'==''" Text="The Version property must be defined in order to build the Deployment task."/>

    <ItemGroup>
      <DeploySource Include="$(OutputPathBuild)\**"/>
    </ItemGroup>
    <Copy SourceFiles="@(DeploySource)" DestinationFolder="$(OutputPathDeployment)\v$(Version)\%(RecursiveDir)"/>
    <Exec Command='"$(Mage)" -New Application -ToFile "$(OutputPathDeployment)\v$(Version)\MyApp.manifest" -Name MyApp -Version $(Version) -Processor X86 -FromDirectory "$(OutputPathDeployment)\v$(Version)" -IconFile Resources\CPIcon.ico'/>
    <Exec Command='"$(Mage)" -New Deployment -ToFile "$(OutputPathDeployment)\MyApp.application" -Name MyApp -Version $(Version) -Processor X86 -AppManifest "$(OutputPathDeployment)\v$(Version)\MyApp.manifest" -IncludeProviderURL true -ProviderURL "http://example.com/download/MyApp/MyApp.application" -Install true'/>
    <!-- Grr... Mage tool has a bug whereby -MinVersion only works in Update mode... -->
    <Exec Command='"$(Mage)" -Update "$(OutputPathDeployment)\MyApp.application" -MinVersion $(Version)'/>
    <Copy SourceFiles="$(OutputPathDeployment)\MyApp.application" DestinationFiles="$(OutputPathDeployment)\MyApp.v$(Version).application"/>
  </Target>
  </Project>

EDIT:

I need to customize what is in the publish process, so I am looking to find out what Visual Studio is doing. Essentially I want to get the commands run in visual studio, copy them and tweak them so I can automate several different builds with different delpoy URLs and update URLs

Solution

If you want to create ClickOnce for different stages you have to manipulate the proj file before you call MSBuild.

1) Read your .proj file

$projFilePath = Get-ChildItem $sourceRootDirectory -Filter $ProjectFileName -Recurse 
$XmlDocument = [xml] (Get-Content -Path $projFilePath.FullName -Encoding UTF8)

2) You have to update this attributes in your proj files:

$ClickOnceForStages.Split("Dev", "Test", "UAT", "Prod") | Foreach { 

  $XmlDocument.project.PropertyGroup[0].ApplicationRevision = $BuildRevision
  $XmlDocument.project.PropertyGroup[0].ApplicationVersion = $BuildVersion
  $XmlDocument.project.PropertyGroup[0].ProductName = "MyProductName.$_" 
  $XmlDocument.project.PropertyGroup[0].AssemblyName = "MyAssemblyName.$_"
  $XmlDocument.project.PropertyGroup[0].PublishUrl = "MyClickOnceDropUncPath_$_"
}

You have to make sure that:

$BuildRevision and $BuildVersion

have a increased version for each build.

3) Save the document without manipulating the orginal proj file.

$currentProjFilePath = $projFilePath.FullName +"_" + $_ + ".proj"
$XmlDocument.Save($clickOnceProjFilePath)

4) Call MSBuild to create a ClickOnce installer.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe"

The combination of your proj file with the ClickOnce configuration and the MSBuild parameter:

"/target:publish"

creates a ClickOnce installer.

This is the full MSBuild statement which I use to create a ClickOnce installer:

"$clickOnceProjFilePath", 
"/target:publish", 
"/p:PublishDir=$outputDirectory", 
"/p:Configuration=Release"