How to synchronise the publish version to the assembly version in a .NET ClickOnce application?

user_180677 0
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In my C# ClickOnce application, there is an auto-incremented publish version in the Project -> Properties -> Publish tab. I'd like to display that version in my menu Help -> About box, but the code I'm using apparently accesses the assembly Version, which is different.

The Assembly Version can be changed manually in the Project -> Properties -> Application -> Assembly Information dialog. So for now, every time before I publish I've been copying the publish version to the assembly version, so my dialog shows the current version of the application. There must be a better way to do this.

All I really want to do is have an accurate, auto-updated, code-accessible version number.

Here's the code I'm using to access the assembly version number:

public string AssemblyVersion
{
    get
    {
        return Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString();
    }
}

An alternative would be to find code that accesses the publish version.

version clickonce build-automation c#
5 Answers

I would like to expand on Sylvanaar's answer, as some of implementation details weren't obvious to me. So:

  1. Manually install community build tasks found at: https://github.com/loresoft/msbuildtasks/releases Note: Don't install by nuget if you clean your packages, as the build will fail before getting a chance to restore the packages, since msbuildtasks are referenced as a task in the build file. I put these in folder next to solution file called .build

  2. Add a completely empty file to your projects properties folder called VersionInfo.cs

3 Remove these lines if they exist in AssemblyInfo.cs

[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("1.0.*")]

4 Modify your csproj file

  <!-- Include the build rules for a C# project. -->
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />

  <!--INSERT STARTS HERE-->
  <!--note the use of .build directory-->
  <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)' == 'true'">
    <MSBuildCommunityTasksPath>$(SolutionDir)\.build\MSBuildCommunityTasks</MSBuildCommunityTasksPath>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <!-- Required Import to use MSBuild Community Tasks -->
  <Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.build\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.targets" Condition="'$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)' == 'true'" />
  <Target Name="BeforeCompile" Condition="'$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)|$(Configuration)' == 'true|Release'">
    <FormatVersion Version="$(ApplicationVersion)" Revision="$(ApplicationRevision)">
      <Output TaskParameter="OutputVersion" PropertyName="AssemblyVersionToUse" />
    </FormatVersion>
    <AssemblyInfo CodeLanguage="CS" OutputFile="$(ProjectDir)Properties\VersionInfo.cs" AssemblyVersion="$(AssemblyVersionToUse)" AssemblyFileVersion="$(AssemblyVersionToUse)" />
  </Target>

5 Use a method like the following to access the version text:

public string Version()
{
    Version version = null;

    if (ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed)
    {
        version = ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.CurrentVersion;
    }
    else
    {
        version = typeof(ThisAddIn).Assembly.GetName().Version;
    }

    return version.ToString();
}
user_5739270
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