We have a Visual Studio 2008 solution under VSS source control. The solution contains many class libraries, many of which need a reference to an assembly that is not part of the solution. Currently we are keeping separate copies of that assembly in each project but as the number of projects grows it gets increasingly tedious to copy in updates to the external assembly. Is there a better way to have a single copy of the assembly in the solution, and in source control, that can then be referenced in all the projects?
Create an "external libraries"/"lib"/"libraries" folder in root folder, add it to source control and reference libraries in projects from there. With "Copy local" in reference properties project will automatically copy it to it's bin folder.
Structure of our project:
workspace
config
partial app configs goes here
lib
external libraries goes here
src
Domain
domainProjects
Infrastructure
infrastructureProjects
references 3rd party dll's from lib folder
UI
Tests
solutions
primaryUIapplication
references projects from "src" folder
domainLogic
etc.
In solution it looks like:
_misc
config
tests
Domain
Infrastructure
UI