Tip - HowTo package multiple project-assemblies in a single WPF executable

It's a good practice to structure your Visual Studio solution according to the application layers. You can do that via a folder structure within a single project. But I prefer to structure each application layer within it's own VS project. This approach allows (the build of) each VS project to depend only on the architectural layer direct beneath it.

A consequence of structuring within multiple VS projects, is that each project will build its own assembly file. Often this is also required for deployment and update flexibility. Sometimes however its handier to package it all within a single assembly for deployment. An example is the build of a WPF .exe. Especially for a smaller application, it's a bit overdone to have to deploy one or more .dll assemblies besides the .exe.

Luckily it's easy possible to also package the other project-assemblies within the main .exe executable. The tool to the rescue here is ILMerge. You can modify the project file to automatically merge the dependant .dll assemblies within your main .exe:

<PropertyGroup>
<PostBuildEvent>ILMerge.exe /internalize /ndebug /out:$(TargetFileName) $(TargetFileName) TopForce.Communication.Application.dll TopForce.Communication.Integration.dll</PostBuildEvent>
</PropertyGroup>