title: Working with XSLT in Visual Studio
body: <p>In my C# client application, I use XSLT to transform XML into HTML. </p>
  
  <p>I would like to be able to edit these files in place, without having to recompile the entire solution. I'm having trouble working out how to set up Visual Studio 2008 to allow this.</p>
  
  <p>The problem is that the XSLT files must get copied to the output directory somehow. Currently this happens during the build process. (My XSLT files are set to "copy if newer".) The build process can take a few minutes, which seems excessive for making small tweaks to the HTML.</p>
  
  <p>I <em>could</em> make my XSLT edits in the output directory itself, but the output directory is not under source control. I have accidentally wiped out my quick edits several times by building my solution.</p>
  
  <p>I'd like to reduce the cycle time for debugging XSLT, while keeping my XSLT files under source control and preventing accidental overwrites.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Summary of Responses:</strong> It appears that the most practical approach for solving this problem -- given that Visual Studio doesn't have a nice way of doing it out of the box -- is to create a separate project that contains the content files. These files get copied to the output location when the project gets built. That way I don't have to compile the whole solution, just the one project with all the static information like XSLT, CSS, images, etc.</p>
  
  <p>Several folks suggested using sync or batch copy tools, but while this would work for me personally, setting it up for the other members of the team too would be a lot of extra work.</p>