AjaxMin task has been declared or used incorrectly, or failed during construction

Question

I'm trying to add Microsoft's AjaxMin to VS2012 project and I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I think I'm missing something obvious.

I copied the code from the tutorial here (http://ajaxmin.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=AjaxMinTask)

And I've tried adding the reference to my project so my code looks like this:

<UsingTask TaskName="AjaxMin" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Build\AjaxMinTask.dll" />
<Target Name="AfterBuild" >
<ItemGroup>
  <JS Include="**\*.js" Exclude="**\*.min.js;Scripts\*.js" />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup>
  <CSS Include="**\*.css" Exclude="**\*.min.css" />
</ItemGroup>
<AjaxMin JsSourceFiles="@(JS)" JsSourceExtensionPattern="\.js$" JsTargetExtension=".min.js" CssSourceFiles="@(CSS)" CssSourceExtensionPattern="\.css$" CssTargetExtension=".min.css" />
</Target>

This is at the bottom of my .csproj file where there was already a commented out AfterBuild section. I get errors saying JS, CSS, AjaxMin are invalid child elements. When I try to build the project I get an error, I'm not sure what I am missing. I created a folder in the project called Build and added the AjaxMinTask.dll. I don't know if there's any additional thing i need to do to make sure it is referenced properly.

I've also tried using the Import node instead of the UsingTask <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\MicrosoftAjax\AjaxMin.tasks" /> And I think AjaxMin is installed correctly because I can run it from command line.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 17 '13 at 05:30

In your .csproj, the end of the document (I've included the last closing element ) should look something like this:

      <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\MicrosoftAjax\AjaxMin.tasks" />
  <Target Name="AfterBuild" AfterTargets="CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage" Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release'">
    <ItemGroup>
      <JS Include="scripts\*.js" Exclude="scripts\*.min.js;" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
      <CSS Include="css\main.css" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <AjaxMin Switches="-global:jQuery,$" JsSourceFiles="@(JS)" JsCombinedFileName="scripts\combined.min.js" CssSourceFiles="@(CSS)" CssSourceExtensionPattern="\.css$" CssTargetExtension=".min.css" />
  </Target>
</Project>

As I am using Windows 7 64-bit, you will see the path of Import... includes (MSBuildExtensionsPath32). If you are using Windows 32-bit, then you do not need the 32 at the end. Other then that, your code should work.

Disregard the JS, CSS, AjaxMin childelements error. But you should not get a built error. If you could post your built error, it would be useful.

Also, the code above combines multiple JS files, just added for fun.

AjaxMin task has been declared or used incorrectly, or failed during construction

1 Answers1