[staticshock]

You actually don't have to list every single file in a csproj. You can use this MSBuild syntax to include all file recursively:

  <Compile Include=".\**\*.cs" />

The downside is that VS doesn't automatically pick up on the file system event notifications in that case, so you have to unload/reload the project whenever a file gets added.

[DougWebb]

I imagine that if you do that, and then add files from within Visual Studio, it'll rewrite the csproj file with the individual file references. My company has had a fair share of csproj file pain caused by Visual Studio not understanding everything that's possible in csproj files. In our case we like to import some variables that give the install path and version number of our core libraries and we use those in Reference elements, but Visual Studio won't show the variables in the GUI and provides no way to add a new reference that uses the variables through the GUI. If you add a reference, you have to follow-up by hand-editing the csproj file, and it's easy to mess that up.

[staticshock]

No, not exactly. In my experience, if you have the recursive wildcard in there and then add a new file from within VS, it'll put it in as an explicit entry next to the implicit wildcard. Then, next time you open the project, it'll import the file twice (once via the wildcard and once explicitly) and fail to build because "your class is defined twice."

I've always found it weird that they don't fix this, especially given how easy the fix seems to be:

1. When a file is added, VS could re-run the wildcard matches to see if they match the new file. If they do, don't add an explicit entry.

2. VS could turn the file list into a unique file list before passing it to the compiler.