ASP.Net Core: Use Shared Project to share static a

Question

Taking inspiration from here: http://rion.io/2017/03/22/sharing-is-caring-using-shared-projects-in-asp-net/, I'm trying to use Shared Projects to share static assets (e.g. css / js) between multiple ASP.Net Core projects.

I created a shared project and added this file in this folder hierarchy:

I then added a reference to this shared project from my ASP.Net Core web project. However, I'm not able to access this file when I run the project. I tried these URLs (among many others):

http://localhost:50000/assets.style.css
http://localhost:50000/wwwroot/assets/style.css

They all result in 404. It seems like I either haven't found a way to make these files available in my web project or I'm referencing them incorrectly. Anyone know how to make this work?

Answer 1

Here's how I solved this problem. I didn't use a Shared Project because I couldn't get that to work. Instead, I used PhysicalFileProvider and it works like charm.

To do this, I created a new folder in src. I called it assets so my Solution Explorer looks something like this:

src/assets
src/Foo.Web1
src/Foo.Web2
test/Foo.Tests

I put all of the shared static assets (e.g. css, JavaScript, images) in /src/assets. Now I map /src/assets to the wwwroot/assets folders in Foo.Web1 and Foo.Web2 projects using PhysicalFileProvider. In Startup.cs's Configure method, I add this:

if (Env.IsDevelopment())
{
    // app is IApplicationBuilder and Env is IHostingEnvironment
    app.UseStaticFiles(new StaticFileOptions
    {
        FileProvider = new PhysicalFileProvider(Regex.Replace(Env.ContentRootPath, $"{Env.ApplicationName}$", "assets"))),
        RequestPath = new PathString("/assets"),
        OnPrepareResponse = ctx =>
        {
            // Optionally manipulate the response as you'd like. for example, I'm setting a no cache directive here for dev.
            ctx.Context.Response.Headers.Append("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
        }
    });
}

Now any request that comes to /assets will be served from the /src/assets folder that can be shared by Foo.Web1 and Foo.Web2. All changes in /src/assets will be reflected in real-time. This work great in dev, but when it comes to production, I don't do this. Instead, I copy the files from /src/assets to Foo.Web1/wwwroot/assets and Foo.Web2/wwwroot/assets in my deployment script so this remapping doesn't need to happen.