Contentless

A commandline tool for MonoGame that automatically handles adding assets to the Content Pipeline project so you don't have to use their interface to add every content file manually.

How to use

Clone this repository or download its Build folder which contains a build of Contentless. Alternatively, you can also download a build from the Releases tab.

Next, add Contentless to your build process by adding the following task to your .csproj file. Note that you might have to change the paths to fit your project's setup.

<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
    <Exec Command="..\..\Contentless\Build\Contentless.exe Content/Content.mgcb" />
</Target>

Contentless will now automatically add any content files from your Content directory and subdirectories (excluding bin and obj) to your Content.mgcb file if they haven't already been added either manually or by Contentless. No existing items' configurations will be overridden, so you can still use the Content Pipeline tool to modify any settings as well.

What it does

When running Contentless and supplying the location of a MonoGame Content Pipeline project (Content.mgcb), it scans all of the files in the project's directory as well as its subdirectories (excluding bin and obj). For each file, it checks if the Content.mgcb file already contains any references to that file. If no references are found, then a new reference to the file is added.

Contentless figures out which importer and processor to register for any given file by generating a list of all of the importers and processors that are available, both inside of MonoGame, and inside of References added to the Content.mgcb file. This process is similar to what occurs when adding an existing file through MonoGame's Content Pipeline tool. If Contentless sets the wrong importer or processor for any file, the user can simply open Content.mgcb in MonoGame's Content Pipeline tool and edit it manually.

As Contentless never changes any existing content of a Content.mgcb file, all changes that are made to it by hand or using the Content Pipeline tool will not be overridden.