How to create .vcxitems in visual studio 2015

Question

I created a cross-platform solution of OpenGL ES2 Application (Android, iOS, Windows Universal) in Visual Studio 2015 and noticed that there was a shared library whose file extension was .vcxitems instead of .vcxproj.

I need to create more shared libraries shared among those platforms like that. Does anyone know how to create .vcxitems in Visual Studio 2015?

Answer 1

.vcxitems are called Shared Items Projects. These pseudo-"projects" contain files, but they don't actually build anything. Instead, other projects in the solution can reference them, and thereby automatically pick up all those files. .vcxitems projects are created by right-clicking on the solution name in Solution Explorer and choosing Add > New Project > General > Shared Items Project.

This is useful when you are building multiple versions of a library or program, so you have multiple projects, but they share most of their files. You add a reference of the Shared Items Project into a real project by right-clicking on the real project name in Solution Explorer and choosing Add > Reference > Shared Items.