Actually, I don't know what can be shown in screenshots in more detail. I already showed the structure of my project earlier when I had an issue with debugging symbols. I want to be able to create two installers for Debug and Release configurations. I expect that the Debug installer will include PDB files, while the Release one won't. However, since the Advanced Installer project only has one configuration, the "Symbols" flag will always be enabled. Of course, I can turn off PDB compilation in the Release configuration, but I would like to have the option to provide symbols to the end user in case they encounter an unexpected exception. So, for building the Release version, simply switching the configuration in Visual Studio isn't enough; I need to adjust the settings in the Advanced Installer project, which contradicts the concept of configurations.
Second example. I want to set up a GitHub Action to build my solution and have two Installers for two different configurations as build artifacts. When I run
msbuild MySolution.sln, I see in the GitHub logs that both projects are being built. Which one of them will be included in the Installer? Even if you know the answer to this question, it will be one, not two, even though the concept of building a solution with different configuration settings suggests having a build product for each configuration.
Certainly, I could create two tasks and specify with a parameter in the
msbuild command which configuration I want to build. But what if there are 10 of them?
This again contradicts the concept of automation.
In general, it seems to me that the Advanced Installer project, integrated into Visual Studio, should also fully support its configuration concept without any workarounds