What is the function of the ESRI.ArcGIS.AddIns.targets file?

Question

I am currently upgrading from 10.2 to 10.3 and as expected there are always some issues with recompiling addins and upgrading the the visual studio version.

There is now a known issue for which there is a workaround described here.

My question is what is the function of the ESRI.ArcGIS.AddIns.targets file? What does it do and why does renaming the new ESRI.ArcGIS.AddIns.11.targets to the former ESRI.ArcGIS.AddIns.targets work? Is it what packages the actual dll for use with ArcGIS applications?

Answer 1

I have not familiar with this process but from reviewing a help page entitled ESRI ArcGIS Add-In Installation Utility that says things like:

if the add-in specifies its target as 10.0

and

An add-in targeting 10.1

and

Add-ins can target only one version of ArcGIS. Add-ins targeting 10.0, for example, will not show up in any other version.

I am going to take a guess that the targets file may contain the version number that an Add-in is targeting.