Any new tools or techniques I'm unaware of?
There are no more new tools here except the MSBuildShellExtension v2.0. This development of MSBuildShellExtension tool is based on MSBuild command line. If you want to develop a new tools for building a project or solution from windows explorer, you can develop the new tool based on the principle of MSBuild command line. You can refer to MSBuild Command-Line for more detail.
If you don`t want to develop a new tool, the MSBuild command line is a good recommendation, which has been able to complete the build project very well without the need to open Visual Studio.
You can launch the Command Prompt from the start menu, Switch to the MSBuild.exe path for Visual Studio 2017:C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin
, then use MSBuild command line:MSBuild.exe MyProject.proj
. You can also use MSBuild.exe to perform more complex builds.
Hope this can help you.