I'm using Visual Studio 2008. I've noticed that our .skin files are almost identical. I can provide a runtime import of a base skin file by doing a <!-- #include file="../../base.skin" --> and this works. But the designer doesn't support it so the skin settings don't show up at design-time. I have attempted to perform an "Add Existing Item" to each theme folder and add the base.skin file as a LINK (Add as Link button), and it goes through like it works, but the file doesn't show up in Solution Explorer.
I've searched and searched and it seems that this is not possible. Maybe I could try to edit the project file to add the base.skin file as a link, but I haven't attempted this yet. Does anyone have any other solutions to "inherit" a base skin file into multiple themes without copying and pasting each time? My goal is to edit one time and have it applied to all skins.
Another thing I could do is have a pre- or post-build event that copies the base.skin file (or merges with the other skin files), but that would mean a build for the changes to the base skin file to take effect.