title: Reference DLLs in ASP.NET without \Bin or GAC
body: <p>I have an ASP.NET project under source control (Subversion). For various reasons, I don't want to add the \Bin directory or its contents to source control, so I have it svn:ignored. DLLs are loaded into here during a Visual Studio build, and I can start with a clean directory and/or delete all the contents of this directory and still have a successful build.</p>
  
  <p>There are two ways that I reference code for inclusion in the project:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>In the Web.config element //configuration/configSections/system.web/compilation/assemblies. I can <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/37e2zyhb.aspx" rel="noreferrer"><code>&lt;add&gt;</code></a> any DLL that's in the GAC this way. I do this for all of the System dlls.</li>
  <li>In the VS Solution, there's a setting at <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ez524kew.aspx" rel="noreferrer">Project/ProjectSection/ProjectReferences</a> that lets me specify included references to other projects in the solution.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>(Note that this is different than non-web projects, where <em>all</em> references to external dependencies are stored in the project file. There's no project file for VS web projects so they have to be stored somewhere else.)</p>
  
  <p>Now I have a 3rd-party compiled DLL that I'd like to include in the project. Unfortunately, none of the referencing options I've found seem to work for me:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Referencing via web.config/system.web/compilation/assemblies doesn't work unless the DLL exists in the GAC; you can't use a file path. I'd really like to avoid a GAC dependency as it will mean an extra step to make the project work on every target machine.</li>
  <li>I haven't found a way to include a file reference in the solution like I can do with project references.</li>
  <li>Any time I add a file reference using VS's "Add Reference" dialog, it merely copies the DLL to the \Bin directory. That won't work for me as my \Bin directory isn't persistent across systems.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Is there another way I can make a reference to a DLL file and have it stick?</p>