Add project.json package references to a VSIX

Question

When trying to add references to a VSIX, it normally pulls it from the references in the .csproj. However, if the references are not in the .csproj, because they now are in a project.json file, then they don't get pulled to the vsix. The solution then may compile, but then the extension fails with "file not found" errors when installed into Visual Studio (since the assemblies where not copied to the VSIX).

I tried with the section of the manifest like so:

<Asset Type="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Assembly" d:Source="Project" d:ProjectName="*PROJECTNAME*" Path="|*ASSEMBLYNAME*|" AssemblyName="|*ASSEMBLYNAME*;AssemblyName|" /> 

But it does not work, as it does not recognize the package references.

After some research I saw a similar issue with a PCL, however, without an answer and not the same type of problem: MEF With Portable Class library using Microsoft Composition MEF2 throws file not found exception

In the same note, this seems like an acceptable workaround: VSIX with Project Templates and NuGet Packages however, as far as I understood, it implies using the package during the installation. Besides that, it doesn't work for our case as they need to specify the package version and we are using project.json so we can use floating versions (ie: 2.0.*)

Is there a way to reference this project.json references that we are missing? Maybe a workaround? The solutions I have found seem to all require to "paste" de DLL somewhere, which for floating versions is not that convenient.

Thanks in advance for any help or input.

Edit/Update: Since VSIX automatically pushes any assembly referenced in the CSPROJ (and not the project itself), trying to get the DLLs at a project level seems unlikely. After many tries, I think that a valid workaround would be to get the assemblies from the Output Folder. However, to my knowledge, VSIX does not have a way of doing this, or does it?

Answer 1

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question correctly, but if you're trying to install a Project Template via a VSIX and you want the project template to include all it's nuget packages when you use it you could do something like this.

Edit your Project Template's xproj file and add the following lines:

<ItemGroup>     <None Include="project.json"/>     <None Include="project.lock.json"/> </ItemGroup> 

Edit your Project Template's vstemplate file and add the following lines in the Project node:

<ProjectItem ReplaceParameters="true" TargetFileName="project.json">project.json</ProjectItem> <ProjectItem ReplaceParameters="true" TargetFileName="project.lock.json">project.lock.json</ProjectItem> 

That should be all you need to do. Now when you install the project template, then create a new project using that template it should include all the nuget packages that were in the project.json file.