Adding service reference to portable class library

Question

I am making a portable C# class library and I am trying to add a web service reference to my project.

Using VS 2013, I right click on the solution and in my other projects there would be an option to "Add service reference." But in my mobile library project that option does not exist.

Is there something special one needs to do to add a service reference to a mobile library or is it not possible?

See screenshot, there isn't even an option to add a service reference to my project.

Answer 1

I was having the same problem. Right after creation of a new project of type "Blank App (Xamarin.Forms Shared) in Visual Studio there was no "Add Service Reference" link when I right clicked on PCL. What I did was I just created another PCL and referenced it instead of default one (which I deleted later). I chose project of type "Class Library (Portable for iOS, Android and Windows)".

And then I went to project's properties and unselected "Windows Phone 8.1" checkbox.

And "Add Service Reference" link appeared all over the sudden.

I am using Visual Stuido 2015 Community Edition (version 14.0.25123.00 Update 2). Hope this will work for you guys too.

Answer 2

The reason you can't add Service Reference in a Xamarin Forms PCL project can be:

1. Windows Phone 8.1 (not Silverlight). Remove it by going to properties on PCL project and click Change. You might not be able to do it before you remove all your Nuget Packages.
2. Visual Studio crashes when you add the service reference. Remove Xamarin Forms nuget package and Asp.net SignalR. That worked for me. I didn't have Entity Framework Core but that might have to be removed temporarily as well.

Answer 3

Add Reference "System.ServiceModel" and can you see "Service Reference"