Nuget Automatic Restore for WebSite

Question

I'm trying to migrate all my C# projects to new Nuget Automatic Restore, following this tutorial: Migrating MSBuild-Integrated solutions to use Automatic Package Restore

I've successfully done it to my desktop/libraries projects, which I had to edit .csproj files, removing these lines from it (I'm not using TFS):

<RestorePackages>true</RestorePackages>  
...
<Import Project="$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\nuget.targets" />  
...
<Target Name="EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports" BeforeTargets="PrepareForBuild">  
    <PropertyGroup>
        <ErrorText>This project references NuGet package(s) that are missing on this computer. Enable NuGet Package Restore to download them.  For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=322105. The missing file is {0}.</ErrorText>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <Error Condition="!Exists('$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\NuGet.targets')" Text="$([System.String]::Format('$(ErrorText)', '$(SolutionDir)\.nuget\NuGet.targets'))" />
</Target>

However, WebSites don't seem to have any .csproj or any other file containing these instructions. When I install a package, it sucessfully put the .dll inside my packages folder, but it also put in bin folder. If I select the .dll under /bin within Solution Explorer, it has the following properties:

Auto-refresh path: C:\mypackages\Newtonsoft.Json.6.0.8\lib\net45\Newtonsoft.Json.dll
File Name: Newtonsoft.Json.dll
Full Path: C:\MyWebSite\Bin\Newtonsoft.Json.dll

This is set default when I first install a package from nuget. I think it should not look into bin folder, or when I build the project, it should bring the .dll to bin folder if it doesn't exist. The problem is if I build the project without the .dll in bin, it gives me the following error: "The type or namespace name 'Newtonsoft' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)". For desktop/libraries projects, the .dll is copied to bin folder.

I read in another question Nuget doesn't support WebSite, but Web Applications instead: NuGet Package restore for website, but I also read in Nuget's page that they have added compatibility to ASP.NET Web Sites, so here is my question: Am I doing something wrong? Or should I migrate to Web Application because they don't support Web Sites at all?

Answer 1

Here is the solution to this problem and it does work.

If you have a separate business logic layer, you could install the nuget packages into that project. Then you can do the nuget restore on the business logic layer prior to doing msbuild on the website solution. When doing msbuild on the solution which contains the BLL and the WebSite it will pull all the referenced assemblies (including the nuget restored dlls) out of the BLL project into the website's bin folder.

Here is a hack option if you don't have a separate business logic layer. Using NuGet with *.dll.refresh files in ASP.NET "Web Site" projects with Web Deployment Projects