I have one PC with Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017
Version 15.2 and it has a project template for Class Library (Portable).
Another PC with Version 15.3.1 has a template for Class Library (Legacy Portable). Are PCLs now legacy ?
Any current news on what I should be using instead ?
Well, "should", I won't say that without seeing exactly what you're doing but yes, PCLs are now "legacy", the new way is .NET Standard and .NET Core.
Please note that legacy does not mean "will stop working" so there shouldn't be a need to do anything as of yet.
To figure out which kind of .NET Standard version you want to target to get-out-of-legacy, you can consult the compatibility list on the .NET Standard web page.
Specifically, you likely want to consult the other matrix on the same web page, the .NET Implementation Support matrix and figure out which platforms you want to target, then create a "Class Library (.NET Standard)" project targetting the highest .NET Standard version you can get away with.
Related
I have a C# project which was created using NetFramework 4.6. I want to convert it to using the NetCore 2.1.
I checked the network, and people say I can just change the Target Framework value in the project's properties page. But on my computer, I cannot see options for NetCore.
I already have the NetCore 2.1 SDK installed.
Is there another way to convert the project? Is there something wrong with my project that prevents it getting converted?
People are wrong, there is no such "one step" approach.
Remember that .NET Core is not a higher version of .NET Framework, it is rather a rewrite from scratch. So it does not work like retargeting .NET Framework version form 4.0 to 4.5.
Porting to .NET Core from .NET Framework is a good place to get started.
Edit: This page lists some differences between .NET Core and .NET Framework.
You can't do this simply like this; because of their totally different frameworks, not different versions of same framework. You have to port your project to .net core; there is one of the nice extension for visual studio that generate a report for you about how portable your code is between .NET Framework and .NET Core.
This is also one of the article about the issue that may be useful for you.
I have a Xamarin Forms application that uses shared code. It has three projects, shared, iOS and Android. These are very similar to those which are created when I create a sample application from the Xamarin new project menu.
I am looking to have the application updated and published by a company that has experience in doing this but I am not sure I understand a couple of the work items that have been suggested to me:
Currently, architecture is PCL which is becoming
obsolete.
Move to .NET standards
Could someone explain to me what these work items might mean?
Yes, it will become obsolete at some point. .NET Standard is the evolvement of the PCL libraries.
With PCL libraries you could target a number of platforms and only the functionality that was supported for all targeted platforms were available to you. Associated with each combination of platforms were the profiles. A profile was identified by two or three digits. Notable ones for Xamarin were 111 or 259. Read more on PCLs here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/cross-platform/app-fundamentals/pcl
.NET Standard is a specification of the APIs associated to it. If a platform supports a certain version of the .NET Standard, you are guaranteed that all APIs are available. This way, you can simply target a specific .NET Standard version and each platform that supports it will support your application. The .NET Standard specification has gained a lot of traction and is already more cross-platform than a PCL ever was. Most of the creators of NuGet packages are supporting it already and also Xamarin/Microsoft has replaced the PCL with a .NET Standard library in their templates. Read more on .NET Standard as a concept here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/net-standard
So, if you have the possibility it might be wise to start moving to the .NET Standard library. That is, if you want to keep supporting your app and need new libraries coming in. If your app is fine the way it is, you can probably keep going with the PCL for a while. Converting is basically: change the csproj structure to the new structure. Retarget your library to netstandard and reinstall all the libraries you have installed, this time to download the .NET Standard compatible version. The last step might be a bit of a pain.
A good resource on converting might be this by Adam Pedley: https://xamarinhelp.com/upgrade-pcl-net-standard-class-library/
There is also a solution to do it automatically: https://smellyc0de.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/automatically-converting-pcl-to-net-standard-2-0-project/
.Net Standard is a specification for a set of APIs. and is the way things are going. With it, comes a higher level of range of .Net SDK APIs you can use, plus most 3rd party Nuget packages will support it. They can support a wider range of platforms. by targeting .Net Standard. Thus you will get access to a larger number of nuget packages. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/net-standard
I put my Forms Apps into a .Net Standard library, because it easier to unit test. There is a Xamarin Forms nuget package you can use for testing, which means a lot of UI paths can be verified in code, where previously you had to do it on a device, perhaps with automated testing. https://github.com/jonathanpeppers/Xamarin.Forms.Mocks
Upgrading an existing PCL project to .net standard is a pain. Any more, I just create a new Xamarin Forms solution with the same name/root namespace, with the app as .Net Standard, then copy files over.
I've created a Cross platform Application for Xamarin in Visual Studio. The application is running on .NET Standard 2.0 and it's not possible to select a higher version.
Isn't possible to run a Xamarin project on a newer .NET version? The problem is that a want to install nuget packages that requires at least .NET 4.5.
Thanks in advance.
You are confusing .net and .net standard. .net standard gathers many other .net platform (for example .net core, uwp, windows phone etc...) including the classical .net (from 4.5 to 4.6.1). Take a look at this table to have a better understanding.
This means that you should be able to include your library that targets .net 4.5.
Now that you know that, you can define a fallback version if the library does not target .net standard. To do so add this line in your .net standard .csproj in the PropertyGroup node
<PackageTargetFallback>$(PackageTargetFallback);portable-win+net45+wp8+win81+wpa8</PackageTargetFallback>
.NET Standard is a standard, official documentation is nicely covering it. Beside that must read, here is a compatibility table.
So please, read the official documentation. Setup your mind and come back with a proper question. Currently it does not make sense.
Good luck!
P.S.: Currently you are trying to use an outdated library that does not support .NET Standard, you might want to look for alternatives.
I'm looking at using the TeeChart library for Compact Framework AND Full Framework (3.5) I'd like to know if there are any differences in API to support both platforms from the same source? (my current charting lib, different vendor, is not supported on Win32)
Question for Steema Software: I can't find the teechart.pocket.dll in the evaluation download? are you dropping CFNet support? where to get a cf eval dll?
No API differences between both versions, except for those specific to each platform.
Compact Framework and ReportingServices assemblies are currently not being included in the production version of TeeChart unless future customer demand signals its need. That's because CF doesn't work with .NET Framework 4.0 and 4.5 which means it doesn't compile with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012. In the meantime we are prepared to work with any customer that demands the assemblies on a case by case basis to certify its compatibility and featureset. In the meantime, you can use the assemblies included with previous versions.
I just started to study Nemerle. Since this is .NET language, I wonder, is possible to use for Windows Phone development? Does Visual Studio support it well?
Nemerle compiler uses System.Reflection.Emit for assembly manipulations. Then it can create assemblies same CLR version only.
I know only one reciepe for build WP assemblies: ildasm ncc.exe, fix all references to WP framework and ilasm it again.
This may not be possible, since Windows Phone runs a subset of the full .NET Framework which is closer to the .NET Compact Framework.
Looking at this page (translated from Russian) it looks like Compact Framework support is something that is/was planned for Nemerle version 2. However that article was written before Jetbrains acquired the project, so objectives may have changed.
Having said that, much more recently (Feb 2013) one of the Nemerle developers spoke about their difficulties in getting Nemerle to support other frameworks. So perhaps it is on their agenda after all.