Files from nuget package not copied to the build output

[aglasencnik]

Hi, I have a probably quick question.
Just today I published my very first nuget package: EmmetNetSharp, and I want to base my Visual Studio extension on this nuget package...
But this nuget package needs to copy a folder with 6 javascript files on build.... (I have set the copy to always there). Basically when I try to use the nuget package on a console app it shows the files and automatically copies them, so it works straight away... but not in the extension.... it doesn't copy the files to the build output. And because it is a package I can't even see the files so I could check the copy to output and to vsix...
Any ideas on how to fix this?

[madskristensen]

Can you manually add them to the project and set the build action?

[madskristensen]

You could either write some MSBuild stuff in the .csproj to handle it, or simply add the 6 .js files to the project and set their Build Action to content

[madskristensen]

Here's how I"ve done it in the past
https://github.com/madskristensen/SassCompiler/blob/master/src/SassCompiler.csproj#L103

[aglasencnik]

Thank you.
Is the second example the on how to do it with MSBuild? So I would just "reference" the files there and thats it?

[madskristensen]

Yeah, you can add the .js files to a folder in the solution root and then reference them from the .csproj file manually. That's one way of doing it

[aglasencnik]

Ok, thank you so much.

[reduckted]

There is a way that you can do this without needing to manually copy files from the NuGet package.

On the PackageReference element, you can set GeneratePathProperty to true. That will create a property with the path to the NuGet package.

<PackageReference Include="EmmetNetSharp" Version="1.0.0" GeneratePathProperty="true"/>

In this instance, the property will be called PkgEmmetNetSharp (you can look in the obj/*.nuget.g.props file to confirm the name).

You can then use that property to include the files from the NuGet package. For example, if you want to include the files in the VSIX file, you can do this:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Include="$(PkgEmmetNetSharp)\content\Scripts\*.js" IncludeInVsix="true" VsixSubPath="Scripts" />
</ItemGroup>

In Solution Explorer:

In the VSIX (viewed using 7zip):

If you don't want the files to be visible in Solution Explorer, you can hide them using the Visible attribute:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Include="$(PkgEmmetNetSharp)\content\Scripts\*.js" IncludeInVsix="true" VsixSubPath="Scripts" Visible="false" />
</ItemGroup>

Or you can put them in a virtual folder:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Include="$(PkgEmmetNetSharp)\content\Scripts\*.js" IncludeInVsix="true" VsixSubPath="Scripts">
    <Link>Scripts\%(Filename)%(Extension)</Link>
  </Content>
</ItemGroup>

[aglasencnik]

Hi, I just don't know what to say. Thank you so so much for taking your time, and even testing it, so we know that it works... I really appreciate that.
Thank you so much!!!