Portable Library Tools 2 Beta

Hi,
It would be useful to have the TCP Socket classes abstracted across the platforms.

Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback. It's on definitely on our radar - but will not make it for the RTM release of our VS2010 and VS11 releases.

I'm interested in adding portable library support to NuGet.

This means NuGet.exe will need to map from the .NETPortable profile names to the supported FrameworkNames. The information is right there in xml under Reference Assemblies, so the easiest way to do this is to just copy those xml files into the output directory.

Are there any MSBuild properties that I could easily use for this?

Hello, do you plan to include full set of LINQ expressions which is available in .net 4.0 together with expression visitor?

Yes do have support for the full set in VS11 (when targeting platforms that support them), and we're about to release an update to the VS2010 which will also include the fullset.

Awesome :) Thx!

Hi David, any more precise ETA for the next update to the VS2010 version ?

Very needed here :)

Thanks,
Karim

Keep a watch out today. :)

Just uploaded the new version.

AWESOME!

Thanks!
karim

Are you planning to add ViewModel support in .NET 4? I actually only need the interfaces, not ObservableCollection.

(sorry, that should read "add ViewModel support *to* .NET 4")

There are no current plans to support it on vanilla .NET 4.0. We simply cannot make it possible, these types lives in different assemblies between Silverlight and Phone and there's not a way to make them seen as equivalent without runtime changes. We're considering our options for enabling in later platform updates to 4.0.

Hi, I am building an OSS library that depends on System.Xml.Linq. With the new bits I can now build this library in VS2010 with .net 4.0.3 as a target. That's great, thanks!

I am now wondering how this lib could be used from VS2010. When it is added as an assembly reference to a .net 4.0 project there is no error or warning. Could I expect it to work properly like that?

If I add this lib as a project reference the dependent project needs to be 4.0.3 or higher. This is not supported by default in VS2012. You need to install a new design time update: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29054. Are there ways to make this easier? Could the design time update for 4.0.3 perhaps be part of the PLT update?

Thanks,
Paul

This code:
protected bool ContainsExcludeFromSerializationAttribute(PropertyInfo property)
        {
            foreach (Type attrType in AttributesToIgnore)
            {
                object[] attributes = property.GetCustomAttributes(attrType, false);

causes this exception with the PCL in WinRT C#:
Could not load file or assembly 'System.Runtime.Serialization, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' or one of its dependencies. Failed to add file to AppDomain cache. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131052)

How can I fix that?

...Stefan

That looks like a known bug in the CLR binder, and I believe its fixed in later (currently non-public) builds. I'll chase up, and get back to you.

Yep confirmed, it's a bug in the beta, will be fixed in the next public release. 

It's a race condition, so you shouldn't hit it all the time.

David,

Thanks - no, don't hit it all the time, and that explains it!

Look forward to the next release!

...Stefan

Hi,

I'm trying to migrate business logic from a prototype written in Silverlight 5 to a VS 2010 portable library project. One problem I'm running into is that generic covariance doesn't seem to work in the portable library.

In SL5, I can have an interface IFoo with an Items property of type IEnumerable<Base>. Then I can have a class Foo implementing IFoo, with an Items property returning IEnumerable<Derived>. This doesn't seem to work in the portable library.

I am guessing this is because the portable library targets Silverlight 4, and SL4 did not support generic variance. Does the VS 2011 beta version of portable libraries solve this problem? Or is there a solution for VS 2010?

Thanks for your help,
Richard

Known issue, it will be fixed next public release of VS11.

Great, thank you. I'll try it out then.

Is there a reason System.Environment.OSVersion is not included in the PCL? It would greatly help with writing code that targets different platforms at run-time (for example different behavior on devices with less memory).

Or is there another way/hack to determine the platform at runtime?

There is no System.Threading.Timer class in Metro style applications framework. But it could be used in portable libraries even if they are targeted to Metro style applications. This could lead to compile or run -time errors.
Used VS2011 Beta.

Thanks, this is actually by-design. We don't expose Timer in Metro style apps in lieu of the WinRT equivalent, however, it is supported and will work at runtime. It is known that an API that exposes Timer publically in portable will not be consumable from Metro, however, we felt the benefits of having it, outweighed the benefits of not having it.

Thank you for answering. Will Timer be based ThreadPoolTimer in Metro Style apps?
If this is this is classified information - ok :)

It appears that the GUI in VS 11 allows you to add references to a PCL that it probably shouldn't.  I created a test PCL that targets .NET and Metro then I added references to PresentationCore and PresentationFramework.  These were available under the "Recent" tab of the Reference Manager dialog.  I even referenced the CommandManager type in the PCL and compiled.  There were no errors, warnings, or warning icons displayed in the Errors window, the Reference Manager dialog, or under the References icon in Solution Explorer.

Thanks for the heads up. We aware of this, and looking at preventing this from occuring.