Packaging Content Files with dnu pack

[dheerajkp]

I tried both content and contentFiles sections in the project.json, to include a content file that should go into the package. When I use dnu pack command, the content file doesn't seem to be packaged.

Please let me know if there is any recommended way to package content files.

[davidfowl]

This does't work yet. Also dnx projects don't support importing content.

[sujitdmello]

How should apps package their configuration files?

[davidfowl]

@sujitdmello Don't confuse dnu publish with dnu pack, you don't deploy application with dnu pack so that's not really a problem.

[Codenator81]

@davidfowl I future dnx going to support importing content? It is very useful when I need include views for example in project

[Codenator81]

@davidfowl is there any way run bower or git commands on package install?

[lszomoru]

@davidfowl on Jun7th you said that "dnu pack" does not support content files as well as dnx projects do not support importing content. Has anything changed since then? I am asking as I would like to create an ASP.NET Class library, include some contents (static files) into the package and use that package from an ASP.NET website. The purpose of the ASP.NET class library to separate my app into modules for code sharing/re-usability.

[joeaudette]

As far as I know currently you can include files into the generated nuget. In cloudscribe.Web.Navigation I am including views like this:

"packInclude": {
"content/": "content/**"

},
"content": [ "Views/Shared/.cshtml", "Views/Shared/Components/Navigation/.cshtml" ],

and I can see that the package does include the files, but nuget does NOT install the files into the consuming web app currently. So we are only half way there, we can get files into a nuget package but not get them out. I'm not sure if I need both packinclude and content but that is what I have at the moment and the files do get included.

My project is a navigation view component and I want to have it install some views and an xml file that is used for building the navigation tree, but currently this is not working as far as I know even though I am able to include the files in the nuget package. I do want people to be able to modify these files after they are installed. I'm also interested in whether I could have views compiled into my dll inside the nuget package that could be used if the files don't exist on disk in the web app. For now I have to tell people to install the views manually to try this navigation library.

[davidfowl]

That's right, you can package things into packages but there's no support for getting content copied into the application. For RC2 we'll support the new NuGet declarative content pattern https://github.com/NuGet/Home/wiki/%5BSpec%5D-Content-v2-for-project.json. I'm not sure it'll work for the case you describe though. You may have to write something that locates views from within packages.

[joeaudette]

@davidfowl are you saying that in RC2 it will be possible to have the view .cshtml files installed into the web app? That would be good enough for me. Having some kind of fallback to pre-compiled views from within the class library would be a nice to have feature but as long as I can deliver working views my main needs would be met.

[lszomoru]

@joeaudette thanks for the pointer. I was able to get the files into the package! one approach to get your shared views out of the package could be to use the CombinedFileProvider which currently exists only in this pull request - aspnet/FileSystem#142. I was able to use it to combine the physical file provider with an embedded file provider.

unfortunately, this approach does not work for my client-side scripts and for that I would need the support to copy the contents from the package into the web app. @davidfowl, from the spec it is not clear to me whether this will be included in the RC2 functionality. btw, kudos to the team for still adding new functionality to ASP.NET5 so late in the game!

[Codenator81]

I start using ViewComponent and TagHelper as alternative for now which can be overwritten by user of package.

[lszomoru]

@Codenator81, does your approach solve the problem for client-side scripts stored in a package?

[Codenator81]

@lszomoru No this good for views only. Any way if scripts is not custom take it from Bower. You can try put it in Component Views as well but I don`t try )