Building NuGet packages from Visual Studio
Am I going about this wrong?
This GeneratePackageOnBuild
property is not something for .net framework
projects. Create a new .net Standard
or .net Core
class library project, right-click the project you'll see a Pack command(not available for .net framework).
If we click the button, VS will pack that assembly into a nuget package. And if someone doesn't want to click that button every time manually, go Project=>Properties=>Package
we can see the Generate Nuget Packages on build
checkbox. Enable it, and then the nuget package will be created after every build.
Actually, enabling that checkbox in VS will add statement <GeneratePackageOnBuild>true</GeneratePackageOnBuild>
to xx.csproj, but the Pack button or Package tab in Project=>Properties
are not available for .net framework projects.
So I'm afraid the answer is negative, you should't use that property for .net framework projects.(I tested the property in VS2017 and VS2019, it all just did nothing, can't reproduce the partial work mentioned in your question)
Is there an easy way to do this from within Visual Studio?
You need to use nuget pack
command to do that as Lex Li says. And to do this in VS automatically, you can consider configuring that command in Post-Build-Event or using custom after-build target to run that command.
Since you want these NuGet packages to pack automatically from Visual Studio during the release build. You can try adding this script into your xx.csproj
file:
<Target Name="CustomPack" AfterTargets="build" Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release'">
<Message Text="Custom Pack command starts ..." Importance="high"/>
<Exec Command="nuget pack $(MSBuildProjectFile) -Properties Configuration=Release"/>
</Target>
To run this script successfully, you need to download the nuget.exe and add the path of it to Environment Variables. Or use the full path like "C:\SomePath\Nuget.exe" pack ...
If the build in release mode succeeds, you'll see a xx.nupkg
file in project folder.
In addition:
1.For more details about nuget pack
command please see this document.
2.And don't forget to create a xx.nuspec
file in project folder to avoid encountering warnings like NU5115(xxx was not specified). Similar issue see here.
To enable on-build packing in a "non SDK" project, using old .NET framework (eg:. 4.5.1) and visual studio 2019 without using custom Target
. you need to do the following step:
- add a first
PropertyGroup
tag on the csproj - add minimal tags
Authors
andPackageOutputPath
- check that the same
PropertyGroup
hasGeneratePackageOnBuild
Now the variables will be passed to the internally triggered msbuild -t:Pack
command.
Here an example of working configuration, please make sure this will be the first <PropertyGroup>
of the .csproj:
<PropertyGroup>
<Title>packageid</Title>
<Description>your description</Description>
<Version>1.1.1</Version>
<ReleaseNotes>New package system</ReleaseNotes>
<Authors>authors</Authors>
<Owners>owners</Owners>
<Copyright>your copyrights</Copyright>
<PackageOutputPath>bin\Package</PackageOutputPath>
<GeneratePackageOnBuild>true</GeneratePackageOnBuild>
</PropertyGroup>
If you are looking for the references, here:
- how to create a nuget package with msbuild
- all possible tags to set on the csproj on the first
PropertyGroup