Net Core/Net 5 - Implementation

[amaitland]

Track the progress remaining on actually compiling the project with .Net Core

Basic support for compiling with .Net Core was added with #3181 with additional commit (e8cf336) to get the core projects compiling/tests passing,

• Integrate PDB into dll (bug in package reference makes it near impossible to distribute a pdb, see New project system doesn't copy PDBs from packages dotnet/sdk#1458)
• Integrate source code directly into the dll if the size doesn't increase dramatically see cefsharp/CefSharp.Wpf.HwndHost@901c6a7#diff-5418bd97c668e509388f5d466d94a436R10 for an example
• Generate reference assemblies for csproj
• Generate reference assembly for CefSharp.Core.dll using GenApi
• Improve Reference Assembly generation as relies on x64 hardcoded in project file. See Net Core/Net 5 - Implementation #3197 (comment)
• Check if we need to make the BrowserSubProcess TSAware (it's now a WinExe rather than a console exe so not sure that we have to).
• Add Net Core Unit Test Project
• Update appveyor to build the matrix (Net Core requires a VS2019 build worker image)
• Add assembly manifest for VC++ projects to prevent loading issues of ijwhost.dll see C++/CLI libraries may fail to load due to ijwhost.dll not being on the search path dotnet/runtime#38231 and Ijwhost.dll loading not always working for C++/CLI assembly. dotnet/runtime#37972 (comment)
• Distribute ijwhost.dll as required to load C++/CLI
• Dynamically set version number in chromiumembeddedframework.runtime.json
• Finish Nuget packages (partially done, they don't work yet)
• Fix type in .targets file as detailed in Net Core/Net 5 - Implementation #3197 (comment)
• Update Dependency Check (possibly create a Net Core variant).
• Update BrowserSubProcess to support running on .Net 5.0 when .Net Core is not installed.
• Add .Net Core specific Nuget Readme.txt
• VC++ 2019 is required for .Net Core (add to readme, document in other places).
• Confirm SelfPublish works after major changes in Refactor CefSharp.Core into CefSharp.Core.Runtime #3311
• SelfHost for Net Core determine CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.Core.dll path based on .exe path (details in Net Core/Net 5 - Implementation #3197 (comment))

---

OffScreen

• Add dependency to https://www.nuget.org/packages/System.Drawing.Common/4.7.0 (as uses System.Drawing.Bitmap)

[campersau]

• The CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess isn't copied into the output directory in netcore because the paths are different and the <Target> definition needs to be changed. Here my proposal:

diff --git a/CefSharp.Native.props b/CefSharp.Native.props
index d34636ef..521c31cf 100644
--- a/CefSharp.Native.props
+++ b/CefSharp.Native.props
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 <Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
-    <Target Name="AfterBuild">
-        <ItemGroup>
-            <!-- We only need the .exe and .pdb but I don't know how to express that easily with MSBuild... -->
-            <SubProcessFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess\bin\$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.*" />
-        </ItemGroup>
-        <Copy SourceFiles="@(SubProcessFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(TargetDir)" />
-    </Target>
+  <Target Name="CefSharpCopyBrowserSubprocess" AfterTargets="AfterBuild">
+    <ItemGroup>
+      <!-- We only need the .exe and .pdb but I don't know how to express that easily with MSBuild... -->
+      <!-- netcore -->
+      <SubProcessFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess\$(BaseOutputPath)\$(Configuration)\$(TargetFramework)\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.*" Condition=" '$(TargetFramework)' != '' " />
+      <!-- netframework -->
+      <SubProcessFiles Include="$(SolutionDir)\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess\bin\$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.*" Condition=" '$(TargetFramework)' == '' " />
+    </ItemGroup>
+    <Copy SourceFiles="@(SubProcessFiles)" DestinationFolder="$(TargetDir)" />
+  </Target>

   <Target Name="CefSharpCopyLibs86" BeforeTargets="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(Platform)' == 'x86'">
     <Message Importance="high" Text="Copying cef.redist x86 files" />

See e8cf336#r40843407

[amaitland]

• the <Target> definition needs to be changed

Thanks for the tip, was very helpful. I've created a new targets file for the copying as I anticipate additional changes in the future. This should be resolved in commit 4505fdf

[amaitland]

• Remove hardcoded WindowsTargetPlatformVersion, replace with https://github.com/mjrousos/CppCliMigrationSample/blob/netcore/CppCliInterop/CppCliInterop.vcxproj#L27 as suggested in https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/solutions/548052/view.html to use the latest installed SDK.

[amaitland]

Quickly revisiting the idea of using a symbol Nuget package, seems like that it's not possible for VC++ projects.

They do not currently support Windows PDBs (generated by VC++, or for managed projects that set build property DebugType to full)

As per https://github.com/dotnet/sourcelink#alternative-pdb-distribution

[amaitland]

• Generate reference assemblies https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/assembly/reference-assemblies

I've spent quite a bit of time on this and can generate source for the csproj based projects it doesn't appear to be possible to install GenApi (as detailed in #2796 (comment)) in a vcxproj file so we'll need to get creative.

It will be simpler to simply use the built in reference assembly generation for the csproj files, the downside being it will generate internal types. I'm thinking of creating a new csproj that reference CefSharp.Core simply for the purpose of manually invoking the GenApi targets.

What I've hacked together so far is at https://github.com/amaitland/CefSharp/tree/genapi (currently using GenApi to generate source for each of the csproj files). Not clear what properties the assemblies should actually have, should they be strongly signed? Need to investigate what .Net generates itself.

[amaitland]

If we create a CefSharp.Core.RefAssembly project, reference CefSharp.Core, install GenApi I'm wondering if we can execute GenApi as a prebuild step referencing CefSharp.Core and have the project in turn compile the generated source to produce a ref assembly. I'll try this next.