Support Visual Studio "Build Acceleration"

[jonathanpeppers]

Android application type

.NET Android (net7.0-android, net8.0-android, etc.)

Affected platform version

.NET 8

Description

Context: https://github.com/dotnet/project-system/blob/main/docs/build-acceleration.md
Context: https://github.com/dotnet/project-system/blob/main/docs/up-to-date-check.md

Using Visual Studio 17.8, there is a new feature that skips running MSBuild "builds" in some cases during incremental builds.

This currently has an issue in Android projects:

WARNING: Potential build performance issue in 'XamarinTV.Android.csproj'.
The project does not appear up-to-date after a successful build:
Input ResolvedCompilationReference item 'C:\Users\daortin\source\repos\app-xamarintv\XamarinTV.Android\obj\Debug\net8.0-android\_Microsoft.Android.Resource.Designer.dll' (2023-12-11 11:34:12.546) has been modified since the last successful build started

There is a new item group we can add _Microsoft.Android.Resource.Designer.dll to that will solve this problem and improve build performance inside VS.

/cc @davidortinau

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create an Android app project
2. References an Android class library
3. Read the diagnostic project system logs

Did you find any workaround?

No

Relevant log output

No response

[dellis1972]

I've taken a look at the ItemGroups, I'm not sure which ones we should be using. Most of them are about files which MSBuild does NOT know about. But in this case it does.

I'll read through the source code and see what they are actually doing.

[jonathanpeppers]

I tested in VS 17.9 Preview 2.1 with this setting:

This project also has some instructions to cause it:

https://github.com/jonathanpeppers/MauiBuildAcceleration

1>FastUpToDate:         Adding ResolvedCompilationReference inputs: (MauilClassLibrary)
1>FastUpToDate:             D:\src\MauiBuildAcceleration\MauilClassLibrary\obj\Debug\net8.0-android\_Microsoft.Android.Resource.Designer.dll (MauilClassLibrary)
1>FastUpToDate: Input ResolvedCompilationReference item 'D:\src\MauiBuildAcceleration\MauilClassLibrary\obj\Debug\net8.0-android\_Microsoft.Android.Resource.Designer.dll' (2024-01-04 09:13:06.818) has been modified since the last successful build started (2024-01-04 09:13:05.405), not up-to-date. (MauilClassLibrary)

[jonathanpeppers]

After playing with this more, the current behavior is:

1. First build: as usual.
2. Second (incremental) build, VS & FUTDC will run MSBuild due to the message above.
3. Third (incremental) build, VS & FUTDC will skip running MSBuild.

Had some conversation with the project system team, and I think we could try:

1. Hook into the CollectResolvedCompilationReferencesDesignTime target, remove the _Microsoft.Android.Resource.Designer.dll file from @(ReferencePathWithRefAssemblies):

https://github.com/dotnet/project-system/blob/e617a12f5f3e1e77ddcd7bffcbe292c706a8affe/src/Microsoft.VisualStudio.ProjectSystem.Managed/ProjectSystem/DesignTimeTargets/Microsoft.Managed.DesignTime.targets#L442-L443

2. See if that helps no. 2 above.

3. Verify that MSBuild will still run again if you change an AndroidResource. If it doesn't, we may need to add all AndroidResource files to @(UpToDateCheckInput).

[dellis1972]

Odd I can't seem to repo on the latest Preview of VS...