MSBuildWorkspace and WPF Projects

[JoshVarty]

I'm trying to compile a WPF project using MSBuildWorkspace. Should this work out of the box, or do I need to do anything special to set it up?

When I open a .sln containing a WPF project and try to compile I receive two errors:

C:\Users\Josh\Documents\GitHub\Orange\WpfApplication1\WpfApplication1\MainWindow.xaml.cs(25,13): error CS0103: The name 'InitializeComponent' does not exist in the current context

and

error CS5001: Program does not contain a static 'Main' method suitable for an entry point

To reproduce, simply create a new WPF project. (Mine was WPFApplication1.sln). Then just load into a workspace and try to compile the project.

var msws = MSBuildWorkspace.Create(new Dictionary<string, string> { { "CheckForSystemRuntimeDependency", "true" } });
var soln = msws.OpenSolutionAsync(@"C:\Users\Josh\Documents\GitHub\Orange\WpfApplication1\WpfApplication1.sln").Result;
var comp = soln.Projects.First().GetCompilationAsync().Result;
var errs = comp.GetDiagnostics().Where(n => n.Severity == DiagnosticSeverity.Error).ToList();
//Two errors :(

[Pilchie]

We'll need to figure out what msbuild targets need to run in order to ensure that the markup compiler runs and generates the .g.cs files for this to work.

[mattwar]

This is caused by two problems.

The first is that msbuild workspace is invoking msbuild with the "Compile" target that does not include any of the xaml tasks. It needs to use at least the "CoreBuild" task to get the xaml compilers to run and generate the extra files. This is easy to change.

The second is that the xaml tasks are bounds to earlier msbuild version than msbuild workspace is using and need redirecting to function correctly. These are the same redirects that are found in msbuild.exe.config. Unfortunately, this can only be controlled by the exe that is launching the runtime and must be in its config file.

[JoshVarty]

Unfortunately, this can only be controlled by the exe that is launching the runtime and must be in its config file.

@mattwar In my use case I'm building Visual Studio extensions and using MSBuildWorkspace to support Visual Studio 2013. Am I correct in understanding that is would mean I'd have to modify deven.exe.config?

Do you see it being possible to compile WPF projects using MSBuildWorkspace in VS 2013?

[Pilchie]

@JoshVarty Note that you can modify the devenv.exe.config bindings via a pkgdef in your extension if you need to.

[mattwar]

@JoshVarty Its not a target scenario for MSBuildWorkspace to be used in VS process.

However, devenv.exe.config already has the redirects for MSBuild (since it uses MSBuild for the project system to load projects too.) But this won't work in VS2013 since those redirects only redirect to MSBuild12, not the newer MsBuild14 that Roslyn is using. You'd still have to update VS2013's config.

It's also not a goal for any Roslyn components in general to be used in VS earlier than 2015.

[mattwar]

@JoshVarty it looks like a bug we had not adding a few properties to msbuild is causing this to fail. This has already been fixed for RTM. You can work around the problem by passing these properties into the msbuild workspace.

"DesignTimeBuild" = "true"
"BuildingInsideVisualStudio" = "true"

[JoshVarty]

I've tried to verify that these properties are a workaround via:

string path = @"C:\Users\Josh\Documents\Visual Studio 14\Projects\WpfApplication1\WpfApplication1.sln";
var properties = new Dictionary<string, string>() {
    {"CheckForSystemRuntimeDependency", "true" }, //Error occurs with or without this property
    { "DesignTimeBuild", "true" }, 
    { "BuildingInsideVisualStudio", "true" }
};
var msws = MSBuildWorkspace.Create(properties);

var soln = msws.OpenSolutionAsync(path).Result;
var comp = soln.Projects.First().GetCompilationAsync().Result;
var errs = comp.GetDiagnostics().Where(n => n.Severity == DiagnosticSeverity.Error).ToList();

I'm now receiving two (identical) errors:

error CS1703: Multiple assemblies with equivalent identity have been imported: 'Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll' and 'Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll'. Remove one of the duplicate references.

Should the workaround work with RC?

Edit: I should mention I'm testing this code as a ConsoleApplication.

[Pilchie]

And does this happen with any solution you try to open?

[JoshVarty]

A couple things here:

• No this doesn't happen with any solution I open. I actually can only repro it on a brand new WPF project. If I open an older solution with a mix of projects (one XAML, some Class Libraries) I can't reproduce the error.
• I just tested the workaround in a VSPackage and I did not receive any errors. (No errors on either brand new WPF project or the mixed project).
• The debugger actually encounters the same error when showing tooltips: