docs(AppData): Tell the User about the LinkBase Property we use in Chefs App csproj files #1688
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…efs App csproj files It's a great to know detail, that this will make those Files and even more Folders showing up in your Solution Explorer and keep those in sync. We should tell the User about this option.
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Pull Request Overview
This PR enhances the documentation for the AppData section by adding detailed guidance on using the LinkBase property in MSBuild Content elements for Uno Platform projects. The changes explain how to better organize data files in multi-project solutions while keeping them visible and editable in the Solution Explorer.
Key changes:
- Enhanced explanation of
CopyToOutputDirectoryproperty usage - Detailed documentation of the
LinkBaseproperty and its benefits - Added visual tree diagram showing how linked files appear in Solution Explorer
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]>
| - If you want to not just have these files in your app's output directory with latest changes, then also have your IDE showing them in your **Solution Explorer** and enable you editing them easily as if those would be directly nested in your specific project, you may want to also set another property on the xml element we just added: `LinkBase="AppData"` (or any other Name you want it to show to you as folder name). | ||
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| So this will make the full Content Element look like this: | ||
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| ```xml | ||
| <ItemGroup> | ||
| <Content Include="AppData\*.json" CopyToOutputDirectory="PreserveNewest" LinkBase="AppData" /> | ||
| </ItemGroup> | ||
| ``` | ||
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| And in your Solution Explorer, this will show up like with the below shown grey text (VS Code) or with a Link Arrow like you may know it from .ink files on your Desktop (Visual Studio 2022). | ||
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| ```markdown | ||
| root | ||
| |-AppData | ||
| | |-yourDataContainingFile.json | ||
| |-ClientApp/ | ||
| | |-ClientApp.csproj | ||
| | |-AppData/ *(Linked File)* | ||
| | |-yourDataContainingFile.json *(Linked File)* | ||
| |-ClientApp.Api/ | ||
| | |-ClientApp.Api.csproj | ||
| | |-AppData/ *(Linked File)* | ||
| | |-yourDataContainingFile.json *(Linked File)* | ||
| |-ClientApp.IntegrationTests/... | ||
| |-ClientApp.UITests/... | ||
| |-ClientApp.UnitTests/... | ||
| ``` | ||
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| > [!TIP] | ||
| > Another advantage of setting the LinkBase Property like shown above is, that you can do this on every project in your Solution you like to, without being required to: | ||
| > | ||
| > - duplicate the Folder or Files | ||
| > - if you edit a file in there, its state will always be synced | ||
| > [!TIP] | ||
| > If you may not want to have those files in your output directory of the Project, but showing up in your Solution Explorer, you can set the `CopyToOutputDirectory` property shown before, to **Never**. | ||
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I wouldn't spend too much detail surrounding explaining this as it is not specific to Uno or the StorageFile properties. This is something coming from MSBuild and we can offload all of this explanation to their docs on the subject: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/project-sdk/msbuild-props#linkbase
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@kazo0 I noticed that the sample uses The only difference I’m aware of is that the Windows API exposes Roaming/Local/LocalLow folders. I might be mistaken, but my understanding is that A short note explaining the choice could help readers decide which option to use. Would it make sense to add that? |
Co-authored-by: Steve Bilogan <[email protected]>
2 participants
GitHub Issue (If applicable): #1661
PR Type
What kind of change does this PR introduce?
What is the current behavior?
Just setting the Property of Content, but without the two others the Chefs App uses its hard to understand the Enhancement to evaluate for our Projects and Solution that this can provide to us, against from using Resource Element for this for example.
What is the new behavior?
It's a great to know detail, that this will make those Files and even more Folders showing up in your Solution Explorer and keep those in sync! I would like to have this included and tell the User about this option.
Also added a small Tree View diagram to help more Visual thinking People like me get a better idea of the Endresult this will provide 🚀
PR Checklist
Please check if your PR fulfills the following requirements:
Screenshots Compare Test Runresults.With those Information, it gets more clearer to me, what this is doing and what the difference is, we are getting.
Other information
I would still be interested to know, why we do not use ContentSource via IOptions for this instead of that StorageFile way to do which seems to be a Windows Specifics🤔 maybe because of the Details added on this issue?
Maybe someone could check and improve this in any point in the future 💡
Internal Issue (If applicable):