Getting PCL, Mvvmcross, Nuget and Xamarin Studio to play “nice” on Mac

Question

Looking at the MvvmCross.PortableSupport.3.0.1.nuspec I noticed the there is the following line:

Answer 1

Update: If you are using the Alpha channel of Xamarin Studio there is no longer a need to copy PCLs from Windows. You can use v4.0, Profile158, this also works out of the box with Async.

Update: I added instructions on how to get async to work in PCL in this article: Xamarin Studio Mac, Portable class library, Async and Android, so go there after this article if you want to work with async in your PCL.

A sort of working solution to the problem I had to get Mvvm+PCL+Xamarin Studio on Mac to work. See below for the details.

The steps below make things work for Android and PCL projects. For iOS projects Xamarin Studio on Mac is communicating a TargetFramework of MonoTouch,Version=v1.0 to Nuget. Since the mvvm packages contain +MonoTouch40 Nuget refuses to install the packages on the project. A workaround is to add

  <TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>

to the .csproj, add the packages with Nuget and set TargetFrameworkVersion back to v1.0.

I have verified the behaviour in Visual Studio. There a project with TargetFramework MonoTouch,Version=v4.0 is reported to the Nuget plugin. This is why the same packages work on Visual Studio an not on Xamarin Studio Mac. I guess this should be corrected to be consistent.

Steps

Xamarin Studio

1. Make sure to use the Beta or Alpha channel in Xamarin Studio under Mac
2. Install the Nuget package manager: Xamarin Studio / Add-In Manager

Install .NETPortable into Mono.Framework

1. Copy the .NETPortable (C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETPortable) folder from a Windows PC to your Mac
2. Place it under /Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/External/xbuild-frameworks/.NETPortable/ (Make sure not to overwrite an already existing folder, in case this gets shipped with Xamarin Studio!!!) (see here also)

Patch Nuget

A patched fork can be found here: https://nuget.codeplex.com/SourceControl/network/forks/takoyakich/nuget/latest, take the 2.7 branch. If you want to patch yourself:

git clone https://git01.codeplex.com/nuget
cd nuget
git checkout -b 2.7 origin/2.7 

patch -p1 < {patch file saved from below}

cd src/Core
xbuild

cp bin/Debug/NuGet.Core.dll  ~/Library/Application\ Support/XamarinStudio-4.0/LocalInstall/Addins/MonoDevelop.PackageManagement.0.6/NuGet.Core.dll

Restart Xamarin Studio if you kept it open.

Test it!

1. Open Xamarin Studio
2. Create a new portable library
3. On the project, go to options, Build/General you should see a dialog letting you choose the Target Frameworks (e.g. .net45+wp8 corresponds to Profile49)
4. Goto references, Manage Nuget packages, Add Mvvmcross
5. Follow one of @slodge 's excellent n+1 mvvmcross tutorial videos from here ...

---

Patch to Nuget.Core.dll:

    diff --git a/src/Core/NETPortable/NetPortableProfileTable.cs b/src/Core/NETPortable/NetPortableProfileTable.cs
    index 6f6a9ff..edc710c 100644
    --- a/src/Core/NETPortable/NetPortableProfileTable.cs
    +++ b/src/Core/NETPortable/NetPortableProfileTable.cs
    @@ -49,16 +49,12 @@ namespace NuGet
             private static NetPortableProfileCollection BuildPortableProfileCollection()
             {
                 var profileCollection = new NetPortableProfileCollection();
    -            string portableRootDirectory =
    -                    Path.Combine(
    -                        Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFilesX86, Environment.SpecialFolderOption.DoNotVerify),
    -                        @"Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETPortable");
    -
    +            string portableRootDirectory = GetPortableRootDirectory ();
                 if (Directory.Exists(portableRootDirectory))
                 {
                     foreach (string versionDir in Directory.EnumerateDirectories(portableRootDirectory, "v*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly))
                     {
    -                    string profileFilesPath = versionDir + @"\Profile\";
    +                    string profileFilesPath = Path.Combine(versionDir,"Profile");
                         profileCollection.AddRange(LoadProfilesFromFramework(profileFilesPath));
                     }
                 }
    @@ -66,6 +62,22 @@ namespace NuGet
                 return profileCollection;
             }

    +        private static string GetPortableRootDirectory()                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
    +        {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    +            if (IsMonoOnMac ()) {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
    +                return "/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/External/xbuild-frameworks/.NETPortable";                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
    +            }                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
    +            return Path.Combine(                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
    +                Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFilesX86, Environment.SpecialFolderOption.DoNotVerify),                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
    +                @"Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETPortable");                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
    +        }                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    +                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
    +        static bool IsMonoOnMac ()                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
    +        {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    +            // Environment.OSVersion.Platform returns UNIX, didn't find a better way :-(                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
    +            return File.Exists ("/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder");                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
    +        }       
    +
             private static IEnumerable<NetPortableProfile> LoadProfilesFromFramework(string profileFilesPath)
             {
                 if (Directory.Exists(profileFilesPath))

Answer 2

As of February 2014, the steps above are not needed. Using Xamarin Studio 4.3.2, Alpha channel, and nuget addin via adding mrward's addin repository first and then installing nuget addin, I was able to switch the target to p49 and add the HotTuna pack directly to a new PCL project.