Make it easier to reference WinForms and other libraries in .NET 5/Core console and library projects

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BrandonStewart-4522 asked Apr 4, '21 BrandonStewart-4522 commented Apr 9, '21

Make it easier to reference WinForms and other libraries in .NET 5/Core console and library projects

Would the Visual Basic development team at Microsoft please, please, please make it easier to reference WinForms (and other libraries) when creating .NET 5/Core console program and DLL library projects? I very often need to use message boxes in both types of projects, and other user forms within libraries. Currently, we must manually type in the reference within the MyApp.vbproj project file because WinForms is not available in the project references tab. Yes, I know that console apps and WinForms apps are two separate entities, but it is very convenient to be able to mix the two.

windows-forms

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vb2ae · Apr 04, 2021 at 08:35 PM

remember .net 5 is cross platform. WindowsForms is windows only but console apps will run on windows, mac, and linux.

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BrandonStewart-4522 vb2ae · Apr 04, 2021 at 08:54 PM

Correct. However, at the same time Microsoft is also pushing all .NET developers (including Windows only) away from the Framework and toward 5/Core, which is the only reason I updated all my code to .NET 5. Since they are pushing so hard for the change, the least they could do is make it easier for Windows only folks like myself to reference WinForms in .NET 5/Core.

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Answer 1 · 2021-04-05T10:57:42.383Z

karenpayneoregon answered Apr 5, '21 BrandonStewart-4522 commented Apr 9, '21

Hello,

A decent alternative to what you are doing now is

Create a new project e.g. class project
Alter the project file as you are doing now
From Visual Studio's menu select Project,
Select Export Template
Follow the prompts to export a project
Select the project
Fill in the default name for a project
Fill in a description
Finish up
Restart Visual Studio
Type in the name of the template e.g. my template for a class project for .NET 5 is PayneClassProject
Give a name for the project, done,

Once done a folder opens, if you need to share the template this is where other developers place the .zip file

f1.png (21.0 KiB)

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BrandonStewart-4522 · Apr 09, 2021 at 02:15 AM

Thank you, Karen. Very helpful as always. A template is just as good as a checkbox for what I need..

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Answer 2 · 2021-04-04T21:37:52.033Z

vb2ae answered Apr 4, '21 lextm edited Apr 8, '21

Try this. Change the TFM (Target Framework Monitor) from .net 5 to .net-windows in the console apps project file and add UseWindowsForms

 <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    
     <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
       <TargetFramework>net5.0-windows</TargetFramework>
       <UseWindowsForms>true</UseWindowsForms>
    </PropertyGroup>
  </Project>

Then you could try something like this in your code

 using System;
 using System.Threading.Tasks;
 using System.Windows.Forms;

 namespace WindowsFormsInConsole
 {
      class Program
     {
           static void Main(string[] args)
          {
                 Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
                MessageBox.Show("Test");
          }
     }
 }

Sample on GitHub

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BrandonStewart-4522 · Apr 05, 2021 at 04:29 AM

This is the process which I currently use. However, the purpose of this post is to get Microsoft to include adding a Winforms reference by simply checking a box in order to bypass having to manualy type in the reference, similar to how we can currently do in a .NET Framework based application

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lextm BrandonStewart-4522 · Apr 08, 2021 at 07:09 AM

What you preferred was well discussed (many GitHub issues, and this is just one of them) when they designed .NET 5 experience, and the conclusion was to use the approach described by @vb2ae . You can dislike that but what's done is done.

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