[wix-devs] Dtf repository MakeSfxCA and SfxCa tools

[Rob Mensching]

Sean's basically got it. If you look at a C# project to day, you'll see normal C# assembly and executable projects use the "Microsoft.NET.Sdk" moniker:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

But if you look at a web project they use the "Micorosft.NET.Sdk.Web" moniker:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">

That's because web projects build on the assembly project and add more web specific tooling.

For managed custom actions, we'll want to do the same thing as what the web projects do but add the additional steps are to create the custom action.

We haven't discussed the moniker for that SDK-style MSBuild project (I wish MSBuild gave these project types a better than "SDK-style") but it'll be _something_ like:

<Project Sdk="WixToolset.Sdk.CustomAction">

...or one of the options that Sean mentioned, or something we haven't thought of yet. We can noodle on the naming but it won't materially affect the solution (noted, changing the moniker does mean changing some of the filenames).

The delivery mechanism for all of the above is a NuGet file, just like what WixToolset.MSBuild from the Tools repo does (note, it is highly likely we _will_ change the WixToolset.MSBuild moniker at least one more time after doing a survey of the world of SDK-style projects and picking a name that fits in best).

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Sean Hall via wix-devs
Sent: Friday, June 5, 2020 3:43 AM
To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Sean Hall <r.sean.hall at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Dtf repository MakeSfxCA and SfxCa tools

If you're interested in doing the MSBuild integration as well, that would be great. The problem is that I don't know what exactly Rob means by an SDK-style MSBuild Nuget package.

If you follow the example of WixToolset.MSBuild from the Tools repo, you'd create a Nuget package called... I don't know. WixToolset.MSBuild.CA?
WixToolset.ManagedCA? Let's pretend it's WixToolset.Dtf.MSBuild. You'd setup a build folder in the nuget package containing WixToolset.Dtf.MSBuild.props which initializes a Property named something like WixCATargetsPath to the path of wix.ca.targets. wix.ca.targets would be in the tools folder, and so would MakeSfxCA.exe. There would be platform specific folders for SfxCA in the tools folder.

After that, you'd need to know a lot about MSBuild in order to bring wix.ca.targets up to date so that it can be used in an SDK-style csproj.

But is that an SDK-style MSBuild Nuget package? When I hear that, I can't help but think that we're trying to get something like this to work:

<Project Sdk="WixToolset.CA.Sdk">
    <PackageReference Include="WixToolset.Dtf.MSBuild" /> </Project>

But I don't know if that's even possible without installing something into MSBuild's main directory.