5

Closed

Feature Request: Drag packages.config to Properties folder

description

I'd like to be able to drag the packages.config file into my project's Properties folder, but currently when I do this I get an error in the Add Library Package Reference dialog.

It would be even better if packages.config was added to the Properties folder to begin with, but I wouldn't mind dragging it myself.

Related discussions:
http://nuget.codeplex.com/discussions/228655
http://nuget.codeplex.com/discussions/240882
Closed Jul 5, 2012 at 5:21 PM by howarddierking
Closing as won't fix.
  • We wouldn’t ever want to put packages.config in the properties folder by default because Web sites don’t have a properties folder
  • Enabling the file to be anywhere in a project would mean adding potentially expensive logic to NuGet to find the file

comments

Jaykul wrote Jul 25, 2012 at 2:03 AM

That doesn't seem like a rejection that was discussed by a team of people. Do you guys talk these things over?

Why can't you just put it in properties folder by default, and if there's no properties folder put it in the root. Obviously checking for the existence of a properties folder isn't "expensive" and would result in this file being hidden from the project listing in Visual Studio. Considering that you practically never want to edit the file by hand, it intuitively belongs in the Properties folder anyway.

pranavkm wrote Jul 25, 2012 at 3:14 PM

My concern for this is having to now do lookups per project via DTE - one to check if it's in the root to continue supporting extant projects and one to check if it's in the Properties folder - and looking up things via DTE isn't necessarily inexpensive.

Are there specific concerns about having the config file in the project root? We could perhaps look at making the node Invisible (the VS project system supports a Visible attribute I think), but is it really that annoying to see an extra file in your project?

davedev wrote Dec 13, 2012 at 2:48 AM

My concern for this is having to now do lookups per project via DTE
Why would you have to use the DTE at all? Do a recursive search in the project directory for the first file named Packages.config. Its exact location doesn't actually matter, right? It's not like there's any reason it MUST be in the root?

is it really that annoying to see an extra file in your project?
Yes, it's pretty annoying, clutter. Its content should either be embedded in the project file with the rest of the project-related properties and references (preferred), or it should be a file in the Properties folder, or at least it should be hidden in Solution Explorer (that would be a bit lame though).
Currently, packages.config is the only file in all of my projects that I'm not supposed to edit directly yet it's always visible. For me, it's simply a matter of organization. It's frustrating that I can control every aspect of my project's organization in Solution Explorer except one strange file that I can't edit and it must always be in the root of my project. Essentially, NuGet doesn't properly organize my projects' settings and it doesn't allow me to organize them myself. I find this to be too restrictive.

davedev wrote Dec 13, 2012 at 2:50 AM

Please consider re-opening this issue so that it can gather feedback at least.

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