Before You Start

Please note that NuGet provides only runtime assembly references. For best development experience, it is highly recommended to install the Mobile Studio installer. With the installer, you'll have access to these benefits:

• Create Crosslight projects easily with Crosslight Project Wizard for Visual Studio.
• Create Crosslight files easily using Crosslight Item Templates for Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio on Mac.
• Generate controllers, shared domain models easily with integrated code generators, and deep WebAPI extensions for Visual Studio.

NuGet Benefits

Prior to Crosslight 5, configuring Crosslight assembly references is a series of long, tedious chores. Starting with Crosslight 5, all that has changed. You can now easily add Crosslight references with NuGet package manager.

With NuGet, Crosslight developers will benefit from the following:

• Hassle-free experience in resolving Crosslight references, including additional dependencies.
• Update Crosslight assemblies with just a click of button.
• Auto-resolve packages when opening a solution.
• Apply nightly builds easily a single command line.

Starting Crosslight 5, all of our samples contained in Crosslight Samples project will now take advantage of NuGet package manager by default.

Configure Crosslight NuGet Packages on Mac

This section describes how you can start using Crosslight NuGet packages on Mac with Xamarin Studio.

1. Copy and extract the Intersoft.PackageManagement.Extensions.0.1.zip to /Users/(username)/Library/Application Support/XamarinStudio-5.0/LocalInstaller/AddIns/. You can skip this step if you have installed Crosslight using the Mobile Studio 2016 (or newer) installer. You can also verify that this is installed through Xamarin Studio, Add-in Manager. 
   
2. Open Xamarin Studio. You should see that a new Intersoft Package Console Extension is installed.
   
   
   
   

3. To install Crosslight NuGet Packages to your project, select your project in the window that appears and execute this command.

   Here's one such example.

   
   
   You can find a full list of Crosslight Package IDs in the list at the bottom of this document.

4. This will install Crosslight to your selected project.

In addition to the standard command above, check out additional commands below.

Configure Crosslight NuGet Packages on Windows

This section describes how you can start using Crosslight NuGet packages on Windows with Visual Studio.

1. Right-click on your solution and choose Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.
   
   
2. In the window that appears, search for the desired Crosslight PackageID. Tick on the projects that you would like to apply the package to, and click Install.
   
   
   
   You can find a full list of Crosslight Package IDs in the list at the bottom of this document. 
3. You can monitor the package installation progress from the Output window of Visual Studio.
   
   
   
   
4. When it's finished, you should see this in the Output window.
   
   

In addition to the standard command above, check out additional commands below.

Restoring Crosslight Packages

This section describes how you can restore Crosslight NuGet Packages on Mac and Windows.

Mac

On Mac Xamarin Studio, this process is automatic. Once you've opened a solution that has packages.config file in each of the project, it will automatically try to resolve the missing packages for each project, so you might experience a bit of slowdown when opening the solution for the first time. This is normal and the expected result. Here's an example when you open a solution.

After it has finished download the packages, you'll get the following result.

You're now ready to use and run the solution. To reset the restore process, simply delete the packages folder at the root of the application and reopen the solution using Xamarin Studio.

Windows

To restore NuGet packages to an entire solution, simply right-click on the solution and choose Restore NuGet Packages, as follows.

During restore, you'll get the following dialog. Just wait until it has finished restoring all of your packages.

You can now use your solution.

Updating Crosslight Packages

Follow these simple steps to update your Crosslight packages to the latest stable version.

Mac

To update the entire Crosslight packages on your solution, simply right-click on your solution, then choose Update NuGet Packages.

You'll see the following status on the top Xamarin Studio.

You can also inspect the progress update using the Package Console in Xamarin Studio.

When the update is done, you'll get the following message on both Xamarin Studio status bar and Package Console window.

Windows

1. To update the entire Crosslight packages on your solution, simply right-click on your solution, then choose Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.
   
   
    
2. If there's any updates to any of your packages, the Updates tab will show a notification how many package updates available. Select the packages that you want to update, then click on the Update button.
   
   
    
3. You can inspect the progress update from the Output window of Visual Studio.
   
    
    
4. Once the update is finished, you'll see the following message in the Output window. 
   
    

Downgrading Crosslight Packages

According to NuGet documentation:

Mac

On Mac, you would do this by executing the following command:

This will downgrade your existing package to 5.0.5000.481. You'll get the following message in the Intersoft Package Console Extension window.

Windows

On Windows, you would do this by using the Package Manager Console. To access the Package Manager Console, open Tools, NuGet Package Manager and choose Package Manager Console.

Similar to Mac, enter the following command in the Package Manager Console window:

You'll get the following result.

Additional NuGet Commands

In addition to standard commands, there are several additional commands that are both applicable to Mac and Windows that can help you accomplish several tasks with NuGet.

Installing to an Entire Solution

If you wish to install a package to your entire projects, on Mac, you can use this the additional -allProjects option, like so.

At the time this document is produced, the existing NuGet Package Management Extensions (available in the Xamarin Studio Add-in Repository Alpha Channel) does not support the use of -allProjects option, therefore Crosslight 5 ships a repackaged NuGet Package Manager extension to support this feature.

If you haven't installed Crosslight add-in, you can use a more advanced command, but slightly more complex to install Intersoft.Crosslight to all projects.

On Visual Studio, execute this command.

Installing a Pre-release Package

If you wish to install a pre-release version of Crosslight to your entire projects, you can use the -pre option.

Installing a Specific Version

To install a specific version of Crosslight package, use this command.

Please note that when you install a specific, non-stable version of Crosslight package, NuGet won't detect any updates to the package. In the above example, -version 5.0.5000.1-alpha1 is used. NuGet considers the "-alpha1" as a string, and not an integer number, therefore it can't tell if there are updates to that version. However, if you install a specific stable version without the - (dash) in the version string, you can still receive updates. This technique is particularly useful if you wish to install an older version of Crosslight or nightly builds.

Crosslight NuGet Packages List

This section lists the full list of Crosslight NuGet packages published in nuget.org.

In general, Crosslight NuGet packages are categorized into:

• Cross-platform packages. This is kind of packages that can target more than one platform, such as Intersoft.Crosslight, Intersoft.Crosslight.Data, and so on.
• Platform-specific packages. Designated for only certain platform, for instance, Intersoft.Crosslight.Android.v7 can be only installed on Android project.

To identify the kind of the package, please see the Targetable Platforms in list below.

Intersoft.Crosslight Packages

Crosslight.Xamarin.Android.Support Packages

The entire list of packages works with only Android projects. These packages are re-package of Xamarin's original packages which have been strongly signed. This allows you to conveniently build Crosslight apps without requiring additional effort to sign the required support assemblies.

Crosslight.Xamarin.GooglePlayServices Packages

The entire list of packages works with only Android projects. These packages are re-package of Xamarin's original packages which have been strongly signed. This allows you to conveniently build Crosslight apps without requiring additional effort to sign the required support assemblies.

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