Forking to .NET nanoFramework tool

[josesimoes]

Hi @miloush 😃

Thank you for this managed port of the old TFConvert!

It's OK for you that we take it and convert it to a .NET tool over at .NET nanoFramework and setup a CI-CD pipeline?
Or would you rather prefer to keep it here and discuss a path forward for it?

[miloush]

Hi @josesimoes

I would be happy to stay involved! Let's see, what would you need for this to be usable in a CI-CD pipeline?

[josesimoes]

Thank you for the prompt reply!

First and foremost: the solution/project needs to be brought up to date. A .NET tool seems like a good option. We use it for several other CLI on .NET nanoFramework. Plus it's easy to distribute over nuget.org and updates are handled seamleslly.

Regarding a pipeline: OK with GitHub actions or AZDO. Either works. To handle the build, unit tests and publishing to nuget (if .NET tool). Nothing fancy but needs to be added. 😅

As final note: this code seems to be pretty stable and I'm not envisioning any changes required here, therefore I'm not seeing a busy release cadence. Just feels more efficient if can have the machine do the work for us.

[miloush]

Not sure if you are aware, but the conversion requires Windows for the text rendering. Is that acceptable or are you looking for something that runs on Linux?

[josesimoes]

That shouldn't be a problem. It's perfectly fine that the tool runs on Windows only.
This is not for heavy usage and not every developer requires generating tiny fonts, so we're good.
As it is now, there is no official tool to do this. Nor an installer or binary from a trusted source that folks can readily use. This is a move to take care of that.

[miloush]

OK I think I can publish it as a .NET tool, give me a week.

[josesimoes]

Oh... brilliant!
No rush at all. And thanks for looking into this. 👍🏻 😃

[miloush]

I have updated the projects but it does not look very promising with the tool:

error NETSDK1146: PackAsTool does not support TargetPlatformIdentifier being set
For example, TargetFramework cannot be net5.0-windows, only net5.0. 
PackAsTool also does not support UseWPF or UseWindowsForms when targeting .NET 5 and higher.

[miloush]

I managed to skip the check and produce a package that most likely can be published, however, the dotnet tool install is not buying it

DotnetToolReference project style can only contain references of the DotnetTool type

At this point I am not sure what else to try. Any ideas welcome!

[josesimoes]

Nice progress!! Do you have that code available in github so I can take a look?

[miloush]

Sure it's in the net60 branch

[josesimoes]

@miloush I can now build and pack as .NET tool! Please check #2 😉

[miloush]

I could build and pack as .NET tool, can you install it as a tool though? :) I will check the PR, thanks!