LibraryManager is missing at vs 2017 15.7 preview 5

[aspnet]

LibraryManager is missing at vs 2017 15.7 preview 5

[justcla]

Library Manager is still in preview mode. It was available in 15.7 Preview 4, but we removed it from 15.7 in the lead-up to the official release of 15.7 RTW.
LibMan is included in the 15.8 Preview 1, which will be available very soon.

In the meantime, if you'd like to continue using LibMan, you can manually create and install the latest LibMan extension.
To install the latest LibMan extension:

• Clone the source from the Library Manager GitHub repo.
• Build the solution in Visual Studio 2017.
• Install the VSIX: "Microsoft.Web.LibraryManager.vsix" found in the directory: [YourSolutionFolder]\src\LibraryManager.Vsix\bin\Release

Thank you, all, for your continued interest in LibMan.

[sliekens]

@justcla I'm confused, what are we supposed to use in VS2017 update 7?

If I understand the documentation then libman replaced bower tooling. If I understand your comment then libman was pulled from VS because it wasn't ready. So is there no built-in package manager for client-side library right now? Jeez...

[sliekens]

@hajekj thanks for sharing, nice blog article too

[hajekj]

Also, if you don't want to compile it, get the compiled .vsix from their CI: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/aspnetci/librarymanager/branch/master/artifacts

Just tested and works fine in my VS2017 15.7.3

[KenSpr]

Same for us: there are no menu options for managing client-side libraries (VS 15.7.4; .Net Core 2.1 SDK).

In the last year and 3 months of working with .Net Core (versions 1.0 --> 2.1) the options to manage client side have changed several times. As I recall, beta's used Npm then 1.0 used Nuget w/o Bower. Later versions promoted Bower followed by LibMan and now its missing completely! What is up?

[jefftucker]

I've experienced the errors both @smolander and @augustobotossi have reported. I get the error message "A value for 'Component' needs to be specified in the catalog." even installing the VSIX file from a CI build (I used this one: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/aspnetci/librarymanager/build/1.0.949/artifacts). I have not been able to build the project locally either due to a variety of errors although I think I was able to eventually get the .NET Core 2.1 issue to go away but there were multiple issues building the test project that look like missing references or packages.

I can provide logs or whatever of any of this if it would be helpful.

[DerAlbertCom]

Is this permanent removed for 15.7 or a bug?

[lettucebo]

Actually I don't know, I don't have another machine can cleanly install fresh VS preview

I have report this issue at developer community

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/241526/library-manager-is-missing.html

[engryEngineer]

We are experiencing this on 2 machines with fresh installs of preview 5 (we do not have any instances of preview 5 that have libman).

[lettucebo]

@StevenLiekens I think the best way is download the project and compile the vsix by self

[sliekens]

That's if you insist on using LibMan but it sounds like it's not ready for production so what do we use until then?

[hajekj]

@StevenLiekens: I wrote an article about this - if you need a production solution, use NPM: https://hajekj.net/2018/06/05/including-front-end-libraries-in-asp-net-core-projects/

So far, I started using this tool in production for small internal apps and except a tiny fix for #66 everything works fine.

[KenSpr]

Also, note that 'VS2017 15.8 Preview 2's implementation of Libman lacks any UI (.Net Core 2.1 SDK/Web App). The Bower implementation worked like Nuget offering both a search tool for locating libraries and a tool for comparing installed versions with the later version-options.

[smolander]

I tried building it from the repo but got the following error message:

"The current .NET SDK does not support targeting .NET Core 2.1. Either target .NET Core 2.0 or lower, or use a version of the .NET SDK that supports .NET Core 2.1."

Has anyone had a similar problem? (I also tried the pre-built version, and it did not work...)

[augustobotossi]

I compiled the spice after cloning the repo, but after running the VSIX file, I get the error message "A value for 'Component' needs to be specified in the catalog."

[kevlyons]

I also compiled from source and got the same error as @augustobotossi!

[lettucebo]

If you encounter "A value for 'Component' needs to be specified in the catalog." issue
Please reference issue #302
I have file a issue and got resolve

[FredyWenger]

Unbelievable...
I have created a project a while ago with a preview of .net core and VS2015.
Installed VS2017 15.7.5 (release!)
The old project (without any touch) don't compile anymore in VS2015 after install of VS2017...
In VS 2017 15.7.5 release, all tools (Bower and NPM) are completely missing!
Libman cannot be installed with 15.7.5 (release!)
Searching and think about what to do since more than a full day now (and... according to all postings, I'm not the only one).
Thanks MS to give your customers something to do by every update to VS and/or .net Core!

[sliekens]

@FredyWenger 15.7.5 is outdated at this point, update to 15.9 and it should have libman preinstalled

[FredyWenger]

@StevenLiekens:
I know, that libman ist preinstalled in 15.9, but I don't want to update to 15.9 yet, as we have a lot of SW (including e.g. Xamarin app's) in use at our customers and tested all the SW with 15.7.5 a while ago.
So.. I fear negative siede effects (especially regarding the Xamarin integration) , if we update.
I really don't understand, that MS removes tools (that their customers need to work) without any replacement and forces all to do update the whole VS as it is not possible to install such a "small tool" in an official release of VS....

[sliekens]

Agree they shouldn't have removed bower/npm before libman was ready... strange move.

I can't speak for msoft but I guess they removed bower/npm from VS because you can just use the CLI versions of those tools.