davidjade/vsmonotouch

Visual Studio 2010 extension to load and compile MonoTouch projects

MonoTouch for Visual Studio 2010

About

This Visual Studio 2010 extension will enable you to open and compile MonoTouch projects without having to modify the .cproj file. The extension makes Visual Studio 2010 recognize the project types created by MonoTouch. It will also make sure any XIB files are ignored by Visual Studio when compiling the project.

This extension will only let you to open and compile MonoTouch projects. You will not be able to run your MonoTouch projects from Visual Studio, to do this you still need to use the official MonoTouch tools on a Mac.

The purpose of this project is to make cross-platform mobile development easier. The extension will enable MonoTouch developers to use familiar tools such as ReSharper and Visual Studio when editing code. You can also use the [Project Linker Synchronization Tool](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921108(v=pandp.20.aspx) to automatically keep Windows Phone, Mono for Android and MonoTouch class libraries in sync.

Installation

1. Download and run the vsix-package from the github page.

2. Copy the MonoTouch binaries from your Mac development environment to your Visual Studio 2010 development environment. Copy all the files from /Developer/MonoTouch/usr/lib/mono/2.1/ on your Mac to C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETFramework\v1.0 on your PC.

3. Add a RedistList-folder under your newly created v1.0-folder. Download the FrameworkList.xml file and add it to the RedistList-folder.

Why the v1.0 folder?

The reason for the ".NETFramework\v1.0" location on your PC is how MonoTouch specify the <TargetFrameworkVersion>v1.0</TargetFrameworkVersion> in the .cproj file. If the <TargetFrameworkIdentifier> isn't specified Visual Studio will default to .NETFramework, which will make Visual Studio look for reference assemblies in the v1.0 folder. If you don't copy your MonoTouch files to this directory Visual Studio will complain that the Target Framework is not installed.

A note on mscorlib.dll

The MonoTouch templates does not include an explicity reference to mscorlib.dll. The default behavior of Visual Studio 2010 is that all projects contain an implied reference to mscorlib.dll. The problem is that the implied version of mscorlib.dll is different from the MonoTouch mscorlib.dll, which will give you warnings in the editor. The project will compile just fine without the reference.

The other problem is how Visual Studio 2010 will not let you add a new reference to mscorlib.dll as it allready have that reference implied. The way to work around this is to add it manually by editing the .csproj file.

<ItemGroup>
  <Reference Include="mscorlib" />
  <Reference Include="monotouch" />
  <Reference Include="System" />
  <Reference Include="System.Xml" />
  <Reference Include="System.Core" />    
</ItemGroup> 

Visual Studio will now pick up the MonoTouch version of mscorlib.dll, and the project will still build just fine in MonoDevelop. The next update of the extension will enable you to automatically add this reference if missing.

Credit

The MonoTouchFlavorProjectFactory is based on Jamie Briant's implementation.