contentFiles from nuget not shown in Xamarin Android XAML App project

[MaceWindu]

We have nuget package that installs some T4 files for codegeneration using contentFiles.
While it is already behave differently for old/new projects by including files as-is or as links, for xamarin project I don't see those files in project tree at all.

What is interesting, is that templates work - I just need to create tt file manually. But it is only because I know what to do. Normally users read instruction, create tt file using sample file and run it, but now they cannot do it, because nor instruction, nor sample template is visible to them.

[MaceWindu]

Closing. Looks like VS2017 15.8 preview 5 (or 15.8 in general?) fixed it

[MaceWindu]

I want to reopen it as I just messed up with my testing and made wrong assumptions about it being fixed.

How to reproduce:

• create new Android XAML App (Xamarin.Forms) project (APPNAME)
• install System.Data.SQLite.Core 1.0.109.1 to APPNAME project
• install linq2db.sqlite 2.2.0 to APPNAME project
• install System.Data.SQLite.Core 1.0.109.1 to APPNAME.Android project
• install linq2db.sqlite 2.2.0 to APPNAME.Android project

You can use templates in both projects, but LinqToDB.Templates folder visible to user only in APPNAME project.

[Pilchie]

This appears to be <PackageReference> in the native project system having an issue with the content files support.

[tmeschter]

This is closely related to #3042.

The difference here is that the APPNAME project is SDK-based, while APPNAME.Android is not. This leads to differences in how we handle contentFiles during restore and build, unfortunately.

In SDK-based projects, information about the contentFiles is written out to the obj\APPNAME.csproj.nuget.g.props file when the project is restored. We can find these items and surface them in Solution Explorer simply by reading the .csproj file and its <Import>s.

In non-SDK-based projects, restore does not write information about contentFiles out to the .nuget.g.props files. Instead, that data is dynamically generated at build time by certain MSBuild tasks/targets. We generally don't show items generated by tasks/targets in Solution Explorer.

The resolution of this bug is probably dependent on how we decide to handl #3042.

[tmeschter]

Tom's triage notes: The fate of this issue is dependent on what we decide about #3042.