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Task Runner Explorer in Visual Studio for Mac

 3 years ago
source link: https://lastexitcode.com/blog/2019/01/04/TaskRunnerExplorerInVisualStudioMac/
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The Task Runner Explorer addin provides a Task Runner Explorer window, similar to the one in Visual Studio on Windows, which can be used to run tasks with Cake, Gulp, Grunt, NPM and TypeScript.

Task Runner Explorer Window

Features

  • Task Runner Explorer Window

    • View tasks
    • Run tasks
    • View task output
    • Run and cancel long running tasks, such as tcs watch

    • Configure tasks to run when specific IDE events occur

      • Before Build
      • After Build
      • Clean
      • Project Opened
      • Solution Opened

  • Task Runners

    • Grunt
    • TypeScript

Supports

  • Visual Studio Mac 7.5 or later.

Task Runner Explorer

To open the Task Runner Explorer window, from the View menu select Pads, then select Task Runner Explorer.

View Task Runner Explorer menu

The Task Runner Explorer will look for files supported by a task runner in the solution directory and the project directory. It will also look at all files that have been added to a project or that have been added to a solution folder.

Task Runner Explorer TypeScript and NPM tasks

The top left of the Task Runner Explorer shows a list of projects or the solution that have tasks available. This can be used to filter the tasks shown in the Task Runner Explorer window.

Currently changes made to tasks will not be detected automatically. To refresh the task information you can click the Refresh button available at the top left of the Task Runner Explorer window.

Running a Task

To run a task you can double click it or right click and select Run.

Task Runner Explorer Run menu

Output from the task is shown on the right hand side of the Task Runner Explorer window.

NPM update running

NPM update completed

A long running task, such as tcs watch, will run until the solution is closed, or the Stop button, available on the right hand side of the Task Runner Explorer window, is clicked.

Binding Tasks to IDE Events

Tasks can be configured to run when the following IDE events occur:

  • After Build
  • Before Build
  • Clean
  • Project or Solution Opened

If the task runner file is in a project directory then the build and clean events are associated with the project. If the task runner file is in a solution directory then the build events are associated with the solution.

To configure a task, right click it, select Bindings and then select the event.

Task Runner Explorer Bindings menu

The binding will be displayed in the Bindings tab and will also be shown as checked when the context menu for the task is opened.

Task Runner Explorer Before Build binding added

To remove the binding you can right click the task, select Bindings and select the event again to uncheck it. Alternatively you can right click it in the Bindings tab and select Remove.

The order in which the tasks are run for a particular IDE event can be changed by right clicking the binding in the Bindings tab and selecting Move Up or Move Down.

Task Runner Explorer binding Move Up and Down menus

The binding information is typically saved in a file in the same directory as the corresponding task runner file, however this depends on how the task runner is implemented.

Disabling Automatic Running of Tasks

In preferences there is a Task Runner Explorer section which shows a check box that can be used to enable or disable the automatic running of tasks on opening a project or solution, and when building or cleaning.

Preferences - Automatically run tasks option

Cake Task Runner

The Cake task runner supports running tasks defined in a build.cake file.

Cake Task Runner

This is based on the Cake Task Runner for Visual Studio.

Gulp Task Runner

The Gulp task runner supports running tasks defined in a gulpfile.js file.

Gulp Task Runner

Gulp needs to be installed separately.

Grunt Task Runner

The Grunt task runner supports running tasks defined in a Gruntfile.js file.

Grunt Task Runner

Grunt needs to be installed separately.

NPM Task Runner

The NPM task runner supports running tasks defined in a package.json file.

NPM task runner

The NPM task runner is a port of Mads Kristensen’s NPM Task Runner.

The NPM task runner supports running with the verbose NPM option defined. If a task is selected then a button will be displayed on the left hand side of the Task Runner Explorer window. If this is selected then npm will be passed the -d argument when it is run.

NPM task runner Verbose button

NPM needs to be installed separately.

TypeScript Task Runner

The TypeScript task runner supports running tcs build and tcs watch if a tsconfig.json file is found.

TypeScript task runner

TypeScript tcs watch output

The TypeScript task runner will try to use tsc that is distributed with the Web Tools extension that is included in Visual Studio for Mac. If the Web Tools extension is not installed then the task runner will fall back to running tsc directly.

Installation

There are two addins to be installed:

The Task Runner is the main addin. This will be used by other task runner addins and provides the main task runner API and services.

The Task Runners Bundle addin contains the Cake, Gulp, Grunt, NPM and TypeScript task runners. These are currently included together as a single addin instead of being distributed separately.

Download both of the above .mpack files. Install the Task Runner addin first since the Task Runners Bundle addin depends on it. To install an addin’s .mpack file, open the Extensions Manager by selecting Extensions… from the main menu. Click the Install from file button. Select the .mpack file and then click the Open button. After installing both the addins restart Visual Studio for Mac.

These addins are not currently available from the main Visual Studio for Mac extensions server.

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