why error: namespace name PrintDialog could not be found?

Question

How can I write code using vscode and dotnet command line that uses the PrintDialog class?

using vscode and .net sdk, I am trying to compile code that uses the PrintDialog class. In the vscode editor the code highlights with the error. And when I run dotnet run I get the message

error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'PrintDialog' could not be found (are you missing
a using directive or an assembly reference?) [C:\web\tester\dotnet\ch4\ch4.csproj]

I ran dotnet add package System.Windows.Forms . The result was :

error: There are no versions available for the package 'System.Windows.Forms'.

I did install the .NET Framework 4.8. But there was no "dotnet" command line. So I uninstalled and installed .NET 5.0 instead.

How can I write code using vscode and dotnet command line that uses the PrintDialog class?

thanks,

Answer 1

Hi StephenRichter-0656,
First, Visual Studio Code supports .NET Framework building and debugging projects, but it is very limited.
And the C# extension supports limited full .NET framework debugging. It can only debug 64-bit applications with portable PDBs.
You need to modify your .csproj file to manually manage your NuGet packages, more details please refer to the Mario Figueiredo's answer.
Here are also some similar threads and hope helpful to you.
System.Windows.Forms assembly reference in VS Code
Manually Setting up a .NET Framework Project using VS Code
Finally, I would advice you to use Visual Studio (the community version would suffice). It has much better support for any .NET framework development.
Best Regards,
Daniel Zhang

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