Assembly References Getting Added to Every Platform in .NET MAUI

Question

Assembly References Getting Added to Every Platform in .NET MAUI

Devi Prasad 91

If you add an assembly reference to one Platform , it gets added to every Platform.

Steps to Reproduce

Right click on Windows Dependencies
Add a new assembly reference (a local DLL, not a NuGet package)
Observe the assembly was also added to every Platform dependencies (Android, iOS)

Expected Behavior
The added assembly references should only be added to the selected Platform, not to all the Platforms

Basic Information
Visual Studio 2022 version 17.3 Preview 1.1

If you remove an assembly reference form one project, it also gets removed from the other Platforms dependencies.

Rob Caplan - MSFT 6,037 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2022-05-25T19:43:02.84+00:00

Are you asking about Xamarin or Maui? Please don't use both tags. Xamarin and Maui are different and will have different answers specifically in this area.

You mention Maui in your title and text, but you also talk about multiple projects and tagged UWP, both of which point to Xamarin - Maui solutions typically include all platforms in a single project, and Maui does not target UWP apps.

Please include your exact steps, versions, expected behaviour, and how the actual behaviour differs from the expected.

See How to write a quality question
Devi Prasad 91 Reputation points

2022-05-31T06:51:09.277+00:00

@Rob Caplan - MSFT I have updated my question

Accepted answer

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Rob Caplan - MSFT 6,037 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2022-05-25T19:43:02.84+00:00

Are you asking about Xamarin or Maui? Please don't use both tags. Xamarin and Maui are different and will have different answers specifically in this area.

You mention Maui in your title and text, but you also talk about multiple projects and tagged UWP, both of which point to Xamarin - Maui solutions typically include all platforms in a single project, and Maui does not target UWP apps.

Please include your exact steps, versions, expected behaviour, and how the actual behaviour differs from the expected.

See How to write a quality question
Devi Prasad 91 Reputation points

2022-05-31T06:51:09.277+00:00

@Rob Caplan - MSFT I have updated my question

Answer 1

Rob Caplan - MSFT 6,037 Microsoft Employee Moderator

Dependencies are managed at the project level, and adding to all targets is desirable in the common case - a frequent problem in Xamarin was people accidentally adding a reference to only one project and then having the others break.

If you need to restrict a dependency to specific targets you can edit the csproj to add a condition. For example, this includes ClassLibrary1 only for windows:

<ItemGroup Condition="$(TargetFramework.Contains('-windows')) != false ">
  <ProjectReference Include="..\ClassLibrary1\ClassLibrary1.csproj" />
</ItemGroup>

You can file a feature request to provide a way to manage this in the UI at https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/search?space=8&q=maui

Devi Prasad 91 Reputation points

2022-06-03T06:10:25.13+00:00

Yes, It's working fine, Thank you @Rob Caplan - MSFT
Dewangan, Khagesh 45 Reputation points

2023-03-24T04:52:55.9766667+00:00
I am facing the same issue, with .NET MAUI. Created MAUI Android Class Library project and wanted to add the reference to only net7.0-android. I tried with the Condition like : Condition="'$(TargetFramework)' == 'net7.0-android'" and Condition="$(TargetFramework.Contains('-android')) != false ", but both did not work for me. It's adding the reference to all.

I am in the latest Visual Studio for MAC.

 <ItemGroup Condition="'$(TargetFramework)' == 'net7.0-android'"> <PackageReference Include="airship.android.fcm" Version="16.9.0" /> </ItemGroup>  <ItemGroup Condition="'$(TargetFramework)' == 'net7.0-android'"> <ProjectReference Include="..\PlatformServices.Android\PlatformServices.Android.csproj" /> </ItemGroup>

Allan Mietton 0

Hello, I achieved to do this on VS Mac too :

<ItemGroup>
		<ProjectReference Include="XXX.csproj" Condition="$([MSBuild]::GetTargetPlatformIdentifier('$(TargetFramework)')) == 'android'" />
	</ItemGroup>

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Assembly References Getting Added to Every Platform in .NET MAUI

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