PicoGK now available as Nuget package

[LinKayser]

Dear all,

I finally got around to doing something I wanted to do for a while: Packaging PicoGK as a Nuget package.

Nuget is the package manager that MS uses for .NET, and it makes installing modules very simple. No more running the PicoGK installer and cloning submodules. All you have to do is add the package to your project, and you can use PicoGK.

I'll rewrite the documentation in the coming weeks to reflect this, but it's currently a busy time for us. However, Apple's restrictions on new Mac hardware forced me to address this now, because our old installer stopped working on fresh systems.

Hello PicoGK

Here's a quick Hello World example of how to create a new project with PicoGK.

Open a command prompt and do the following:

Create a new console application:

dotnet new console -n HelloPicoGK

You now have a new console app project. Now add the PicoGK Nuget package by going into the new project subdirectory and adding it:

cd HelloPicoGK
dotnet add package PicoGK

PicoGK is now available for use in your app. To test it, you can replace the contents of Program.cs with this code:

using PicoGK;

internal class Program
{
    private static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Library.Go(0.5f, Test.Task);
    }
}

class Test
{
    public static void Task()
    {
        Library.oViewer().Add(Utils.mshCreateCube());
    }
}

Compile and run.

You can of course also do all of this set up using the Visual Studio/Visual Studio Code user interface.

Seeing the PicoGK code

By default, you will not see the PicoGK source code, when you debug. To understand PicoGK, it is often desirable to see what's going on behind the scenes. If you want to, you can enable two settings in Visual Studio Code which allow you to step into the PicoGK package. The easiest way to find them is to use the search bar in the settings.

• Open Settings > Settings
• Search for Just my code and uncheck the checkbox next to Csharp > Debug > Just My Code
• Search for Nu Get Org Symbol and check the checkbox next to Csharp > Debug > Search Nu Get Org Symbol Server

After you've done this you can step into the PicoGK module, even though the source code is served via Github (it will take a moment to download if you do this the first time).

Enjoy,
Lin