The Nu Project

FAQ: IDE Support for Nu

Can I use my existing IDE?

Yes, you can use your existing IDE and Nu together. Typically, you will need to add a post-build phase to your IDE.

How can I compile using Nu inside visual studio?

Add a post build event to your Visual Studio project. This way the Nu IL transformer will be executed from inside Visual Studio. It's very simple to add:

Step 1: Go to Projects/Properties/Common Properties/Build Events/Post Build Event Command Line.

Step 2: Add 'NU_PATH\bin\Nu.exe "$(TargetDir)\$(TargetFileName)"' in the blank line and you can compile your project in visual studio as usual. Here $(TargetDir) is a visual studio macro representing the directory in which your target assembly is generated and $(TargetFileName) is a visual studio macro that represents the name of the generated assembly. Visual studio automatically expands these macros, replacing them with the correct strings. Replace "NU_PATH" with the path to your Nu distribution. Note the quotes around the target. This is required if the target path contains spaces (for example: "user\Documents and Settings\My Documents").

Under the hood Visual Studio just adds a batch file containing the following code into the output directory. If you prefer or if you have already have another post build event, you can also edit this file.

@echo off
..\..\..\bin\Nu.exe originial.exe
if errorlevel 1 goto CSharpReportError
goto CSharpEnd
:CSharpReportError
echo Project error: A tool returned an error code from the build event
exit 1
:CSharpEnd