brodybits commented on a change in pull request #788: [WIP] cordova-windows 6.0.0 release blog post URL: https://github.com/apache/cordova-docs/pull/788#discussion_r170355510
########## File path: www/_posts/2018-02-23-cordova-windows-6.0.0.md ########## @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +--- +layout: post +author: + name: Jan Piotrowski + url: https://twitter.com/sujan +title: "Cordova Windows 6.0.0 Released!" +categories: announcements +tags: news releases +--- + +We are happy to announce the release of `cordova-windows 6.0.0`. + +This is a major release that changes functionality you might rely on, so please make sure to read the following list of changes: + +## Changes + +- **Windows 10 / UWP** builds are now default, meaning `cordova build windows` will now build a Windows 10 UWP app by default. Windows (Phone) 8.1 is still supported of course, just use `cordova build windows -- --appx=8.1-win`, `cordova build windows -- --appx=8.1-phone` or an equivalent configuration option. +- You can now build apps with a current installation of **Visual Studio 2017** (`15.5.x` at the time of writing) without any additional configuration or hacks (like the environment variable `VSINSTALLDIR` that was required for 5.0.0). + * Note: [Visual Studio 2017 doesn't support Windows 8.1 apps any more](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2017-compatibility-vs#windows-store-and-windows-phone-apps), so you can only build these apps with Visual Studio 2015 installed. +- New **ENV variable `MSBUILDDIR`** allows to directly configure the MSBuild Tools to be used to build the app. While `VSINSTALLDIR` always has been a hack that accidentally also worked to switch between different MSBuildTools versions, we now we this functionality explicit: Just set the ENV var to a your desired MSBuild folder (e.g. `C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin` or `C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\`) and it will be used to build your project. + * If you have Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2015 installed at the same time, the normal logic would always choose Visual Studio 2017's MSBuild 15 - and fail on a Windows (Phone) 8.1 project. If you set the environment variable MSBuild 14, it can successfully build your 8.1 apps. + * If the supplied path is invalid or doesn't contain a working MSBuild, the normal MSBuild selection logic will be triggered +- Fixes several bugs + +## Installation + +As usual this new version will be added as the default `cordova-windows` version only with the next release of Cordova CLI. Until then, please use these commands to remove and re-add the `windows` platform: + +``` +cordova platform rm windows +cordova platform add windows@6.0.0 +``` + +### Known limitations + +As it's often the case, the 6.0.0 release of cordova-windows is not perfect and has some known limitations: + +- If you only have Visual Studio 2017 installed on your machine, you can not build Windows (Phone) 8.1 apps. +- "Windows 10 Phone emulator is currently not supported. If you want to deploy to emulator, use Visual Studio instead." +- [Some `build`](https://github.com/apache/cordova-windows/issues/266) and [requirements error messages](https://github.com/apache/cordova-windows/issues/267) are a bit misleading + +## Feedback + +If you encounter problems with this new version, you can use the [GitHub issues of the `cordova-windows` repository](https://github.com/apache/cordova-windows/issues) to do so now. (`cordova-windows` is the first Apache Cordova repository on GitHub that enabled issue tracking. Yay!) + +## Open questions + +Working on this update showed how much code is there to support other platform variants beside Windows 10 desktop. + +TODO refine + +- Is Windows 8.1 support still needed or would it make sense to get rid of _really_ much code and do a 7.0.0 release that drops support for that? +- Windows 10 Phone? Still relevant? +- Where should the project move? What is missing? What should be supported? What do you need? + +Please help us decide how to further develop `cordova-windows` by answering these questions below in the comments. Thanks! Review comment: or maybe in cordova-windows issues? ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: us...@infra.apache.org With regards, Apache Git Services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: commits-unsubscr...@cordova.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: commits-h...@cordova.apache.org
