Appcenter: Iteration Plan for August 2019

[patniko]

August 2019 Plan

Last month proved that beta's don't take vacations as we raced to keep up to date with iOS beta support for build. On the new service front we shored up our Data service by providing full offline list support and fighting the "tyranny of the default" with a new default offline persistence setting of "infinite." We also began work on our BYOI story which we hope to complete this month. Lastly, we delivered much requested support for the online version of GitLab.

This month we intend to bring support for private, on premise GitLab instances to build, as well as AAB bundle support for Xamarin.Android apps and Mono 6.0 support. Diagnostics will get some iOS extensions attention, the ability to upload custom crashes, and some needed UWP support. BYOI efforts will continue for Auth, as will investigatory work on a free tier for Auth and Data services. Take a look at our Data Metrics Explorer feature if you get a chance; we are pretty excited about it.

Analytics

• [x] Support analytics for WPF/WinForms apps [#118]

Auth

• [ ] ~Support bringing your own identity management provider with App Center Auth [#637]~
• [ ] ~Customer development study on a Free Tier for App Center Auth [#794]~

Build

• [ ] ~Self-Hosted GitLab Support [#37]~
• [x] Support for building apps with Mono 6.0, Xamarin.iOS 12.14 with preview support for Xcode 11, Xamarin.Android 9.4, and Xamarin.Mac 5.14 [#632, #796, #769]
• [x] Android App Bundle Support for Xamarin.Android apps [#194]

Data

• [ ] ~Data Metrics Explorer [#660]~
• [ ] ~Investigatory work on Free Tier for App Center Data [#799]~
• [ ] ~Investigatory work on Data Explorer [#800]~

Diagnostics

• [ ] ~API to upload custom crashes [#31]~
• [ ] ~Support iOS extensions [#687]~
• [x] Support crashes and errors for WPF/WinForm apps {#367][#118]
• [ ] ~Crashes and errors support for UWP apps [#752, #150, #403]~

Distribution

• [ ] ~In-app update through public distribution groups [#182]~
• [ ] ~macOS in-app update [#202]~
• [x] Fix iPhone XS install profile [#615]
• [x] Automatically distribute Android App Bundles after building in App Center [#194]

SDK

• [x] Add an equivalent function for "didReceiveMemoryWarningInLastSession" [#199]
• [x] .NET Core 3 support for analytics and diagnostics [#53]

General

• [x] Dark Mode Preview

[Zee-day]

Are there any plans to bring issue #32 into this iteration?

[sgreifeneder]

please also consider #796 to be part of it

[sgreifeneder]

And of course #30, which is out there for some time now.

[nilofer]

@sgreifeneder working on #796. We've got other priorities in-flight for new features in Build, but we'll be taking another look at #30 soon.

@Zee-day unfortunately we don't have bandwidth to pick up #32 this month, but I hear you and we'll be keeping that one top-of-mind for future iteration plans.

[msioen]

With regards to #194 which is already mentioned in the main issue. Can distribution (or at least some 'availability') of aab files also be taken up? Just for download, not necessarily for install.

Currently you can upload .aab files with the rest api but the distribute fails. Because of this the release isn't listed.
We don't automate our store uploads yet but would still like to have these aab files available for manual download.

[tpgmeligmeyling]

Any plans which iteration will contain microsoft/appcenter-sdk-apple#1226?

[claitonlovato]

Please consider #30 !!! Its very important for migrating our builds to AppCenter ;)

[tonylambert]

Please consider upload .dmg support for macOS and “custom” .exe/.zip for Windows on the distribution front for August. Not supporting these formats is a barrier to our migration from HockeyApp to AppCenter.

[dipree]

@tpgmeligmeyling likely next months SDK release.

[rudyrichter]

https://github.com/microsoft/appcenter-sdk-apple/issues/1270 is a blocker for my team's transition to AppCenter.

[adamKasapakis]

What is the progress with #182, is it going to be fixed in August?
It's a big blocker for us and it needs to be fixed before we migrate to app center.

[kvpt]

We also need #182, it's critical for us to be able to migrate to AppCenter and HockeyApp shutdown in less than 100 days. 😱

[botatoes]

@adamKasapakis @kvpt we are actively working on #182. My fault for not adding it to the iteration plan. Very sorry 😭

[adamKasapakis]

@botatoes Thank you for updating the iteration, should we expect it in August then?

[meliheran]

#30 please

[dipree]

@adamKasapakis we might finish the work this month but the SDK release will be next month.

[brminnick]

Re #632 and #769:

Builds using .NET Core 3.0 are still failing, despite updating to the Latest stable build agent with Mono v6.0, because App Center Build is using .NET Core 2.2 to restore NuGet Packages.

Recommended Fix

Allow devs to select the version of .NET Core (including preview releases)

To ensure that App Center Build doesn't block any devs who jump to a preview version, it'll be helpful to select a .NET Core release, like the current .NET Core 3.0 preview.

If we don't allow devs to select a .NET Core Version, devs will hit the same blocker when .NET Core 3.1 preview is released.

It'll also be incredibly helpful when Mono and .NET Core merge BCLs in .NET 5. There will be a high demand for devs to use the .NET 5 preview when it's released next year.

Error

##[section]Starting: Restore Nuget
==============================================================================
Task         : Command Line
Description  : Run a command line with arguments
Version      : 1.1.3
Author       : Microsoft Corporation
Help         : [More Information](https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=613735)
==============================================================================
[command]/bin/bash -c /usr/bin/find . -name '*.sln' -type f -print0 | /usr/bin/xargs -0 grep -l 'MondayPundayApp.Droid.csproj' | /usr/bin/xargs -I '{}' nuget restore '{}' -DisableParallelProcessing
MSBuild auto-detection: using msbuild version '15.0' from '/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/6.0.0/lib/mono/msbuild/15.0/bin'.
/Users/vsts/hostedtoolcache/dotnet/sdk/2.2.300/Sdks/Microsoft.NET.Sdk/targets/Microsoft.NET.TargetFrameworkInference.targets(137,5): error NETSDK1045: The current .NET SDK does not support targeting .NET Core 3.0.  Either target .NET Core 2.2 or lower, or use a version of the .NET SDK that supports .NET Core 3.0. [/Users/vsts/agent/2.155.1/work/1/s/Src/MondayPundayApp.UnitTests/MondayPundayApp.UnitTests.csproj]

##[error]/bin/bash failed with return code: 1
##[error]/bin/bash failed with error: /bin/bash failed with return code: 1

Work Around

After chatting with the App Center Build team, I've learned we can manually install .NET Core 3.0 using a post-clone script.

Here's a walkthrough I put together on the topic:
https://www.codetraveler.io/2019/08/23/using-preview-versions-of-net-core-with-app-center-build/

wget https://dot.net/v1/dotnet-install.sh
chmod +x dotnet-install.sh
./dotnet-install.sh --version "3.0.100-preview8-013656" --install-dir "$AGENT_TOOLSDIRECTORY/dotnet"

[lukaslangrock]

845 would be nice.

[patniko]

30 should be coming in the next iteration @meliheran!

[msdof]

458 should be considered into next iteration, R8 is already the default code shrinker for Android. @patniko