Purpose of RazorGeneral.xaml rule file

The .NET Project System team is producing a new Project Properties UI. It generates its property model from XAML rule files.

For ASP.NET Web Applications, a “Razor Properties” rule file is injecting properties at the top of this UI:

The values are coming from https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/blob/main/src/RazorSdk/Targets/Rules/RazorGeneral.xaml

Are these properties useful to the user?

If these properties are not useful to the user, let’s work to remove this rule file from the Project Properties UI altogether.

If they are useful, let’s tweak the experience:

• Order the page lower down in the UI
• Add descriptions to the properties
• Add HelpUrl values is appropriate, so that the user can easily navigate to more information about these properties
• Potentially change them from StringProperty to EnumProperty so that a drop-down list of valid values is provided, rather than an open text box.

cc: @captainsafia

[drewnoakes]

Given removing it is not an option, here are the other options:

1. Change the Context here from Project to BrowseObject, which will remove it from the UI without breaking the ability to access it from code, or
2. Set all properties to have Visible="False", as occurs in RazorGenerateWithTargetPath and RazorComponentWithTargetPath.

You’ll notice that the RazorExtension rule has visible properties, but does not appear in the UI. This is because it has File context type (here).

The simplest fix to the original problem is just to manually hide the properties, which I’ve done in https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/pull/16623. That PR should address the core problem here.

I’ll leave it to others to decide whether there’s a desire to tidy up the slight inconsistency across these rules.

[NTaylorMullen]

@NTaylorMullen @ryanbrandenburg Does Razor tooling need this file https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/blob/main/src/RazorSdk/Targets/Rules/RazorGeneral.xaml for any reason?

Yes, this enables us to introspect on the project system at tooling time to extract information: https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore-tooling/blob/5b6dd93b4657f9f9c5fa884a0d1911e7c431ab32/src/Razor/src/Microsoft.VisualStudio.LanguageServices.Razor/ProjectSystem/DefaultRazorProjectHost.cs#L65-L71