Programming – SGrottel.de

The Strange Story about the Nuget “WindowsAPICodePack”

I came across that Nuget because I was writing WPF UI applications and I needed a folder picker. Someone in the internet suggests to use the WinForms dialogs. I sort of hate using two frameworks. And then another one brought up the Nuget WindowsAPICodePack.Shell with it’s class representation of the Windows Common Dialogs, including the capability of picking folders in the open dialog window.

So, I started using that. Then, at some point, a friend pointed out to me, that the Nuget package I was using did not look like an official Microsoft package, but a repackage someone did. That made me stop and think. I don’t assume any bad intent, but I found it very very strange. The official package vanished. And there is a huge load of packages which strange names:

I don’t like this. Even if there is no ill intent from any of the authors, I still don’t like this, as it reeks like fraught, phishing, and vulnerabilities. Sorry, but, no.

So, where is the official package? Seems to have disappeared, that’s why there are the repackages by community members. Why did it disappear? No idea. Maybe it got caught in a semi-automatic cleanup as it was orphaned. Someone suggestion it’s replaced by Microsoft.Windows.SDK.Contracts.

In the end, I replaced the code in my projects by either using the WinForms dialog, or by writing a very small p/invoke wrapper class calling the Win32 API directly. If you are interested, have a look:

https://github.com/sgrottel/open-here/commit/9de68198e35f0f6dec9386372cc71bada54c2f5b

The moral of the story is, a Nuget package is only as good as the people maintaining it. And, I mean people, not organizations. Because in the end, it’s whether or not individuals want to give their best.

Git, do not try to be clever! Just do your job!

Git has this cursed function to fuck up your files by doing unspeakable things to your line endings.

For example, from Githubs Documentation on Line Endings:

On Windows, you simply pass true to the configuration. For example:

$ git config –global core.autocrlf true

Please, never never never never never never never never never never never never do this!

THERE IS NO REASON TO DO IT!

EVERY decent editor in the world can handle ANY line endings.
At some point you will run into totally avoidable trouble.

Git is here to keep track of our files, NOT TO CHANGE OUR FILES IN ANY WAY.

So, please, just, never never never never never never never never never never never never do this! Leave my file endings alone!

	Release		Nuget
Everything Search Client https://github.com/sgrottel/EverythingSearchClient	0.8 2024-01-10	✅	0.8.0.51 2024-01-10
GLFW https://www.glfw.org	3.4 2024-02-23	✅	3.4.0 2024-02-24
GLM https://glm.g-truc.net/	1.0.1 2024-02-27	✅	1.0.1-prerelease 2024-02-27
Lua https://www.lua.org/	5.4.7 2024-06-13	✅	5.4.7 2024-06-27
gflags (static) https://github.com/gflags/gflags	2.2.2 2018-11-11	✅	2.2.2.33 2020-07-05
LibYAML https://github.com/yaml/libyaml	0.2.5 2020-06-01	✅	0.2.5.12 2020-07-05

Tag: Programming

The Strange Story about the Nuget “WindowsAPICodePack”

Git, do not try to be clever! Just do your job!