Installation Guide

Prerequisites

• .NET SDK 8.0 or later (9.0 recommended)
• A compatible IDE (Visual Studio 2022, VS Code, Rider)

Installing via NuGet

Core Package

The core package is the foundation for all other packages:

dotnet add package Nextended.Core

Or via Package Manager Console in Visual Studio:

Install-Package Nextended.Core

Installing Additional Packages

Install only the packages you need for your project:

For Blazor applications:

dotnet add package Nextended.Blazor

For Entity Framework projects:

dotnet add package Nextended.EF

For ASP.NET Core applications:

dotnet add package Nextended.Web

For caching functionality:

dotnet add package Nextended.Cache

For image processing:

dotnet add package Nextended.Imaging

For WPF/Windows applications:

dotnet add package Nextended.UI

For code generation:

dotnet add package Nextended.CodeGen
dotnet add package Nextended.Core --version [version]

For .NET Aspire applications:

dotnet add package Nextended.Aspire

Version Compatibility

All Nextended packages share the same version number. Current version: 9.0.x

.NET Version Support

Nextended Version	.NET Standard 2.0	.NET Standard 2.1	.NET 8.0	.NET 9.0
9.0.x	✅	✅	✅	✅
8.0.x	✅	✅	✅	❌
7.0.x	✅	✅	❌	❌

Framework Compatibility

• .NET Framework: 4.6.1+ (via .NET Standard 2.0)
• .NET Core: 2.0+ (via .NET Standard 2.0)
• .NET: 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0

Project Setup

Basic Console Application

1. Create a new console application:

dotnet new console -n MyApp
cd MyApp

2. Add Nextended.Core:

dotnet add package Nextended.Core

3. Use Nextended in your code:

using Nextended.Core.Extensions;
using Nextended.Core.Types;

var today = Date.Today;
Console.WriteLine($"Today is: {today}");

var text = "hello world";
Console.WriteLine(text.ToPascalCase()); // Output: HelloWorld

ASP.NET Core Web Application

1. Create a new web application:

dotnet new web -n MyWebApp
cd MyWebApp

2. Add required packages:

dotnet add package Nextended.Core
dotnet add package Nextended.Web

3. Use in your application:

using Nextended.Core.Extensions;
using Nextended.Web.Extensions;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
var app = builder.Build();

app.MapGet("/", (HttpContext context) => 
{
    var userAgent = context.Request.Headers["User-Agent"].ToString();
    return $"Hello! You are using: {userAgent}";
});

app.Run();

Blazor Application

1. Create a new Blazor application:

dotnet new blazor -n MyBlazorApp
cd MyBlazorApp

2. Add Blazor package:

dotnet add package Nextended.Blazor

3. Use Blazor extensions in your components:

@using Nextended.Blazor.Extensions
@using Nextended.Core.Extensions

<h3>Welcome</h3>
<p>@userName.ToPascalCase()</p>

@code {
    private string userName = "john doe";
}

Entity Framework Project

1. Add EF package:

dotnet add package Nextended.EF
dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore
dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer

2. Use EF extensions:

using Nextended.EF;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;

public class ApplicationDbContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }
}

// Multi-property substring search
var users = await dbContext.Users
    .WhereContains(searchTerm, u => u.Name, u => u.Email)
    .ToListAsync();

// Paged + dynamically sorted result with metadata
var page = await dbContext.Users
    .OrderByMember("name")
    .ToPagedResultAsync(pageIndex: 0, pageSize: 25);

Code Generation Setup

Setting up Nextended.CodeGen

1. Add packages to your project:

dotnet add package Nextended.CodeGen
dotnet add package Nextended.Core

2. Create a configuration file CodeGen.config.json:

{
  "DtoGeneration": {
    "Namespace": "MyApp.Generated",
    "Suffix": "Dto"
  }
}

3. Add the config file to your .csproj:

<ItemGroup>
  <AdditionalFiles Include="CodeGen.config.json" />
</ItemGroup>

4. Mark classes for generation:

using Nextended.Core.Attributes;

[AutoGenerateDto]
public class User
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

5. Build your project - the DTO will be generated automatically!

Verifying Installation

After installation, verify everything works:

dotnet build

You should see no errors. To verify the packages are installed:

dotnet list package

Troubleshooting

Package Not Found

If you get a "Package not found" error:

1. Ensure you have the latest NuGet sources: dotnet nuget list source
2. Clear NuGet cache: dotnet nuget locals all --clear
3. Restore packages: dotnet restore

Version Conflicts

If you experience version conflicts:

1. Ensure all Nextended packages use the same version
2. Check for transitive dependency conflicts
3. Use dotnet list package --include-transitive to diagnose

Windows-Only Package Issues

If building Nextended.UI on non-Windows platforms:

• This package requires Windows and will not build on Linux/macOS
• Exclude it from cross-platform builds or use conditional compilation

Code Generation Issues

If generated code is not appearing:

1. Ensure CodeGen.config.json is marked as AdditionalFiles
2. Clean and rebuild the project: dotnet clean && dotnet build
3. Check the build output for code generation messages
4. Verify source generators are enabled in your IDE

Next Steps

• Review the Architecture Overview
• Explore Common Use Cases
• Check out the API Reference
• Read individual Project Documentation