Updated PCF Tooling version is now available (August 2019)!

[peterv333]

The updated version of PCF tooling (PowerApps CLI) is now available! Today we released new capabilities for several of our most popular feature requests in the PowerApps CLI. We are now providing PowerApps component framework developers the ability to not only see changes in the test harness as they are made but to also push components directly into an org using the CLI. These innovations will greatly speed up the development inner loop!

The push capability will make you more efficient because it bypasses the custom component versioning requirements and does not require you to build your solution in order to import into your development environment. The watch capability removes the need to reload your test harness after every change is made.

If you have not yet updated your PowerApps CLI to the latest version, this release is definitely the time to do it!  To get all the latest capabilities, please install the latest MSI by following the tooling documentation .

Once you have the latest version of the CLI you can always refer to the tooling documentation or get quickly started using the steps outlined below.

Enable Watch Mode in the Test Harness

The test harness can be set up to watch and recompile the source code of your PowerApps Component Framework projects. To enable watch mode, start the test harness using the command “npm start watch” from the command prompt. The watch capability will detect changes in index.ts, ControlManifest.Input.xml, other bundled .ts files, and all resources declared in the manifest, then rebuild your component and automatically update the test harness without having to restart it.

Push Component to your Org

To start pushing your custom component directly into an environment, there is a quick but essential step of setting up your authentication profile in the CLI. This setup is a one-time effort where your profile can be saved for future connections. Here is how to do it:

To start with, please create your authentication profile using the command:

"pac auth create --url"

Now that you have an authentication profile, you can start pushing your updated component by following two simple steps:

1. In your VS command prompt, go to the root directory of your custom component project
2. Run the command "pac pcf push --publisher-prefix"

Let us know what you think!

We hope you enjoy the newly added features and are excited to hear what you thinks about them. If you have questions or other feedback, please let us know on the PowerApps component framework forum. We look forward to hearing from you!

[AndrewLyMVP]

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@peterv333 wrote:

Hi Andrew,

Can you please validate that all the latest npm modules are pulled down for your project by running npm install? What version of node are you running? 

---

Hi Peter thanks for coming back to me, version info below:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community>npm version
{ npm: '6.10.2',
  ares: '1.15.0',
  cldr: '33.1',
  http_parser: '2.8.0',
  icu: '62.1',
  modules: '64',
  napi: '3',
  nghttp2: '1.34.0',
  node: '10.15.3',
  openssl: '1.1.0j',
  tz: '2018e',
  unicode: '11.0',
  uv: '1.23.2',
  v8: '6.8.275.32-node.51',
  zlib: '1.2.11' }

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community>pac install latest
Feeds used:
  https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\NuGetPackages\

Installing package 'Microsoft.PowerApps.CLI' to 'C:\Users\aly3\AppData\Local\Microsoft\PowerAppsCLI'.
  GET https://api.nuget.org/v3/registration3-gz-semver2/microsoft.powerapps.cli/index.json
  OK https://api.nuget.org/v3/registration3-gz-semver2/microsoft.powerapps.cli/index.json 414ms
Package "Microsoft.PowerApps.CLI.0.4.3" is already installed.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community>

[rajyraman]

I tried this for watch, but it doesn't seem to be rebuilding on file changes.

[Kristoffer88]

Love that when you import a dataset, it chooses text for all the fields! Was a lot of work before if you had a lot of fields and needed to change them each time you reloaded your code.

[peterv333]

Thanks Andrew. It looks like 'npm install latest' is not picking up the latest version of the module. Can you please try using 'npm update' instead. Once you have done that, please open the readme.md file in the ".\node_modules\pcf-start" and confirm that it has watch capability listed in the Release notes section as shown below:

0.4.3:

- Added optional watch capabilities to the control harness (use 'npm start watch')

If you are still not seeing above text in the readme, I would suggest deleting the node_modules folder from your project and just re-running npm install to pull them down.

[alchin]

Hi Rajyraman,

To start watch mode simply run:

"npm start watch"

You don't need a separate watch command in your package.json scripts.  The existing "start" script will take care of it.

Thanks,

Alex

[alchin]

Hi Andrew,

Running pac install latest does not update the npm dependencies in your PCF project.

You will need to run npm install pcf-scripts@latest from your PCF project to ensure that the project gets the latest npm package.

Thanks,

Alex

[liun]

Hello,

 I ran into two problems. I have reinstalled the MSI v0.4.3 and ran all the npm updates. 

1. for the push tool, I got "MSB1008: only one project can be specified". I am at the root of the component (where .pcfproj located). I did not specify any project. No build.log exist in the folder as shown in the message.  See attached. 

2. The new solution building tool seems adding the publisher prefix to the control. The new packaged solution zip file can not be imported into Dynamics where same control build by previous version of the tool is installed. It complained about control name mismatch and asked for a rename. Since the rename was done by the tool, is there anyway to reverse that so the solution can be imported?

[sgpchenchang]

Hi @liun,

Thank you for your feedbacks. The first issue is a known issue and has already been fixed. Unfortunately, you wil have to wait for the next update to accommodate the whitespaces. Sorry about that. Regarding the second issue a quick workaround (assuming your control doesn't have many dependencies yet) is to remove that control from your environment and re-import. We will get back to you shortly regarding a more sustainable solution. 

[AndrewLyMVP]

---

@alchin wrote:

Hi Andrew,

Running pac install latest does not update the npm dependencies in your PCF project.

You will need to run npm install pcf-scripts@latest from your PCF project to ensure that the project gets the latest npm package.

Thanks,

Alex

---

You're awesome man, that worked.

And to the PCF team, the watch functionality is working great for me so far.

[rajyraman]

Hi @alchin ,

Tried it today morning. Works beautifully. This is a huge productivity booster. Thank you PCF Team.