Spelunking NuGet Packages with the NuGet Package Explorer (and creating, editing and publishing nupkg's with it too)

Scott Hanselman -  NuGet Action Plan - Upgrade to 1.1, Setup Automatic Updates, Get NuGet Package Explorer

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Action 3: Get NuGet Package Explorer

Luan, one of the NuGet devs, created this cool NuGet Package Explorer that you can install in seconds via Click Once. It's a little farther down on the releases page at http://nuget.codeplex.com/releases. By the way, there's also a command-line NuGet.exe there to play with.

The NuGet Package Explorer is cool for a number of reasons. Five, in fact.

First, cool high res-icons for *.nupkg files. I respect a fellow who has the attention to detail to register an extension and make super high-res icons. I'm always disappointed when I see the small icons and then make the huge and I'm like "Damn, crappy icon FAIL." Not here. Big thanks to Lenny Bacon for making the icons and giving them to the community!

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Second, you see all the details, metadata and contents of the file.

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Third, Packages can be opened directly from the Feed and you can explore their inner workings without missing about with unzipping and what not.

Fourth, you can create new packages and build them within the tool:

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Fifth, you can publish directly from the NuGet Package Explorer as well.

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Now you've got the choice to do all your NuSpec package creation totally from the command line or totally graphically. I think it'd be nice if it was installed automatically.

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Since I don't and won't likely be creating NuGet packages often, a visual/GUI tool will be a godsend. I have to laugh in that this utility almost makes it TOO easy to create and publish NuGet Packages. Pretty soon we're going to be complaining about how hard it is to find stuff in the NuGet repository because it's just SO full of stuff... lol

Some snaps of the utility;

   

 

And like the rest of NuGet the source for this utility is available too.. :)

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