C# status and plans towards 3.1

[neikeq]

I'm opening this issue to inform other developers interested in the mono module about the current status and the plans towards 3.1.

As you may have notice, I've been quite inactive during the last month and a half. This is related to my studies, and there is nothing that can be done about it. This low activity will sadly continue until June 14, approximately, when I will finally be free once and for all to focus entirely on Godot.

Since I will have very little time to dedicate to Godot during this period of time, I decided to make a list of essential tasks that need to done for the 3.1 milestone, and postpone everything else for future releases. The list is the following:

• [ ] Finish the C# API. This means that any changes that break compatibility will have to be done, in principle, before 3.1beta. The most important part of the API that is missing are the Dictionary, Array and Pool*Array wrapper classes. Status: Dictionary and Array are done, but there are no Packed*Array wrapper classes yet.
• [ ] Finish project exporting. This is almost done. It's just missing exporting the right mono runtime library for the target platform, making it work with the Export PCK/Zip(-only) option, and more testing of course.
• [x] Upgrade GodotSharpTools to reference the Microsoft.Build nuget packages (these are Windows-only, need to build msbuild from source) instead of Mono's Microsoft.Build assemblies, and bundle with the Roslyn compilers. This way we can provide a working build environment on all platforms. It will increase the editor size, but I consider it to be necessary.
• [x] Bundle all the assemblies that can break compatibility between versions of mono (because of internal calls), not only mscorlib as we are doing right now. Godot shouldn't require Mono 5.4 to be the installed version.
• Bug fixing. Although last in the list, this is the main focus.

Other developers are free to make contributions to any area. However, keep in mind that I may leave them aside for review after 3.1 is released if I don't consider them essential for this release. Please, let me know if you think I'm forgetting something in the list above.

I'm keeping this issue open for discussion.

[NathanWarden]

Similar to @Byteron, I had System.IO.File and Godot.File conflict a day or two ago and it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Can we put those both under Godot.IO to mirror the System namespace? I'd be happy to make this change if it's wanted. :) I could take a look and see if there is any other IO related code we could tuck in there too.

[exts]

Issues I think should make 3.1:

• 20012

• 18969 (redirect mono's print and printerr to the editor output dock)

• 15558

• #17409 (neikeq said he already had the solution for this, just needed to add it)

• 19898 (api issue that should work the same as it does in gdscript)

• 12415

[neikeq]

1. is mostly done. It's something that will be constantly evolving. More changes will be made in 3.2. And important changes may have to wait for 4.0 to avoid badly breaking compat.
2. is done. Exporting should work now for desktop platforms.
3. will take some work since we need to build msbuild from source and figure out how to bundle it with the editor, so I'm pushing it to the next milestone.
4. is done. We bundle the mono bcl with the editor so the user doesn't need to install a specific Mono version.
5. is all that's left and can be tracker here: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Atopic%3Amono+milestone%3A3.1

I'm closing this issue.