V4.3 comes with some nice additional support that I was eager to use. However, there is a problem. v4.3 (Microsoft.Bot.Builder.Azure) uses the latest variant of the Azure Storage library whereas Microsoft.AspNetCore.All, via Microsoft.AspNetCore.DataProtection.AzureStorage (2.2.0), uses the older variant. This can cause problems if your own code wishes to use one of the clashing types. E.g. if you add

CloudStorageAccount blah = new CloudStorageAccount(null, false);

Then you’ll get an error like The type X exists in both Y and Z, e.g.

error CS0433: The type 'CloudStorageAccount' exists in both 'Microsoft.Azure.Storage.Common, Version=9.4.2.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' and 'Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage, Version=9.3.2.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'

The only solution I’ve found is to utilize the obscure extern and some trickery I grabbed from SO – using extern alias.

Step 1 – Create (or ensure there is) an xml file in the root of your project called Directory.Build.targets (don’t put .xml as the extension)

Step 2 – populate with;

  
<Project>
  <Target Name="AddPackageAliases" BeforeTargets="ResolveReferences" Outputs="%(PackageReference.Identity)">
    <PropertyGroup>
      <AliasPackageReference>@(PackageReference->'%(Identity)')</AliasPackageReference>
      <AliasName>@(PackageReference->'%(Alias)')</AliasName>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
      <ReferencePath Condition="'%(FileName)'=='$(AliasPackageReference)'">
        <Aliases>$(AliasName)</Aliases>
      </ReferencePath>
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>
</Project>
  

Step 3 – edit the project. Unload your bot project, edit it and find the reference you wish to alias. Add Alias= E.g. to add the alias AzureCommon

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DependencyCollector" Version="2.9.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.TraceListener" Version="2.9.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore" Version="2.2.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.All" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Azure.KeyVault.Core" Version="3.0.3" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Azure.Storage.Common" Version="9.4.2" Alias="AzureCommon"/>

Save and reload the project

Step 4 (optional) -That should be enough to provide the separation for the compiler. But if you want to use the aliased version then add the extern to where you wish to use the clashing type, e.g.;

extern alias AzureCommon;
using AzureStore = AzureCommon;

...

AzureCommon.Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.CloudStorageAccount blah =
new AzureCommon.Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.CloudStorageAccount(null, false);

Step 5 – celebrate you’ve avoided this hiccup 🙂

Bot Framework v4.3 has introduced a series of ‘On’ activity handlers to make you code more modular and easier to understand. Once you updated your project reference to use 4.3 you need to change you main bot to use the new activity handler class;

public class MayBotBot : IBot
To
 public class MayBotBot : ActivityHandler

You’ll then be able to use override to discover the options, e.g.

protected virtual Task OnMessageActivityAsync(ITurnContext turnContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
return Task.CompletedTask;
}

The other nice new feature that might slide under the radar is when the framework looks for a dialog Id it will now search up the stack to look for one. I.e. you could, if you wanted to, AddDialog all your possible dialogs in the root dialog and remove all AddDialog from everywhere else. Don’t do that, but in theory you could. The advantage here is that you can declare your common dialogs once and not have to keep adding them everywhere else.

Enjoy the chocolatey goodness of 4.3.

 

 

Make sure your Waterfall Dialog is the FIRST dialog you add. I.e. the Bot Framework invokes the first dialog in the dialog set it DOES NOT favour the first Waterfall Dialog.