Packages: Cleanup empty content created from Composer aritfacts

[clearab]

Our HelpAndCancel and Welcome packages contain quite a few blank files and empty folders, which I believe are artifacts of creating the dialogs through Composer. Can we cleanup these extraneous artifacts and remove them from the packages?

[clearab]

Also, why the 'exported' folder? It too seems extraneous.

[clearab]

@ryanlengel can you take a look at this one as well?

[peterinnesmsft]

@clearab @ryanlengel on the 'exported' folder, this was originally a pattern that was set by the documentation on creating packages to be consumed through Composer/Package Manager. @benbrown can you confirm if the exported folder is actually needed or not? If not, then I agree it should be dropped.

[ryanisgrig]

As for the blank files, you are correct that these are artifacts from creating through Composer. For R12 we only had the necessary files but when @gabog took a pass at them the decision was made to include them. I don't believe that Composer generated them when importing the files otherwise, which may have led to errors. Gabo can you confirm?

[gabog]

Correct @ryanlengel, I was getting exceptions if these files weren't there, based on conversations with @benbrown, composer needs these empty files.

[clearab]

How is that supposed to work then? Are there restrictions like "If you want to add a dialog, you must add all of these exact files (even if they are empty) or bad things"? Are those bad things caused by Composer, or by dialog:merge? What if I only want to include a single specific file, rather than a full set?

[benbrown]

Yes, the exported/ folder is required if you want the dialogs to appear in Composer. Only files inside this folder are copied into the project.

Composer expects all applicable files to exist, even if blank.

[clearab]

What does "all applicable files" mean? What if I want to include only something like a qna file, or an lg file?

[clearab]

Also, why the exported folder? Why wouldn't it just look anywhere in the package?

[clearab]

@benbrown @peterinnesmsft @ryanlengel @gabog can we please all discuss this one at the standup tomorrow? I'd like to make sure we have a shared understanding of this.