In Visual Studio for Mac visual studio for mac macos 10.15 Fixed - Pending Release Jonathan Peppers MSFT commented Sep 15, '20 38 Votes. Enable nested virtualization to install and work in Android emulator for Visual Studio, iPhone ® emulator for Visual Studio, Xamarin.Android, Android Studio, Embarcadero RAD Studio, and Docker for Windows. Integrate with Office 365. Support for OpenGL. Use a single cloud storage space between Mac and Windows.
Microsoft today announced that Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac has hit general availability — you can download it now from visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads. Visual Studio 2019 includes AI-assisted code completion with Visual Studio IntelliCode. Separately, real-time collaboration tool Visual Studio Live Share has also hit general availability, and is now included with Visual Studio 2019.
Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2017 in March 2017 and Visual Studio 2017 for Mac in May 2017, which turned out to be the “most popular Visual Studio release ever.” The company announced Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac in June, and started releasing Visual Studio 2019 previews in December.
Visual Studio 2019 improves on Visual Studio 2017 across the board. It includes a new start window experience to get developers into their code faster (making it simpler to clone a Git repo or to open an existing project or folder), improved template selection screen, increased coding space, a new search experience, more refactoring capabilities, a document health indicator, and smarter debugging. Plus, all of the above works with both your existing project and new projects — from cross-platform C++ applications, to .NET mobile apps for Android and iOS written using Xamarin, to cloud-native applications using Azure services.
New features
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The new start window on launch is designed to work better with today’s Git repositories, including local repos, Git repos on GitHub, and Azure Repos. Git aside, you can still open a project or a solution or create a new one of either.
Visual Studio’s UI and UX have also received subtle changes, such as a new product icon, a cleaner blue theme, and a more compact title and menu bar. There’s also a new search experience that replaces the Quick Launch box. It lets you find settings and commands and install options, and it even supports fuzzy string searching.
Visual Studio 2019 improves the code maintainability and consistency experiences with new refactoring capabilities — such as changing for-loops to LINQ queries and converting tuples to named-structs. There’s also a new document health indicator and code clean-up functionality.
As for debugging, stepping performance is improved and search capabilities have been added to the Autos, Locals, and Watch windows. You can also expect improvements to the Snapshot Debugger to target Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS), and better performance when debugging large C++ projects, thanks to an out-of-process 64-bit debugger.
IntelliCode and Live Share
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At its Build 2018 developers conference in May, Microsoft previewed IntelliCode and Live Share. The former uses AI to offer intelligent suggestions that improve code quality and productivity, and the latter lets developers collaborate in real time with team members who can edit and debug directly from Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.
Visual Studio IntelliCode now has custom models and expanded language support. Custom models further improve the AI-enhanced IntelliSense, giving developers personalized recommendations based on the patterns and libraries used in their code, on top of the analysis made on thousands of open source repos. Visual Studio developers now get IntelliCode for XAML and C++ code, in addition to C#. Visual Studio Code developers can use IntelliCode when developing JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Java.
Visual Studio Live Share, which is now installed by default in Visual Studio 2019, helps developers collaborate in real time, including desktop app sharing, source control diffs, and code commenting. Being able to share, edit, and debug code is great, but being able to do so without needing to clone repos or set up environments is even better. Based on feedback, Microsoft also added features like read-only mode, support for additional languages like C++ and Python, and enabled guests to start debugging sessions. Live Share can be used in a variety of use cases, including pair programming, code reviews, giving lectures, presenting to students and colleagues, or even mob programming during hackathons.
Learning Visual Studio 2019
For a full run-down of all the additions and improvements, check out what’s new, the docs, and release notes (Windows, Mac). Furthermore, Pluralsight has a free Visual Studio 2019 course available until April 22, while LinkedIn Learning has a free course available until May 2.
Microsoft is also hosting a virtual Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event and over 70 local launch events around the world today where it will demo the new version and detail its features. The company has also planned over 200 more events between now and the end of June. If all else fails, there’s always the Visual Studio Developer Community.
Visual Studio has not always been as user-friendly on the Mac as it is on a Windows machine. Lately, however, the stable release of VS for Mac is really starting to feel like a simple, but luxurious cousin to Visual Studio 2019. Different, but related. Installation on a Mac is quick, simple, and allows you to get into coding right away - whether you are already familiar or an Apple-only dev getting into something new like Xamarin.
Visual Studio for Mac bears a striking similarity to xCode’s solution navigation feel, but brings the power of VS intellisense and an ability to focus on your code in a much cleaner looking environment. In my opinion, this brings the best of both worlds together. But don’t take my word for it: here are five reasons to give Visual Studio for Mac another go!
1. The C# Editor in Visual Studio for Mac is Completely New
Roslyn, the .NET compiler platform, is now in the Visual Studio for Mac editor - making your intellisense as powerful as its big brother on Windows. Marrying the functionality ported over from the Roslyn compiler with the (frankly, beautiful looking) simplicity of a native-feeling Mac UI editing experience gives this girl all the feels. It has full support for third-party Nuget packages for .NET Core (utilizing .NET Standard) along with Unity, Xamarin and Cocoa apps.
I didn’t notice a big difference gating my progress of a .NET Core app. At this point, I don’t know why I would switch over to a windows VM in order to build a microservice API in .NET Core at all!
Finally, I’m loving that VS for Mac now includes “Go to implementation” as an option in the latest release. Exciting! The C# experience is pretty great now.
2. CLI Developers Can Open .NET Core Projects in Terminal
Ah, the command line. Many developers love using it for .NET Core instead of the “visual” click and drag aspect of the Visual Studio IDE. At first, the use of command line programming with ASP.NET Core was the only way you could build those apps. Over time, and especially with the release of Visual Studio 2019, the File > New Project templates for ASP.NET Core apps have been baked into the install bringing a truly visual experience to that build.
For a while, it was unclear if the same command line net new project CLI functionality would be available on Mac, but I am happy to report that it is and it works beautifully! The use of the Terminal app brings that experience to you harcore command line devs.
3. Improved Build Time for Xamarin
Remember those build and deploy coffee breaks? Well say goodbye (unless you don’t want to of course). On one of my Xamarin projects I saw a super impressive 30% faster incremental build time. That’s not an insignificant improvement.
This metric is also supported by the April 2019 press release from the VS for Mac team. I used to design my development process in such a way that I could multitask to stay efficient and productive. I’m happy to report those days are gone with much improved build speeds, making the Xamarin app building process something I can say I truly enjoy.
4. .NET Core 3 Support Available Right Out of the Gate
Does Visual Studio 2019 have .NET Core 3 support? Yes, but that’s no reason to jump over to your Windows machine! You can use all the same, wonderful new stuff on your Apple machine, too.
In fact, I’d argue that Visual Studio for Mac is an excellent place to start learning how to build apps for .NET Core 3. With fewer small windows everywhere like it’s Windows-based cousin, VS for Mac allows for a more-focused process.
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5. Robust Source Control Options
This is where some “same but different” comes into play. I find that developers coming over from Swift or Objective C development enjoy the experience of source control within Visual Studio for Mac. While there IS a difference in the process for Windows users, I don’t find it particularly difficult. Visual Studio for Mac supports Git and Subversion built into the IDE, as well as TFS with a little more effort.
I have used the Github Desktop app for source control of my folders without much issue. This is also my source control workflow for VS Code, and while it is not integrated into the IDE of VS for Mac, it’s also not a bad option. For the hardcore command line peeps, you can alternatively use Git inside the CLI tool Terminal, which is native to Apple OS. There is no learning curve here at all for developers who use command line.
Who Should Use Visual Studio for Mac?
Visual Studio for Mac is a strong choice for many developers and many use cases. Here are a few that come to mind:
.NET users building Xamarin mobile apps that require IOS builds will benefit tremendously from having all their development on a single machine.
Developers working with .NET Core, who love working on a Mac, and currently use a virtual machine or Bootcamp to run Visual Studio in a windows environment will benefit from not having to switch over from the Apple operating system constantly.
Unity game developers will find VS for Mac be very intuitive option.
The last group to come over will be .NET Framework developers who have worked with Visual Studio on Windows as their only option for .NET 4.7.2 for example. Sadly no, .NET Framework cannot run on VS for Mac. However, once you are ready to start building your apps or microservices in .NET Core - check it out!
New functionality, extensions and templates are all coming this next year to Visual Studio for Mac that make living in harmony with Apple + Microsoft a real joy.
Learn More About .NET Core, Xamarin, Apple & OAuth
If you’d like to learn more about ASP.NET, Xamarin, or Apple, we’ve also published a number of posts that might interest you:
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