As in Visual Studio 2015 and 2017 on Windows, Roslyn powers the code editor in Visual Studio for Mac, providing an enhanced coding experience with syntax colorization, IntelliSense, live code issue detection, fixes and refactorings.
Starting with Visual Studio Code beta (0.10.1 version), developers got a chance to use extensibility features there. You can use to download and install already created extensions or you can develop your own extensions using JavaScript or TypeScript. Let’s start our overview with ready to use extensions that you can find in the marketplace. During the conference Microsoft announced a, there you can download extensions for Visual Studio, Team Service and Visual Studio Code. Visiting Visual Studio Code page, you can find lots of extensions there that allow you to add support for new languages, install new themes, activate debugging features for some frameworks and so on.
Of course, the extension library is not full yet because it’s just announced but you will see many new extensions soon or you can develop and add own extensions there. For example, you can visit to get more information about VS Code extensions for Apache Cordova that is not available yet but should be published soon. In order to install an extension from the library, you can use Command Palette window in Code and execute Install Extension command there. Once you select the command, Visual Studio Code will download list of extensions and you can select any of them just scrolling the list or start typing a keyword to filter the list. Once the extension is installed, Code will propose to be restarted and you can start using the extension. Depending on the activation type, the extension can be invoked automatically once you select a file or a folder or using a command in Command Palette. Here are several extensions from the library:.
– add PowerShell language support for Code including lots of code-snippets, IntelliSense, integration with online help, local scripts debugging etc. This extension is a very good example of how to add a new language support with lots of features there;. – by default Code supports just Node.js and Mono debuggers but there is no way to debug a web site that you can develop in Code. This extension resolves the problem by adding integration with Chrome debugger. Therefore, you can start and debug your web site directly from Code and use all debug features there;. – one more good extension that shows how to add one more supported language to Visual Studio Code. Using this extension, you can find many snippets there, build-on-save support, integration with debugger and lots of editor features; You can list all the installed extensions using Command Palette window and Show Installed Extensions commands.
But if you are looking for a physical location for your extensions, you can open $HOME/.vscode/extensions folder on Mac and Linux or%USERPROFILE%.vscode extensions on Windows devices. Using these folders, you can remove any extension manually or check bits to increase your knowledge about extensions structure. If you have some extensions that are not published to the library you can use these folders to install the extensions manually. If you want to create own extension you can use Yeoman tool that allows you to scaffold a new project. In order to do it you can use Node.js package manager executing the following commands: sudo npm install –g yo sudo npm install –g generator-code Once Yeoman and the generator are installed, you can start working with Yeoman: yo code Executing this command, you have to select a language that you are going to use (JavaScript or TypeScript): Right after that you have to select a name for the extension, provide a description and your publisher name and Yeoman will create all needed files for you. The generator creates up to hundred files, so we would not recommend to create or add them manually.
In general you will work with package.json and extension.ts (or.javascript) but the project contains lots of supporting files: TypeScript definition files in order to support IntelliSense system; a template for unit tests; Node.js modules that allow you to get access to Visual Studio Code object model; some configuration files for the project; launch.json file that allows you to debug your extension directly from Code. Pay special attention that in case of launch.json, Code contains two configuration elements that allow to debug the extension or launch and debug unit tests: In both cases, the debugger will activate one more instance of Visual Studio Code and connect to that remote instance which is really helpful in case of complex plug-ins. In the next parts we will discuss some ready to use extensions.
August 20th, 2018 Today we are announcing the. Our focus with this release has been to improve product reliability in various areas, with a special focus on the code editing experience.
We have also made several fixes that improve IDE performance. Finally, we’ve extended our support for Azure functions with the addition of new templates and the ability to from within the IDE. This post highlights the major improvements in this release. To see the complete list of changes, check out the. You can get started by or updating your existing install to the latest build available in the. Improving reliability of the Code Editor We’ve focused our attention on improving the reliability of the code editor in Visual Studio for Mac and have addressed several issues with the code editor.
In particular, we want to highlight the following fixes to issues many of you have reported:. We where. We also addressed a widely reported issue where. We fixed an issue where, resulting in in the editor even though there were no errors. We improved IntelliSense for F# developers. There was an issue where you, but we’ve fixed this and various other F# IntelliSense issues. We made improvements to JavaScript syntax.
Improving performance of the IDE One of the in previous releases has been performance issues in the editor. Having a fast and reliable code editor is a fundamental part of any IDE and an important part of any developer’s workflow, so we’ve made some improvements in this area:. We improved tag-based classification for C# with by reusing existing Visual Studio for Windows code, which should improve typing performance in the editor.
We no-op restore of NuGet packages when opening a solution. This change speeds up NuGet restores on solution load.
We’ve also added that improve startup time and reduce memory consumption of the IDE. Richer support for Azure Functions are a great way to quickly get up and running with a serverless function in just a few minutes. With this release, we have introduced new templates for you to choose from when creating your Azure Functions project: These new templates allow you to configure access rights, connection strings, and any other binding properties that are required to configure the function. For information on selecting a template, refer to the guide. Another major part of the Azure functions workflow that we are introducing with this release is publishing of functions from Visual Studio for Mac to the Azure Portal.
To publish a function, simply right-click on the project name and select Publish Publish to Azure. You’ll then be able to publish to an existing or use the publishing wizard to create a new one: For information on publishing to Azure from Visual Studio for Mac, see the guide. Share your Feedback Addressing reliability and performance issues in Visual Studio for Mac remains our top priority.
Your feedback is extremely important to us and helps us prioritize the issues that are most impacting your workflow. There are several ways that you can reach out to us:. Use the tool in Visual Studio for Mac. We are enhancing the Report a Problem experience by allowing you to report a problem without leaving the IDE. You’ll have the ability to automatically include additional information, such as crash logs, that will help our Engineering team narrow down the root cause of your report more effectively.
This will be introduced in an upcoming servicing release to 7.6 that will be available in the Stable channel within the next few weeks. You can track your issues on the portal where you can ask questions and find answers. In addition to filing issues, you can also add your vote or comment on existing issues.
This helps us assess the impact of the issue.