Windows 10: Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 is now available

Brink · Mar 17, 2020

The Visual Studio 2019 team here in Redmond has been living under a perpetually grey, wet winter sky since our last minor release. Thankfully, we are beginning to see the sun making regular appearances. It is our hope this newest release will also brighten your day. Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 contains anticipated new features from XAML, .NET, C++ and Debugging. In addition, we have addressed several issues found in our Preview releases. We believe this combination is ready to make your developer journey more productive. If you have any additional ideas to contribute to our product, we invite you to participate in our Developer Community forum.

While I elaborate, why not download our latest version to try for yourself? Also keep in mind, a more complete list of all changes are available in the Visual Studio 2019 release notes.

Install Visual Studio 2019 v16.5

.NET Mobile Development

Our first feature to discuss is XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms. This feature speeds up your development and makes it easier to build, experiment, and iterate over your mobile appâs user interface. How? You do not need to rebuild your app each time you tweak your UI as changes instantly show while the app is running! Because this updates as you make changes, if you have interacted with the application, the state of the application is not lost as you make the changes. Consequently, you do not have to recreate the repo as you previously did. Thatâs pretty exciting, isnât it?

We heard lots of feedback on a specific need shared via Developer Community Suggestions. Due to the fact, you wanted to see changes made to your XAML reload instantaneously on multiple targets such as an iOS simulator and Android emulator, so we have added that capability.

.NET Productivity

To help with .NET Productivity several features ship in this Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 release.

First of all, you can convert if statements to switch statements or switch expressions. To do this, place your cursor on the if keyword. Press Ctrl+. to trigger the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu. Finally, select Convert to âswitchâ statement or Convert to âswitchâ expression.

Convert if statements to switch statement

IntelliSense

Furthermore, IntelliSense now supports completion for unimported extension methods. To access this ability, you will need to enable this option in Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Intellisense > and select Show items from unimported namespaces(experimental).

Simplify Interpolation

Additionally, we added the ability to simplify string interpolation refactoring. This will help make your string interpolation more legible and concise. Place your cursor on the string interpolation. Press Ctrl+. to trigger the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu and select Simplify interpolation.

You can Simplify Interpolation through the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu.

The Extract local function refactoring allows you to turn a fragment of code from an existing method into a local function. Highlight the code you want extracted. Press Ctrl+. to trigger the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu and select Extract local function.

You can Extract Local Function through the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu

The make members static code fix helps improve readability by making a non-static member static. Place your cursor on the member name. Press Ctrl+. to trigger the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu and select Make static.

You can make a member static through the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu.

Testing

Profiling is an excellent tool for identifying performance issues in your code. You can now profile a .NET Core test. To do so your .NET Core projects must be configured to generate full PDBâs. We also recommend upgrading to a minimum version of 16.4 for the Microsoft.Test.SDK. This will enable you to profile tests in both x86 and x64 architecture settings. To profile a test, select Profile from the context menu in the Test Explorer. Test profiling is supported through static instrumentation and Performance Explorer (.vsp) document in Visual Studio.

Debugging in C++ and .NET

Pinnable Properties has been a popular tool for managed code debugging. Specifically, this allows quick visibility of an objectâs property without the need of drilling into an object. This feature is now available in C++ for DataTips and the Autos, Locals, and Watch windows. To use the tool, hover over a property and select the toggle-able pin icon that appears or select the Pin Member as Favorite option in the context menu, bubbling your selected property to the top of your debugger display.

Pinnable Properties tool in Debugger

Weâve also added a new capability to assist you in debugging multithreaded applications. This helps avoid struggling to determine the source of a deadlock or other thread-related bugs. Subsequently, you can now view which managed thread is holding a .NET object lock in the Call Stack window, Parallel Stacks window and the location column of the Threads window.

.NET Object lock in the Call Stack window, Parallel Stacks window

In a previous update, we made it possible to debug processes running in Docker Linux containers. Now, you can do the same in Docker Windows containers. To give this at try, attach and debug that .NET Framework, .NET Core, and C++ process in the Attach to Process window by selecting the Docker (Windows Container) connection type.

Docker Window Container Process

Finally, for developers building applications on top of the Open Enclave SDK weâve added debugging support in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5. So, you can now debug those applications from within the product, for more information, go to aka.ms/OpenEnclaveVisualStudio.

.NET Object Allocation Tool

The .NET Object Allocation tool has been updated with changes aimed to help you visualize your data more easily and reduce the time you spend on memory investigations.

First, the backtrace view has been moved to a separate panel to enable you to more easily distinguish between the allocation type and the functions within the type being called. Additionally, when an allocation type is selected the call tree is oriented from the leaf to root node to more quickly see what specific function is allocating the most memory and needs to be changed. Lastly, a new average size column has been added both to the allocation type panel and backtrace view. This information is helpful if you are trying to investigate what allocation types or functions are taking up a lot of memory per allocation. Furthermore, all of these columns are sortable and can be toggled on or off so that you can customize the tables to look the way you want.

Also, take notice of the new icons added to the allocation, call tree, and functions view, so it is easier to visualize the classes and structures being allocated. The two icons represent value types (blue) and reference types (yellow). By the way, a number of other user experiences such as more icons and performance improvements are coming soon to Visual Studio!

.NET Object Allocation Tool

C++ Improvements in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5

Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 brings several improvements to the C++ cross-platform and CMake development experience. Starting with this release, youâre now able to interact with your stored remote connections over the command line. This is useful for tasks such as provisioning new development machines or setting up Visual Studio in continuous integration.

Interact with stored remove connections through the Developer Command PromptIn addition, this release brings the ability to leverage native support for Windows Subsystem for Linux when separating your build system from a remote deploy machine, allowing you to build natively on WSL and to deploy the build artifacts to a second remote machine for debugging. This workflow is supported by both CMake projects and MSBuild-based Linux projects.

Visual Studio version 16.5 makes it easier than ever to work with CMake projects in Visual Studio. Specifically, this release brings the ability to add, remove, and rename source files and targets in your CMake projects from the IDE without manually editing your CMake scripts. When adding and removing files with the Solution Explorer, Visual Studio will automatically edit your CMake project. Furthermore, you can also add, remove, and rename the projectâs targets from the Solution Explorerâs Targets View, as shown below. You can learn more about this and related features at the C++ Team Blog.

Add, remove, and rename source files in CMake projectsNew CMake code navigation features such as Go To Definition and Find All References make it easier to explore and understand complex CMake projects. The navigation feature supports variables, functions, and targets in CMake script files. They work across your entire CMake project to offer more productivity than naÃ¯ve text search across files and folders. Also, they are integrated with other IDE productivity features such as Peek Definition.

Download Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Today!

As you can see, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 gives plenty of new functionality to help you with your development projects. Give it a try today and tell us what you think.

Additionally, if you would like to try out future features, check out our Preview channel to give our next product iteration a try. This Preview release brings additional changes to WFT/UWP Tooling, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Web Tooling. The version 16.6 Preview 1 release notes give full details about each of these features.

As always, we look forward to your feedback!

Try v16.6 Preview 1

Jacqueline Widdis,
Program Manager, Release Team
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Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visua...-version-16-5/

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Brink · Mar 17, 2020

Visual Studio Roadmap Updates and Visual Studio 2019 Information

Yesterday, we covered What’s next for Visual Studio for Mac, and today we’ve updated our Visual Studio Roadmap so you can see the latest news about what we’re working on. We’re particularly excited to share this update since it includes information about the first preview of Visual Studio 2019, which we will make available by the end of this calendar year. We plan to have a generally available (GA) version of Visual Studio 2019 in the first half of 2019.

Be sure to check out the full roadmap for all the updates, but some notable improvements are:

A better performing and more reliable debugger, moving to an out-of-process 64-bit process.

Improved search accuracy for menus, commands, options, and installable components.

Visual Studio tooling for Windows Forms and WPF development on .NET Core 3.

As always, we are committed to making Visual Studio a great development environment: faster, more reliable, more productive for individuals and teams, and easier to get started with developing your code. Please continue to share your feedback with us so we can make the best tools for your development. You can send us your suggestions, ideas, and concerns through our Developer Community portal.

We will keep updating the roadmap as we deliver Visual Studio 2019 features iteratively. To try out the newest features and fixes, keep an eye on the Visual Studio Preview page and on this blog for announcements about the latest previews.

John Montgomery,
Director of Program Management for Visual Studio
Click to expand...

Source: Visual Studio Roadmap Updates and Visual Studio 2019 Information | The Visual Studio Blog

Brink · Mar 17, 2020

Visual Studio Roadmap Updates and Visual Studio 2019 Information

Yesterday, we covered What’s next for Visual Studio for Mac, and today we’ve updated our Visual Studio Roadmap so you can see the latest news about what we’re working on. We’re particularly excited to share this update since it includes information about the first preview of Visual Studio 2019, which we will make available by the end of this calendar year. We plan to have a generally available (GA) version of Visual Studio 2019 in the first half of 2019.

Be sure to check out the full roadmap for all the updates, but some notable improvements are:

A better performing and more reliable debugger, moving to an out-of-process 64-bit process.

Improved search accuracy for menus, commands, options, and installable components.

Visual Studio tooling for Windows Forms and WPF development on .NET Core 3.

As always, we are committed to making Visual Studio a great development environment: faster, more reliable, more productive for individuals and teams, and easier to get started with developing your code. Please continue to share your feedback with us so we can make the best tools for your development. You can send us your suggestions, ideas, and concerns through our Developer Community portal.

We will keep updating the roadmap as we deliver Visual Studio 2019 features iteratively. To try out the newest features and fixes, keep an eye on the Visual Studio Preview page and on this blog for announcements about the latest previews.

John Montgomery,
Director of Program Management for Visual Studio
Click to expand...

Source: Visual Studio Roadmap Updates and Visual Studio 2019 Information | The Visual Studio Blog

Brink · Mar 17, 2020

Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 now available

Today, we are releasing Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9. The easiest way to update is directly from within Visual Studio 2017 by selecting Help>Check for Updates or select “Update” from the Visual Studio Installer. You can also download from the Visual Studio website to get the latest release of Visual Studio. If you prefer to try these updates without installing, you can create a Visual Studio image on Azure. You can find the complete list of all the changes in the release notes and view the issues you submitted that are fixed on Developer Community.

Let’s look at a couple of the standout scenarios in this update that you can now try.

Step Back for C++

Step back debugging is a type of historical debugging. Visual Studio works with the runtime and operating system to take snapshots of a running application’s stack, enabling you to hit a breakpoint and then to step backwards and forwards, with full access to the call stack, variables, and watch windows. We first talked about this feature back in October for C# in this blog post and now we’re adding it for C++.

With IntelliTrace events and snapshots enabled in Tools>Options>IntelliTrace, every step (in, out, over) you take has a corresponding “step backwards” command to get back to the state of the app at a previous step. Step Back saves you from having to restart your debug session just to check what state your app was in a few lines above. It also makes it easy to compare the state of your application at two different points. Better yet, the diagnostic tools window contains a list of all the states that you can jump to – just double click on your desired event in the diagnostic tools window.

To use the C++ step back feature, you’ll need the Enterprise edition of Visual Studio and the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607) or later.

Have a look at the gif below to see this feature in action, and remember that you can read more about how it works on the Visual C++ Team Blog.

.NET Core tooling updates

The way Visual Studio exposes the .NET Core SDKs has been a bit confusing in the past. In version 15.9, we made a change to how .NET Core tools will use the .NET Core SDK. For stable releases of Visual Studio, the latest stable release of an SDK will be used by default. Before, the tools would use whatever latest version was on your machine, regardless of whether it is stable. This change will make use of .NET Core within Visual Studio more predictable. Read more on the .NET Blog.

Visual Studio installation configuration

Configuring Visual Studio setup and replicating that setup configuration on many computers has been too complex. In version 15.9 (with any product: Community, Professional, or Enterprise), we made it easy to save a Visual Studio installation configuration and use it to populate another. In the Visual Studio Installer, export the workload and component selection to a .vsconfig file. You can use this file to copy your installation configuration across multiple machines or share with others on your team. If you are importing to an existing installation, it will add new workloads and components, and will not replace the existing ones.

Tools for Universal Windows Platform Developers

We have made a lot of improvements for developers building Universal Windows Platform applications. The key ones are: support for the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (build 17763) SDK, the ability to build .msix installation packages in Visual Studio using the normal packaging tools for UWPs, support for ARM64, and performance and reliability improvements (particularly improvements to F5 performance and XAML designer reliability).

Also, when using the XAML Designer for building UWP applications targeting the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Build 16299) or later, developers can now specify control display options. You can choose to have the designer display all controls, including custom user controls, or have the designer-only display platform controls. Only displaying platform controls may improve the stability of the designer and will render fallback controls represented by a yellow border.

Support for SharePoint 2019

With SharePoint 2019 now generally available, we added templates for it. These templates allow you to create new projects that are empty, that contain a visual web part, or that are based on an existing SharePoint 2019 solution package. You can also migrate existing SharePoint projects from either SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2016 to SharePoint 2019. To do so, you can just open an existing SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2016 project in Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 and you will see a dialog that gives you the option to upgrade the project type.

Please note that SharePoint 2019 support is only available in Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9. To upgrade your tooling, we recommend that you install the Office workload when upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio.

Stay Connected

A final note: version 15.9 is the final minor update to Visual Studio 2017. We’ll still ship a few service updates (e.g. 15.9.1), and 15.9.x will become the Visual Studio 2017 servicing baseline and will be the supported version of Visual Studio 2017 starting January 14, 2020. You can read more from our blog post, Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio for Mac Support Updates.

As always, we love to hear about your experiences with Visual Studio. Please install Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 and let us know any issues you have via the Report a Problem tool in Visual Studio. You can also track your issues in Visual Studio Developer Community, as well as suggest a feature, ask questions, and find answers. Please engage with us and other Visual Studio developers through our Gitter community (requires GitHub account) or get free installation help through Live Chat Support.

John Montgomery,
Director of Program Management for Visual Studio
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Source: Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 now available | The Visual Studio Blog

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Windows 10: Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 is now available

Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 is now available

Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 is now available

Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 is now available

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