Visual Studio For Mac 2017 Stability

We’re also shipping improvements to performance and stability, accessibility, and multi-language support, along with fixes for a number of bugs reported by our vibrant developer community. Just installed TFS addon for Visual Studio Community 2017 for mac. Improve the stability of Visual Studio 2017 I've been playing with Visual Studio 2017 for two months now whilst learning C#. My experience with IDEs before this has been with Eclipse and IntelliJ. The Xamarin Updater extension for Visual Studio 2017 allows you to always be up-to-date with the latest Xamarin SDKs. This updater mechanism does not replace traditional updates to Visual Studio Stable and Preview but will supplement them. I am learning new things from the.Net CORE course. The first lesson of the Intermediate part uses the template of project for authorization, but It is available only on PC Visual Studio 2017. Jun 23, 2017  Hi I am trying to setup Visual Studio 2017 with my TFS server and I cannot figure out how to. I see the 'Version Control' menu and I try doing 'Check out' and entering the url of my TFS server on port 443 but it then asks for a username/password, but the only credentials I have are Microsoft Accounts that have access to the TFS server. Visual Studio 2017, version 15.7 The release notes for VS 2017 15.7 detail a dizzying array of new features, but Microsoft boiled down the highlights to: Cloud development: Including improvements to the project scaffolding and unit testing.

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Download

Install the most recent Preview version of Visual Studio for Mac by changing the updater channel to Beta.

Note

This release is not 'go-live' and not intended for use on production computers or for creating production code.

To learn more about Visual Studio 2017 for Mac, see Mac System Requirementsand Mac Platform Targeting and Compatibility.

To learn more about other related downloads, see the Downloads page.

Feedback

We would love to hear from you! You can report a problem through the Report a Problem option in Visual Studio for Mac IDE.You can track your feedback in the Developer Community portal. For suggestions, let us know through UserVoice.

Known Issues

Refer to the Known Issues section.

Release History

  • July 24, 2018 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 5
  • July 11, 2018 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 4
  • June 21, 2018 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 3
  • May 31, 2018 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 2
  • May 07, 2018 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 1

Release Highlights

  • The Build Log has been completely revamped to give structured build output that is easier to read and understand.
  • Azure Functions support has been expanded. You can now choose the trigger type when creating a new Azure Functions project. Visual Studio for Mac now also supports publishing Azure Functions to Azure.
  • We've continued to improve performance and stability in Visual Studio for Mac.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 5 (7.6.0.2086)

released July 24, 2018

Code Editor

  • Fixed an issue where the TODO comments stopped working in latest beta.
  • Fixed an issue where HTML elements would not colorize correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where typing block comments throws a NotImplementedException.
  • Fixed an issue with Korean language input where the final character does not highlight when selecting from end of line to beginning of line, until code the completion dialog box disappears.

Structured Build Output

  • Fixed an issue where the structured build output unnecessarily displays task names.
  • Improved the rounding of build times.
  • Fixed some alignment issues with the structured build output icons.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the selection of the last character in each node.
  • Fixed an issue where the displayed file name did not update after performing a new build.

Project

  • Fixed an issue that causes an intermittent crash when building Xamarin Forms Control Gallery.
  • Fixed an issue where configuration mapping changes for a project does not notify modifications.

Performance

  • Fixed an issue where the WebReference addin slows down folder building in the solution pad.

.NET Core

  • Fixed an issue where .NET Core project is not restored after changing project properties.

NuGet

  • Fixed an issue where NuGet source transformations are not recognized by IntelliSense.

Xamarin

Xamarin.Android

  • If Java 9 and above are installed, Visual Studio for Mac will use apksigner to sign Android .apks when publishing through the publishing workflow.

Other

  • Fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac appears to offer no updates.
  • Fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac checkout functionality freezes entire program.
  • Improved navigation and flow of feedback survey.
  • Fixed some focus issues when creating a new Azure Functions project.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 4 (7.6.0.2003)

released July 11, 2018

Code Editor

We made the following fixes to Code Editor:

  • Fixed an issue where toggle line comment menu no longer exists.
  • Fixed an issue where the CheckArrayIndexValueCodeRefactoringProvider is disabled when typing an opening bracket.
  • Fixed an issue where the 'Show stack trace' command in the exception bar does not show or display any information.
  • Fixed an issue where a NullReferenceException in MonoDevelop.SourceEditor.FileRegistry.HasMultipleIncorrectEolMarkers is thrown when opening a file.
  • Fixed an issue where Line/col for TODO issues is off by 1.
  • Fixed an issue where pasted text indents with extra (virtual indentation) whitespace.
  • Fixed a rendering issue where the 'Show scopes' command includes markup.
  • Fixed an issue where debugger tooltips are not always displayed.
  • Fixed some graphical glitches in the text editor.
  • Fixed an issue where renaming a method should not trigger the removal of generic type arguments.
  • Fixed an issue where EditorConfig settings are not applied to new files added to the project.
  • Fixed an issue where the built in 'extensions' and 'default' are displayed in language bundles panel.
  • Fixed an issue where an exception is thrown when clicking in specific locations of a source file.
  • Fixed an issue where 'Add Reference' quick fix does not add a reference.
  • Fixed an issue where search results do not display in full screen with a second monitor.
  • Fixed an issue where an error, 'There was an error saving the changes', displays when enabling code folding.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the editor to occasionally become unresponsive to user input.
  • Fixed an issue where renaming a class asks to reload the file.

Performance

  • We have made additional gains on improving the amount of work performed by the IDE on startup.
  • Fixed a memory issue where Document.DisposeDocument subscribes to an event instead of unsubscribing.
  • Fixed issues related to FileWatcherService resource starvation.
  • Fixed an issue where code fix preview menu hangs several seconds on large fixes.
Studio

Project

  • Fixed a NullReferenceException when loading an sdk-style project with no TargetFramework.
  • Fixed an issue where circular dependencies between MSBuild imports would result in a StackOverflowException.
  • Improved error messaging when failing to evaluate an MSBuild project.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Visual Studio for Mac to freeze when opening solution.

Structured Build Output

  • The Structured Build Output is now accessible along with the old 'flat' output from MSBuild.
  • Fixed a crash in structured build output.
  • Fixed an issue where selecting 'Build succeeded' from breadcrumb bar breaks breadcrumb bar.
  • Fixed a UI glitch where the breadcrumb bar 'no selection' pops up empty list.
  • Fixed an issue where building against a running emulator appears to break Build Output.
  • Fixed an issue where the next and previous buttons should be insensitive when there are no results.
  • The output is now expanded by default.
  • We added an indicator that a build is in progress.
  • We improved the padding of the breadcrumb bar.
  • Fixed truncation of the navigation link for warnings at the bottom on the build output.

Web Tools

  • Fixed an issue where code completion doesn't commit if the caret is immediately followed by }.
  • Fixed an issue where JavaScript syntax highlighting breaks when passing parameter to a function.
  • Fixed an issue where Razor directives are not colorized correctly.
  • Updated JavaScript/TypeScript TextMate Language files.
  • Fixed an issue where the New Project dialog does not close after creating a new Azure Functions project.
  • Fixed an issue where code in indented @{} block jumps up a line when committed and cannot be repositioned.

F#

  • Fixed an issue where adding FSharp.Core 4.5.0 NuGet package shows 4.3.3 as the displayed dependency in the solution pad.

Xamarin

Xamarin.Mac

  • Fixed an issue where it is not possible to open a storyboard file through Xcode.

Xamarin.Android

  • Fixed an issue where the app would not launch when starting the app in Release configuration.

Other

  • Fixed an issue where the user is unable to save files and add new resources to the Xamarin forms project.
  • Fixed an issue where the assembly browser does not show public members if visibility is 'Only public members'.
  • Fixed an issue where Source Control selection in Tools -> Options -> Source Control is lost when opening context menu..

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 3 (7.6.0.1773)

released June 21, 2018

Structured Build Output

Historically the Build Output was simply a capture of the output from the build tasks with minimal formatting. This makes it hard to findspecific information, hard to understand for new users, and was often truncated because it was too long to be held in memory. In this release,we are introducing a new Build Output document based on MSBuild binary logs.

The two most obvious changes are that the log no longer shows in the Errors pad and that the output is structured instead ofbeing a flat text log. Clicking the 'Build Output' button in the Errors pad now opens a new document with the build output instead ofconstraining the output to the right hand side of the Error pad.

When viewing the Build Log you can now enable a diagnostic view of the log by changing the log verbosity in the viewer, instead of changing it in Preferences and re-building the project again. The log can be saved to disk and can be re-openedat any time. We have added support for opening .binlog files directly in Visual Studio for Mac to enable you to do this.

The build output is searchable and it's possible to drill down into the tasks that ran to understand the flow of the build.

Azure Functions

We updated and improved the experience when creating a new Functions project. Previously the new project would default with an HttpTriggerfunction. Visual Studio for Mac now offers available trigger types that you can select when creating a new project.

Code Editor

  • We have added an overtype marker in editor to show that the closing bracket can be typed over.
  • Fixed an issue where code completion in anonymous methods is broken when IntelliSense - Show Import Items is turned on.
  • Fixed some issues with documentation comments: Exception, Param ref.
  • Fixed incorrect XSLT validation error for xsl:variable.
  • Fixed an issue with the cursor location when expanding a code snippet.
  • Fixed an empty error dialog that is shown when the user has a corrupt highlighting theme.
  • Fixed an error navigating to a type in assembly browser.
  • Fixed an issue where the gutter on the left corrupts when you hover over the '...' associated with a compile error.
  • Fixed an issue where text loses indentation when typing.
  • Fixed an issue where the editor doesn't work with .NET Standard 2.0 NuGet.
  • Fixed an issue with Korean language input where the final character is not highlighted when selecting from end of line to beginning of line.
  • Fixed an issue where Korean characters are transposed during selection/highlight (e.g. to copy + paste).

Performance

  • Fixed an issue where LoadProject is called twice on solution load due to configuration change.
  • Fixed an issue where F# highlight usages does too much work on the foreground thread.
  • Fixed an issue where IDE focus-in/out does a lot of IO.
  • Fixed a possible cause of slow MSBuild GetSourceFilesAsync evaluation.
  • Visual Studio for Mac now disables full solution analysis when the OS triggers a warning about memory.
  • Implemented a Roslyn background compiler for MDWorkspace.
  • Load syntax schemes on demand for each file type.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause the UI to freeze after opening a solution.

Accessibility

  • Code folding shows when VoiceOver is being used, instead of auto hiding, which is the default behavior.

Project

  • Fixed a NullReferenceException when a file is added externally to the project.

.Net Core

  • Fixed the default build action for new files.
  • Fixed a UI hang when building an ASP.NET Core Angular project.

NuGet

  • Fixed an issue where updating PackageReference removes metadata.

Web Tools

  • Fixed an exception when typing in TypeScript file: System.ArgumentException Message=The specified SnapshotPoint or SnapshotSpan is on a different ITextSnapshot than this SnapshotSpan..
  • Fixed an issue where there was no IntelliSense for .css files.
  • Fixed an issue where backspace was not available on smart indented lines.

F#

  • Fixed some inaccurate F# autocompletion.
  • Remove 'System.ValueTuple.4.3.0' from templates as it is not required and is not on NuGet.

Xamarin

Xamarin.Forms

  • Fixed an issue where IntelliSense does not work for auto-generated fields through Xamarin.Forms XAML.

Xamarin.iOS

Provisioning

Automatic provisioning in Visual Studio for Mac will now attempt to create and use wildcard App ID and provisioning profiles by default, instead of creating an App ID based on the Bundle Identifier specified in the Info.plist file. Using wildcard IDs by default reduces the number of profiles and IDs that need maintenance in the developer portal.

There are some cases where an explicit App ID needs to be used, based on the entitlements used in the app. The following entitlements are not supported by wildcard App IDs:

  • App Groups
  • Associated Domains
  • Apple Pay
  • Game Center
  • HealthKit
  • HomeKit
  • Hotspot
  • In-App purchase
  • Multipath
  • NFC
  • Personal VPN
  • Push Notifications
  • Wireless Accessory Configuration

If your app uses one of these entitlements, Visual Studio for Mac will attempt to create an explicit App ID instead of a wildcard one.

In addition to wildcard App ID support, the following issues have been fixed:

  • When connecting the debugger to your app, Visual Studio for Mac now uses the device's connection port instead of using global preferences. This means USB is used for debugging (when connected through USB) even if the preferences are for WiFi debugging.
  • Fixed an error when trying to connect to Apple Developer Account.
  • Fixed an issue where $(AppIdentifierPrefix) is not inserted before the automatically generated bundle ID entry when enabling keychain access groups.
  • Fixed an issue with new watchOS projects where the namespace would not match the iOS project.
  • Fixed an issue where the issue analyzer would not trigger after changing the deployment target.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented profiling a tvOS application over WiFi.

Xamarin.Android

  • Fixed an issue where users would not be notified if Android SDK Tools were missing when starting an emulator.
  • Fixed an issue where apps would be reported as failed to install, even though they installed correctly.

Android SDK Manager

  • Fixed an issue showing component licenses on installation.
  • Fixed a threading issue when downloading components that impacted the UI thread.

Android Device Manager

  • Fixed an issue starting emulators that required a system image to be download before starting.

Other

  • Fixed an issue where it is not possible to re-run tests after stopping tests.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 2 (7.6.0.947)

released May 31, 2018

Code Editor

This release addresses a number of issues with the code editor:

  • Analyzers and formatting do not update after modifying editorconfig.
  • Single-line members were shown as collapsible.
  • Creating a new event handler would always put the method at the start of the class.
  • The closing curly brace is removed on deleting curly braces above it in a .cs file.
  • Collapsed regions would auto expand.
  • Go to Definition would not work reliably when navigating to the assembly browser.
  • The assembly browser is broken in 7.5 build 1254.
  • Visual Studio for Mac freezes when saving a file.
  • The cursor would be located incorrectly after expanding snippets.
  • Right-click -> FindReferences returns too many useless results when used in an interface.
  • 'Squiggles' do not scale with editor when zooming.
  • Multiple 'var to explicit type' actions are available in the Quick Fix menu.
  • Tooltip does not disappear on typing or moving to another item.
  • Double click text selection is often blocked by tooltip.
  • Toggle line comment menu no longer exists.
  • Text editor misrenders when jumping to a line of source.
  • Setting Place System directives first cannot be turned off.
  • TODO doesn't highlight anymore (worked before Update).
  • We made it easier to configure Quick Fix rules by filtering the rules when invoked through the Quick Fix command.
  • We fixed some Right-to-Left issues:
    • All braces are not indented when my Mac language is Hebrew - (RTL language).
    • Curly brackets indention issue.

Project

  • We fixed an issue where creating a new Functions project would result in IntelliSense errors until the project was closed and reopened.
  • The Clean target now runs asynchronously.

Debugger

  • We fixed an issue where the Immediate window completion only contains locals.

Performance

We fixed the following performance related issues:

  • MEF would perform work on the UI thread.
  • VSTest adapter delays solution load.
  • GetSemanticModelAsync should not be called from UI Thread.

Shell

This release introduces the following feature:

  • It is now possible to create an Interactive Workbook from the Welcome Page if Workbooks is installed.

The following issues were addressed in the Visual Studio for Mac Shell:

  • When the system language is changed to Chinese, it is not reflected in Visual Studio for Mac.
  • The pin icon in the Welcome Page is too small.
  • Visual Studio for Mac 7.5 crashes when selecting a device with a name starting with #.
  • Drag-and-drop into welcome page does not work anymore.
  • Cannot rename solution items.
  • Cannot add new file to solution items.
  • Move to previous notebook menu item is not working.
  • Visual Studio 2017 for Mac 7.5 (build 1255) crashes without ever showing UI when downgrading from 7.6 Preview to 7.5.

Version Control

  • We fixed an issue with the Git stash comment not displayed in Stash Manager dialog.
  • We fixed an issue with Git apply stash - Gtk warning - operation done on background thread.

NuGet

  • We now support no-op restores on opening a solution. If the package references have not changed a then a no-op restore will occur.

X Code

.Net Core

  • When the ASP.NET Core addin tries to install the HTTPS development certificate, the macOS message dialog that asks for the username and password will now display:

    dotnet-dev-certs wants to make changes.

  • We fixed an issue that where it wasn't possible to add declarations to an empty C# file using suggestions from IntelliSense.

F#

This release introduces the following feature:

  • We updated the version of Xamarin.Forms that is referenced in new projects to 3.0.

We fixed the following issues for F# developers:

  • F#'s 'Find References' wrongly returns '0 matches' too often.
  • F# error in Android resource type provider when using Xamarin.Forms 3.0.
  • F# interactive outputs initial output message without any user input.
  • F# Xamarin.Forms project template description mentions PCL when it should be .NET Standard.
  • File > New Blank Forms App in F# sets the Android SDK to 8.0 instead of Use Latest.
  • F# interactive command history is off by one.

Web Tools

  • We fixed a fatal error when editing an appsettings.json file in a new ASP.NET Core Web app from template.
  • We fixed an issue where web references to ASP.NET MVC project could not be added.

Azure

  • It is now possible to publish your Azure Function. Right click the Function project and select Publish, then create or publish to an Azure App Service.
  • We improved the time it takes to load subscription details.

Xamarin

Xamarin.iOS

We fixed the following issues with iOS projects:

  • WatchKit Complication Assets Set specified in info.plist not recognized on compile.
  • aps-environment is not getting set to production after publishing a release build.
  • Asset catalogs in a shared project are listed twice in the solution explorer.
  • Enable Classkit checkbox in Entitlements.plist does not display as checked when the Entitlements.plist file is re-opened.

Xamarin.Android

  • We fixed a crash when publishing to the Play Store.

Xamarin.Forms

  • We fixed some XAML editing issues for Xamarin.Forms:
    • Xamarin Forms - SomePage.xaml.cs -> InitializeComponent() says it's ambiguous.
    • Ambiguity between same members using a linked XAML file.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.6 Preview 1 (7.6.0.711)

released May 7, 2018

Code Editor

  • Code Folding is enabled by default.
  • Fixed an issue where tooltips do not disappear.
  • Fixed an issue where a suggested 'Convert anonymous group to method group' replacement would be invalid.
  • Tooltip timeout is now shorter, which lowers the quick info popup time.
  • Fixed an issue where Alt+Up at beginning of the document results in an exception.
  • C# classification does not update when compilation changes.

Performance

  • Improved the performance of the Find References command.
  • Reduced Project model evaluation contention, which improves project load performance.

Shell

  • Fixed an issue where multiple Save dialogs are shown when close using keyboard shortcut multiple times.

Accessibility

  • Fixed an issue where VoiceOver would read invisible elements in the 'Project Options'.

NuGet

  • The NuGet SDK Resolver that is included with Mono's MSBuild is now supported by Visual Studio for Mac. This allows SDKs to download from NuGet and consumed by SDK style projects.

F#

  • Fixed an issue where implicit folders are incorrectly ordered in F# projects.
  • Improved how F# gets its list of keywords by using FCS instead of a hardcoded list.

Xamarin

Visual Designers

Android Designer
  • Full-fidelity layout editing: your XAML modifications are now preserved even in design mode.
  • Updated renderer to latest Android Oreo.
  • IntelliSense performance improvements.

Xamarin.iOS

  • ClassKit entitlements: ClassKit enables features in your education apps for iPad that can be used by educational institutions with Apple School Manager and Managed Apple IDs.
  • Visual Studio for Mac will now alert you if a particular iOS or Mac constructor (from Xamarin.iOS or Xamarin.Mac, respectively) is unavailable due to deprecation or introduced into a later version of the OS than the version the project is targeting (e.g. the 'Deployment Target' as set in the Info.plist).
  • Fixed an issue where IWKNavigationDelegate has two interface methods, and only one is shown in IntelliSense.

Xamarin.Mac

  • Fixed a number of visual glitches when publishing Mac apps.

Known Issues

  • Already installed Android SDK is not detected in the installer (if installed through Android Studio).
  • Razor TagHelpers in project aren’t refreshed on build.
  • CSS Class IntelliSense in _Layout.cshtml, but not in views.
  • In Razor, toggle comments does not work in HTML.
  • Razor: indented tag content indentation bad.
  • Typing a tag in a for loop is changed to textarea (aspnet/Razor/issues/2200)

Team Foundation version control extension – Release Notes

Team Foundation version control support is available as an extension for Visual Studio for Mac. For more information on installing and using the extension, see the Connecting to Team Foundation version control guide.

0.3.1

Released 6/28/2018

Implemented enhancements:

  • Improved Source Explorer experience. The Refresh button has been removed since everything is now refreshed automatically.
  • Simplified workspaces creation process.
  • Minor UI changes.

Fixed bugs:

  • Fixed BUG with folders validation. It could affect the creation of workspaces.

0.3

Released 6/27/2018

Implemented enhancements:

  • Improved project filter. Added option to filter by server URL and username.
  • Improved Source Explorer loading time.
  • Improvements in the refresh process in Source Explorer (loading indicator, disable/enable buttons, etc).
  • Added more options to Source Explorer like open folders in Finder, etc.
  • Improved Work Items loading time.
  • Changes in some literals to adapt TFVC branding.
  • More validations: check if the workspace local path exists, etc.
  • Minor UI changes.

Fixed bugs:

  • Added workspace cache to avoid unnecessary request validating project (big performance improvement).
  • Fixed BUG opening Source Explorer.
  • Fixed BUG creating workspaces. The workspace creation takes some time, moved to another thread.
  • Fixed BUG launching OAuth dialog from Source Explorer.
  • Fixed BUG adding new files from Source Explorer if there are not any working folder in the workspace.
  • Fixed some incorrect literals.
  • Fixed BUG with focus on Open from Source Control dialog.
  • Fixed BUG refreshing Source Explorer content after create a new workspace.

0.2.1

Released 6/11/2018

Fixed bugs:

  • Fixed BUG detecting if a project is in some of the TFS Servers (performance).

0.2

Visual Studio For Mac

Released 6/11/2018

Implemented enhancements:

  • New authentication flow.
  • New projects dialog where can easily manage all servers, collections and projects.
  • Added auto discover servers and projects functionality.
  • Added project filter.
  • New dialog where select project paths to map.
  • Added files filter.
  • Added new dialog to create workspaces.
  • Added new option to delete working folders from an existing workspace.
  • Included more detailed forms validation.
  • Improved error management and user feedback. More detailed messages.
  • Improvements in SourceControlExplorer: file types are detected and specific icons are displayed, etc.
  • Improved loading times in SourceControlExplorer.
  • Added new logs option in the Settings.
  • Improvements in addin cache (settings, tokens, etc).
  • Minor UI changes and improvements (loading indicators, etc).

Fixed bugs:

  • Fixed BUG authenticating in some TFS Servers using NTLM.
  • Fixed BUG creating workspaces related to workspaces cache.
  • Fixed BUG refreshing workspace after removing a project.
  • Fixed BUG refreshing OAuth token under some conditions.
  • Fixed BUG changing Visual Studio theme and minor UI details.
  • Fixed BUG getting the workspace owner name.

0.1.1 (Beta)

Released 5/8/2018

Fixed bugs:

  • Fixed BUG loading OAuth Webview from some Visual Studio for macOS versions.

0.1 (Beta)

Visual Studio Community For Mac

Released 5/8/2018

Implemented enhancements:

  • Basic and OAuth Authentication.
  • Choose server projects.
  • Create, edit and delete Workspaces.
  • SourceControlExplorer.
  • Map and get.
  • Added checkout functionality.
  • Added checkin functionality.
  • Added rename functionality.
  • Added delete folders and files functionality.
  • Added lock and unlock functionality.
  • Added undo changes functionality.

Visual Studio For Mac Download

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