Xamarin Studio Vs Visual Studio For Mac

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Visual Studio for Mac is a new member of the Visual Studio family focused on mobile and cloud development using Xamarin and.NET Core. Overview Visual Studio for Mac is an evolution of Xamarin Studio, and includes all the functionality of Xamarin Studio 6.2. Visual Studio for Mac has all the features of Xamarin Studio, and much more! You can now delete the Xamarin Studio app from your machine. I've been a VS developer for years on Windows and still use it for server-side development.

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Since it was released a little more than a year ago, Visual Studio 2017 for Mac has grown from being an IDE primarily focused on mobile application development using Xamarin to one that includes support for all major.NET cross-platform workloads including Xamarin, Unity, and.NET Core. Performance and reliability concerns have long been a focal point for the team developing VS for Mac, which the company in 2016 described as 'evolving the mobile-centric Xamarin Studio IDE into a true mobile-first, cloud-first development tool for.NET and C#, and bringing the Visual Studio development experience to the Mac.'

While developing login pages, we usually get a requirement that there should be an icon in password entry to show/hide password while entering the password. Visual Studio for Mac is an evolution of Xamarin Studio, and includes all the functionality of Xamarin Studio 6.2. If you already have VS for Mac installed, this udpate will appear in any of the updater channels within the IDE. It's what Xamarin Studio and Visual Studio for Mac are based on. (Think Chromium to Google Chrome). It's an absolutely solid.Net IDE for all three major platforms that's entirely open source.

Click the button to download the latest version of Visual Studio 2017 for Mac. For instructions on setup and install, see the Setup and Install Visual Studio for Mac documentation.

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

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

What's New in 7.8

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Releases

Visual
  • May 13, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.4
  • March 12, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.3
  • February 28, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.2
  • February 22, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.1
  • February 20, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8

Release Highlights

This release focuses on improving the quality in Visual Studio for Mac through bug fixes, performance improvements, and reliability improvements.

We also updated the version of NuGet to 4.8, .NET Core SDK to 2.1.504, and .NET Core Runtime 2.1.8

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 (7.8.0.1624)

released February 20, 2019

Shell

  • We fixed an issue where custom key bindings for Remove Unused and Sort (Usings) don't work.
  • We fixed an issue where switching from the application and returning, does not focus on the editor correctly.
  • We fixed an issue where the cursor in editor window is lost when switching applications.
  • We fixed an issue where focusing out/into Visual Studio changes the default focused element on the UI.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac would fail to track file changes for files in certain folders.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac doesn't remember opened files.
  • We fixed an issue where the Toolbar selector for build configuration is disabled.
  • We fixed an issue where adding a new folder to a project does not allow instant renaming.
  • We fixed an issue where Start Debugging after Start without Debugging results in an exception for ASP.Net projects.
  • We fixed a performance issue with build output search.
  • The Run Item command on the Solution Explorer has been renamed to Run Project.
  • We fixed an issue where the welcome page is shown when loading a solution from finder.

.NET Core

  • We updated to .NET Core 2.1.8 to include a security update.
  • We fixed an issue where the create button doesn't create new project for .NET Core 3.0 preview 2.
  • We fixed an issue where .NET Core 3.0 can be selected in the New Project dialog when it is not supported.
  • We removed the VB.NET option from .NET Core projects.

ASP.NET Core

  • We fixed an issue where the Folder profile would be created with 'Default' configuration instead of 'Release'.

Web Tools

  • We fixed an issue where Publish to Azure creates a profile with the wrong name.
  • We fixed an issue where application arguments are not passed to the Azure Functions host.
  • We added the following additional Azure Functions templates
    • CosmosDB trigger
    • EventHub trigger
    • IoT Hub trigger
    • SendGrid trigger
    • ServiceBus Queue trigger
    • ServiceBus Topic trigger
  • We fixed an issue where it was not possible to publish to Azure API App instances.

Xamarin

  • We updated the Xamarin Test Cloud agent NuGet version.
  • We fixed an issue where the View Archives command would appear in .NET Core projects.

Xamarin.Forms

  • IntelliSense in Xamarin.Forms XAML files for FontFamily is now available.

Designers

  • We fixed an issue where the toolbox regressed Android designer usage.
  • We fixed an issue when attempting to drag and drop controls to iOS storyboards from the Tool Box after searching for controls does not work.

Xamarin.Android

  • We fixed an issue where the JDK notification was shown on the welcome page, even for non-Android projects.
  • We fixed an issue where launching Visual Studio for Mac without any Java installed shows 2 system prompts to install Java.
  • We fixed an issue where the Android resource update could occur at the same time as a build which could then cause build issues.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac would fail to upload APK to Acer Chromebook R11.
  • We fixed an issue where new Android apps have uppercase letters in the package name.
  • We fixed an issue where 'Your project is not referencing the 'Mono.Android.Version=v8.1' framework' when AndroidUseLatestPlatformSDK is true.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac does not recognize AndroidManifest in specific build configurations..
  • We fixed an issue where opening the Report A Problem dialog also displays 'Install JDK' dialog.
  • We fixed an issue where the Google Play SDK warning is shown even when publishing Ad-Hoc.

Xamarin.iOS

  • It is now possible to choose .pdf files for image assets that do not support vector images.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac erroneously indicates that a Xamarin.Mac property is unavailable.
  • We fixed an issue where it is not possible to choose devices for named colors in the asset catalog.
  • We fixed an issue where the iOS simulator is no longer brought to front when starting a debug session.
  • We fixed an issue where Native References not working in iOS library projects and appear to be ignored.
  • We fixed an issue where deleting a Native Reference does not delete the the file on disk.
  • We fixed an issue where the Debugger doesn't connect to a keyboard extension on any device.

Xamarin.Mac

  • We fixed an issue where .xib templates seem to need customObjectInstantitationMethod='direct' added.
  • We fixed an issue where it is not possible to change the target framework version for Xamarin.Mac full on re-opening project options.
  • We fixed an issue where the project options for a Mac build (classic) shows incorrect UI.

Code Editor

  • We fixed an issue where the code fix preview window is too small.
  • We fixed an issue where error squiggles were not up to date.
  • We fixed an issue where the editor would freeze while typing
  • We fixed an issue where Changing the tab would not allow you to search a file
  • We fixed an issue where Using statement indenting is incorrect.
  • We fixed an issue where Roslyn throws a fatal exception (System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException).
  • We fixed an issue where formatting of parameters across multiple lines is incorrect.
  • We fixed an issue where the constructor generator would cause Visual Studio for Mac to crash.
  • We fixed an issue where smart semicolon placement causes incorrect semicolon placement.
  • We fixed an issue where typing can be slow in large files when accessibility is enabled.
  • We fixed an issue where a fatal error can occur when trying to navigate inside the editor using VoiceOver.
  • We fixed an issue where the caret location in quick fix margin is incorrect.
  • We fixed a performance issue where indent correcting is taking up too much time on large files.
  • We fixed an issue where Intellisense soft-selection is confusing.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac can't open .targets files.
  • We fixed an issue where the display updates partially when commenting a collapsed method.
  • We fixed an issue where C# syntax highlight doesn't work for some of the keywords.
  • We fixed an issue where invoking some snippets from the toolbox in .cs files leads to poorly formatted code.
  • We fixed an issue where pressing Down to choose the closing tag completion in XAML IntelliSense closes the completion window.
  • We fixed an issue where the file 'redacted' could not be opened.
  • We fixed an issue where sometimes pasting fails in XAML files.
  • We fixed an issue where, when adding an attribute via Intellisense, it does not trim 'Attribute' from the name.
  • We fixed an issue where code suggestion does the wrong thing when ( is pressed after a stray arrow key.

NuGet

  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac crashes after 'Could not add packages' error.
  • We updated the version of NuGet to 4.8.
  • NuGet package diagnostic warnings are now shown in the Solution Explorer. Any diagnostics warnings will be rendered with a warning icon and the full text of the warning available as a tool tip.
  • We fixed a set of issues with NuGet:
    • problem while restoring NuGet packages which don't have stable version.
    • The VS4Mac bundle nuget version is too old: 4.3.1.
    • Referencing packages conditionally using variable does not work correctly.
    • Xamarin.Forms app with multi target framework library referenced fail to build.
    • Visual Studio Mac Csproj build not support Item contidion.
    • Support conditional NuGet PackageReferences in multi-targeting projects.
    • Show per-framework dependencies when multi-targeting.
    • VS cannot build F# dotnet core solution.
    • Nuget restore ignore build targets.
    • NuGet restores the wrong version of Microsoft.AspNetCore.App.

Debugger

X Code

  • We fixed an issue where the debugger would fail when running on an external console on Mojave.

Test Tools

  • We fixed an issue where xUnit Fact 'DisplayName' not shown in test explorer if the name has a period at the end.
  • We fixed an issue where the text editor unit test integration ('Unit test 'name' could not be loaded') would fail.
  • We fixed a performance issue where the 'Test Results' pane has bad performance when very large amounts of text are shown.
  • We fixed an issue where the unit test integration in the editor does not properly trigger test cases.
  • We fixed an issue that could cause xunit to fail to restore.

F#

  • We fixed an issue where open statements for F# must be manually added when pasting/writing code.
  • We fixed an issue where new F# projects shows IntelliSense errors.
  • We fixed an issue for F# projects where Visual Studio for Mac overwrites the project GUID to be lowercase instead of uppercase.

Project System

  • We fixed an issue where the copy & paste of a XAML file causes a disassociation between the .xaml and .xaml.cs files.
  • We fixed an issue where files are being added to ItemGroup.Compile(Remove) and this related issue - Error type of namespace not found.
  • We fixed an issue where an invalid C# file is created with a new library project.
  • We fixed an issue where it is not possible to create a culture specific .resx file through the 'New File ..' menu in the Solutions Explorer context menu.

Assembly Browser

  • We fixed an issue where the Assembly Browser shows the wrong icon for properties.
  • We fixed an issue where System.DayOfWeek enum (Wednesday) does not appear to be assigned a value.

Accessibility

  • We fixed a number of accessibility issues in this release, including several VoiceOver issues in the Debugger and in creating iOS developer certificates, and Keyboard issues in the Android SDK Manager.

Other

  • We fixed an issue where unchecking the Organize Using > Place System directives first setting does not save.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac is not remembering settings.
  • We fixed an issue where Checking for updates can result in multiple prompts to sign in.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.1.4

released February 22, 2019

  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac becomes unresponsive when selecting two column view.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.2.1

released February 28, 2019

  • We fixed an issue where Debugger features sometimes don't work as expected with Unity.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.3.2

released March 12, 2019

  • This release contains an updated 4.8 NuGet Client, which in turn closes a NuGet Client vulnerability.
  • We fixed an issue where Using Git to publish an existing project to a new remote repository was not working.
  • We fixed an issue where Git remote operations were failing in Visual Studio for Mac:.
  • We fixed an issue where Tooltips not being shown for F# solutions.
  • We fixed an issue where The Report a Problem dialog crashes Visual Studio for Mac when entering details.
  • We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac crashes while using Report a Problem if the debugger connection is lost.
  • We fixed an issue where Two sign in popup windows would show if you weren't signed in and tried to Report a Problem.
  • We fixed an issue causing warnings about missing icons to show up in the log files when using Report a Problem.
  • We fixed an issue preventing build messages from displaying in the Build Output window after building Docker Compose projects.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8.4.1

Code

released May 13, 2019

Xamarin For Visual Studio Community

  • This release fixes an issue where (Visual Studio for Mac 7.8.3 crashes after loading a second solution)[https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/509716/visual-studio-783-build2-crashes-after-loading-a-s.html].

Feedback

We would love to hear from you! You can report a problem through the Report a Problem option in the Visual Studio for Mac IDE, and track your feedback in the Developer Community portal. For suggesting new features you can use Suggest a Feature, these are also tracked in the Developer Community.

Blogs

Take advantage of the insights and recommendations available in the Developer Tools Blogs site to keep you up-to-date on all new releases and include deep dive posts on a broad range of features.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac Release Notes History

You can view prior versions of Visual Studio 2017 for Mac release notes on the Release notes history page.

Visual Studio Mac Xamarin

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