Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 4

Jordan Matthiesen

Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 4 release is here, and continues our move of the IDE to fully native macOS UI, fixes many top issues, and introduces new experiences for laying out your windows and searching your source.

You can read all about the latest changes in the release notes. Get the latest release using the Visual Studio > Check for Updates… menu, or download it now:

If you aren’t familiar with it, Visual Studio for Mac is our IDE for .NET developers building apps for the web and cloud using ASP.NET Core; mobile using .NET or Xamarin; and games using Unity. You can use the Community Edition for free, and it’s included in your Visual Studio Subscription (learn more on our website).

Customize window layouts to work for you

In Visual Studio, tool windows are the small panes on the edges of your IDE like the solution/file list, Git changes window, document outline, etc. You can rearrange these windows by clicking and dragging on their titles and then “docking” them to another side of the IDE. You can also auto-hide them so they show only on hover of your mouse.

In this Preview 4 release, we’ve brought the ability to drag and dock tool windows from Visual Studio 2019 for Mac and went one step further to make it similar to the Visual Studio experience on Windows. Now when you drag a tool window, you’ll see on-screen icons that show you where the window can be docked.

Visual Studio 2022 for Mac with a file list (solution window) docked on the right side of the IDE. The window is then dragged and dropped to dock on the left side.
Moving the solution window from the right-side of the IDE to the left-side.

We’re also experimenting with a way to dock windows by selecting the drop-down menu at the top of each tool window and selecting a drop target. This makes it easier to move windows without having to click and drag, which can be uncomfortable for some developers with motor control challenges or repetitive stress injuries. This is an early preview of this feature, which you can turn on with the “Enable the Snap Control in Tool Windows” option from the Visual Studio > Preferences… > Preview Features menu.

A tool window with a context menu open, showing a component with rectangles that represent edges of the IDE for docking a window. Selecting a rectangle, either by voice or with a mouse, will move the window to that area.
An experimental docking menu for tool windows.

A quicker way to search and navigate your source code

Along with porting the rest of the search results window to native UI in this release, we’ve also brought forward grouping and to make it easier to get to the results you need when searching your solution.

Search Results window showing the results of a source code search. The window has a Group By dropdown set to "Path Only" and shows options for viewing results in a tree view, or list. A Search Find Results search box is also available.
The new search results window with “group by” and “Search within results,” in Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 4.

The existing Search Results experience in Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 3; showing only search results with no other options in the window.
The prior search results window in Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 3.

Continuing the move to native macOS UI

In our Preview 1 blog post, we mentioned our goal with Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is to make a modern .NET IDE tailored for the Mac that delivers the productive experience you’ve come to love in Visual Studio. In this latest preview release, we continued this work by porting the following UIs:

  • Git > Manage Stashes… menu
  • Window > Layout > Save Current Layout… menu
  • Preferences/Project Options > Code Formatting settings, and Standard Headers

Please keep sharing your feedback

As we move forward with our preview releases, we want to keep in close contact with developers like you who are trying the release. If you’re interested in hearing directly from our team, join our Preview Newsletter – we’ll share updates on what’s new and provide more opportunities for you to give feedback to our team.

Finally, please share your thoughts in our Visual Studio for Mac Preview survey, and keep sending those suggestions or problem reports coming! You can use the Help > Report a Problem or Help > Provide a Suggestion menus to share feedback, or go to the Visual Studio for Mac Developer Community site to vote for those that impact you the most.

17 comments

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  • prodbyjonny 0

    any news on native m1 support? how is it going so far?

    • Jordan MatthiesenMicrosoft employee 0

      Thanks for asking! Yes, we’re still working on it and making sure it’s a good quality experience in an upcoming preview release. Stay tuned!

      • Oguzhan Polat 0

        When we can expect the final version as there is one for windows? There is AI code helping you finish your code only with one letter for example a <div….. But, I wasn't able to use that in mac.

  • Fabien Geraud 0

    to fully native macOS UI

    Hello i was curious about the framework you use? Xamarin like mono develop?

    • Jordan MatthiesenMicrosoft employee 0

      The Xamarin.Mac framework is what we use behind the scenes that enables the IDE to run natively, but be written in all managed code. It handles creating the “glue” APIs we can use to call directly to native Cocoa/AppKit APIs.

      • Paulo Pinto 0

        So apparently MAUI and accessing macOS via Catalyst weren’t up for the job, in terms of native Cocoa/AppKit APIs support required for such kind of applications.

      • kill aragorn 0

        Hello I am curious how the managed code calls the interface of the Cocoa class ? Can you guide me ? Looking forward to your reply

  • Rajesh Aravapalli 0

    Does this supports TFVC or only GIT? It’s unfortunate that microsoft dropped TFVC in VS MAC 2019

  • 鱼星辰 霜子 0

    Still don’t have any information about IntelliCode? Do you still plan to add this feature to the MAC version? I want to buy a MAC recently, and I really want to know. If you don’t add IntelliCode, I won’t buy a MAC.

  • John Welch 0

    is Powershell going to be supported within VS any time soon?

  • 炬武 阙 0

    any news on native m1 support? how is it going so far?

  • Pauline Hampshire 0

    I am doing a university course which is using outdated demos of Visual Studio Windows 2019, and I’m using Mac OS Visual studio 2022. They talk about the difference between .net framework and .net core. Is there .net framework on this Mac version of Visual studio?

    • Andreas Jakof 0

      Since .Net Framework was „Windows Only“ (except maybe running through WINE), I pretty much doubt it.
      Nevertheless, you could run a Windows in a VM … even on ARM-Macs. But the differences (in code at least) are not that big, even though the runtimes are completely different.

  • Le, Chau 0

    Hey, do you think you can add color formatting for aspx files? There is no color formatting whatsoever going on in my aspx files.

  • Saiu Fantasy 0

    when support maui?the file template lost xaml format!!!!

  • Eric Hamrick 0

    Any chance preview 5 will show up soon with M1 arm64 support and more features in the menus implemented that currently pop up a message saying it is not available yet? Thanks!

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