Visual Studio news feed
Visual Studio news feed
Latest posts
Visual Studio 2022 Launch videos available on-demand
Visual Studio 2022 Launch videos are now available on-demand. Catch up and learn all about the new release.
Visual Studio 2022 is now available
We’ve reached general availability for Visual Studio 2022 and .NET 6, both of which are now available for download. Visual Studio 2022 will help you go from idea to code faster than ever. Developer productivity and quality-of-life improvements are at the heart of Visual Studio 2022, and we’re excited for you to try it out. Simply put, Visual Studio 2022 will let you bring your ideas to life.
Announcing .NET 6 – The Fastest .NET Yet
.NET 6 is now available. It is easier to use, runs faster, and has many new features.
Join us November 8 for the Launch of Visual Studio 2022
On behalf of our entire team, we are excited to announce the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2022 on November 8, and the immediate availability of the Visual Studio 2022 Release Candidate (RC). We invite you to explore the latest capabilities of Visual Studio 2022 at our virtual launch event on November 8.
Visual Studio 2022 Preview 4 is now available
We are excited to announce the fourth preview release of Visual Studio 2022! With Preview 4, there are more new capabilities on the themes of personal and team productivity, modern development, and constant innovation. In this blog, we’re highlighting a few of the new capabilities of Visual Studio 2022 Preview 4. We’d love for you to download it, try it out, and join us in shaping the next major release of Visual Studio with your feedback.
Announcing .NET 6 Release Candidate 1
We are happy to release .NET 6 Release Candidate 1. It is the first of two “go live” release candidate releases that are supported in production. For the last month or so, the team has been focused exclusively on quality improvements that resolve functional or performance issues in new features or regressions in existing ones
Boost your productivity with Productivity Power Tools Extensions in Visual Studio 2022
Visual Studio 2022 is here and is more customizable than ever. However, that experience may not be complete without the essential extensions you know and love. As existing extensions continue to be migrated, we’re excited to announce that one of the most popular and anticipated sets of extensions is now available to download today: Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2022!
The Future of Visual Studio Extensibility is Here
Visual Studio 2022 seeks to greatly improve your overall development experience, and we’re moving forward with that journey in improving VS extension writing and usage today! We have several exciting extensibility updates that are either available now or on the horizon, so let’s check them out!
Visual Studio 2022 Preview 3 now available!
We are excited to announce the third preview release of Visual Studio 2022! With Preview 3 there are more new capabilities on the themes of personal and team productivity, modern development, and constant innovation.
Visual Studio 2019 v16.11 is Available Now
We are excited to announce the release of Visual Studio 2019 v16.11 GA. This release improves upon the Git tooling experience in Visual Studio, enables Hot Reload for .NET applications, adds convenient links to the help menu, and upgrades LLVM tools to LLVM 12.
Speed up your .NET and C++ development with Hot Reload in Visual Studio 2022
With the recent release of Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2 we’d like to use this blog post to dive deeper into the brand-new Hot Reload experience which works for both managed .NET and newly supported native C++ apps.
Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2 is out!
We’re excited to announce the second preview release of Visual Studio 2022! Preview 1 was the first-ever 64-bit Visual Studio, delivering improved scalability. Starting with Preview 2, we’re focusing on delivering new capabilities on the themes of personal and team productivity, modern development, and constant innovation. In this blog we’re going to highlight a few of the new capabilities of Visual Studio 2022. We’d love for you to download it, try it out, tell us what you think, and join us in shaping the next major release of Visual Studio with your feedback.
Build and Debug C++ with WSL 2 Distributions and Visual Studio 2022
Visual Studio 2022 introduces a native WSL 2 toolset for C++ development. This toolset is available now in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.0 Preview 2. WSL 2 is the new, recommended version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) architecture that provides better Linux file system performance, GUI support, and full system call compatibility.
Design your Web Forms apps with Web Live Preview in Visual Studio 2022
In Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2, we have introduced a new designer for WebForms projects that is powered by Web Live Preview. In this post we will go over how you can use the new Web Forms designer as well as other features provided by Web Live Preview.
Debug code with force run to cursor
Have you ever had an experience when breakpoints in your application cause some disruption in your debugging, because you may need to test your updated code or focus on another area that does not need those break conditions? Starting Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2, you can use “Force Run To Cursor”, for these scenarios. It is like “Run To Cursor,” but you can keep your breakpoints and the debugger will skip over them until it reaches the line of code with the cursor. It will also skip any of the first-chance exceptions break conditions that may occur.
.NET Object Allocation Tool Performance
With the release of Visual Studio 16.10 comes a new analysis engine for the Performance Profiler, with the .NET Object Allocation Tool being the first tool to be onboarded. This provides the tool with some new features and a significant perf boost. Give it a shot with your C# app and see what spurious allocations you can remove to speed up your app!
Debugging for Unity with Visual Studio
So you’re ready to level up your debugging skills with Unity and Visual Studio? Check out our new video series in this playlist: Beginner Series: Intro to Visual Studio Tooling for Unity. This series focuses on common Unity troubleshooting scenarios and how you can use Visual Studio to find and fix them
Visual Studio 2022 Preview 1 now available
We’re excited to announce that the first preview release of Visual Studio 2022 is ready to install! This is the first release of a 64-bit Visual Studio and we’d love for you to download it, try it out, and join us in shaping the next major release of Visual Studio with your feedback.
Type less, code more with IntelliCode completions
IntelliCode now predicts the next chunk of code based on your current context, and presents it as an inline suggestion to the right of your cursor. If you like it, just hit tab-tab to accept it; otherwise simply keep on typing to adjust the completion further.
Announcing .NET 6 Preview 5
We are thrilled to release .NET 6 Preview 5. We’re now in the second-half of the .NET 6 release, and starting to see significant features coming together. A great example is .NET SDK Workloads, which is the foundation of our .NET unification vision and enables supporting more application types. Like other features, it is coming together to provide a compelling end-to-end user experience.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 6 Preview 5
.NET 6 Preview 5 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core.
Announcing .NET MAUI Preview 5
While we are still recovering from Microsoft Build and .NET 6 Preview 4, we are here to share our continued progress with .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) with .NET 6 Preview 5. In this release we have enabled animations and view transformations, completed the porting of several UI components, and introduced improvements to the single project templates.
Learn What’s New in .NET Productivity
The .NET Productivity team (aka. Roslyn) continues to enhance your developer productivity with the latest tooling updates in Visual Studio 2019. In the last release, we listened to your feedback and have been hard at work improving the .NET developer experience. To try out the latest .NET productivity enhancements download the latest Visual Studio release.
Build apps for Microsoft Teams with .NET in Visual Studio
We recently announced updates to the Teams Toolkit – a streamlined way to create, debug, and deploy apps to Microsoft Teams. In this post, we’re taking a closer look at how to get started developing a new Microsoft Teams app with .NET and Blazor using the Teams Toolkit extension for Visual Studio 2019 that’s in early Preview.
Visual Studio 2019 v16.10 and v16.11 Preview 1 are Available Today
We are excited to announce the release of Visual Studio 2019 v16.10 GA and v16.11 preview 1. This release makes our theme of developer productivity and convenience Generally Available to Visual Studio users! We’ve added C++20 features, improved Git integration, improved profiling tools, and a host of features that accelerate productivity.
Introducing the .NET Hot Reload experience for editing code at runtime
Today, we are excited to introduce you to the availability of the .NET Hot Reload experience in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.11 (Preview 1) and through the dotnet watch command-line tooling in .NET 6 (Preview 4). In the rest of this blog post, we’d like this opportunity to walk you through what is .NET Hot Reload, how you can get started using this feature, what our vision is for future planned improvements and clarity on what type of edits and languages are currently supported.
Announcing .NET MAUI Preview 4
Today we are pleased to announce the availability of .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) Preview 4. Each preview introduces more controls and features to this multi-platform toolkit on our way to general availability this November at .NET Conf. .NET MAUI now has enough building blocks to build functional applications for all supported platforms, new capabilities to support running Blazor on the desktop, and exciting progress in Visual Studio to support .NET MAUI.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 6 Preview 4
.NET 6 Preview 4 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core.
Announcing .NET 6 Preview 4
We are delighted to release .NET 6 Preview 4. We’re now about half-way through the .NET 6 release. It’s a good moment to look again at the full scope of .NET 6, much like the first preview post. Many features are in close-to-final form and others will come soon now that the foundational building blocks are in place for the release.
All vcpkg enterprise features now generally available
We are announcing the general availability of vcpkg versioning and registries, which, combined with our earlier release of manifests and binary caching, comprise our solution for vcpkg in the enterprise space. These features are free and are now on by default in the tool, no longer requiring feature flags to be manually turned on to opt in.
The Visual Studio family welcomes you at Microsoft Build 2021
Come join us at Microsoft Build, our largest developer conference, to explore what’s new in tech. This year, Build will be kicking off at 8:00 AM Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 25, 2021 (see in your time zone).You can expect an event packed with exciting product announcements, live keynotes, breakout sessions with cool demos, and Q&A with experts from different product teams, available across multiple time zones.
Finding Bugs with AddressSanitizer: Patterns from Open Source Projects
AddressSanitizer (ASan) was officially released in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9. We recently used this feature to find and fix a bug in the MSVC compiler itself. To further validate the usefulness of our ASan implementation, we also used it on a collection of widely used open-source projects where it found bugs in Boost, Azure IoT C SDK, and OpenSSL. In this article, we present our findings by describing the type of bugs that we found and how they presented themselves in these projects.
Announcing Visual Studio 2022
Read all about the vision for the recently-announced Visual Studio 2022. It will be feature-rich and full of improvements that make you a happier developer. And did we mention it's 64-bit?
Enhanced Productivity with Git in Visual Studio
We continue to enhance the Git experience in Visual Studio and are excited to announce some long-awaited updates in version 16.10 Preview 2. You can download the latest Preview and run it right alongside your main release, leaving your production installation undisturbed.
Visual Studio 2019 v16.10 Preview 2 Releases Today
We are excited to announce the release of Visual Studio v16.10 preview 2. This release continues a theme of developer productivity and convenience. We’ve added C++20 ranges, IntelliSense completions, and new features for testing, Docker tooling enhancements, and Git integration!
Announcing .NET 6 Preview 3
Today, we are delighted to release .NET 6 Preview 3. This release is dedicated almost entirely to low-level performance features. These are the types of improvements that many folks don’t necessarily always fully appreciate, but they help a lot for many apps. Most of these improvements apply to the CLR type system directly, either making it function faster or better interplay with modern CPUs (think “hardware accelerate the type system”).
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 6 Preview 3
.NET 6 Preview 3 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core. Check out this post to see what’s new in this preview release.
Announcing .NET Multi-platform App UI Preview 3
With .NET 6 Preview 3 we are shipping the latest progress for mobile and desktop development with .NET Multi-platform App UI. This release adds the Windows platform with WinUI 3, improves the base application and startup builder, adds native lifecycle events, and continues to add more UI controls and layout capabilities. We are also introducing new semantic properties for accessibility. As we explore each of these in a bit more detail, we invite you to dotnet new along with us and share your feedback.
Announcing Open Source C# standardization
The C# compilers have been open source since 2014, now in the dotnet/roslyn repository. The dotnet/csharplang split off to provide a dedicate public space for the innovation and evolution of the C# language. Now, dotnet/csharpstandard completes the group, providing a public space for the ongoing work to document the standard for the latest C# language versions.
.NET 5 NuGet Restore Failures on Linux distributions using NSS or ca-certificates
We will be releasing updated builds of NuGet this week to accommodate NuGet restore failures on Linux distributions. The failures are observed when updated versions of the NSS or ca-certificates packages are installed. Users of .NET 5 and .NET 6 must upgrade to the latest .NET SDK builds in order to ensure continued functional use of the .NET SDK on Linux
Monitoring and Observability in Cloud-Native ASP.NET Core apps
Distributed applications are complex and bring in their own set of challenges for developers to debug and fix production issues. Though the microservices architecture helps maintain a smaller team that works autonomously and focuses on separate business domains, it introduces newer challenges due to its distributed nature. In this post, we talked in-depth about the Observability and Monitoring in a Cloud-Native app.
Announcing .NET 6 Preview 2
Today, we are glad to release .NET 6 Preview 2. It includes new APIs, runtime performance improvements, and early builds of .NET MAUI. It also includes builds for Apple Silicon, which were missing for Preview 1.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 6 Preview 2
.NET 6 Preview 2 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core.
What’s new with GitHub Actions tooling in Visual Studio
Our Publish experience today enables many different ways for developers to get their development, staging, or production apps to various endpoints in their local/network environments and directly to their cloud resources in Azure.
Announcing the New TypeScript Handbook
Hey folks, we’re happy to announce that a fresh re-write of the TypeScript Handbook is out of beta and is now our website’s primary resource for learning TypeScript!
Address Sanitizer for MSVC Now Generally Available
We’re thrilled to announce that as of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9, the C++ Address Sanitizer (ASan) for MSVC experience is fully supported. Thanks to all who tried it out while it was experimental in earlier versions of the IDE and filed issues to help make this release all-the-better!
.NET Core 2.1 will reach End of Support on August 21, 2021
.NET Core 2.1 will be reaching end of support on August 21, 2021. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide updates (which includes security fixes) or technical support for this version. You’ll need to update the version of .NET Core you’re using to a supported version (.NET Core 3.1 or .NET 5.0) before this date in order to continue to receive updates
Introducing the .NET Upgrade Assistant Preview
Today we’re excited to introduce a tool we’ve been working on to help you upgrade your .NET Framework-based applications to .NET 5 called the .NET Upgrade Assistant. The .NET Upgrade Assistant is a .NET global command-line tool that gives you a guided experience for incrementally upgrading your applications. Currently in preview, the .NET Upgrade Assistant determines which projects need to be upgraded and recommends the order they should be upgraded in. The tool automates more tasks in the upgrade process that you would normally do manually like upgrading to the new SDK-style project format, re-targeting them to ...
New Dynamic Instrumentation Profiling for .NET in Visual Studio 2019
With the release of version 16.9 of Visual Studio, instrumentation profiling in Visual Studio just got better. Introducing our new dynamic instrumentation tool. This tool shows the exact number of times your functions are called and is faster than our previous static instrumentation tool. It also supports .NET Core instrumentation without needing PDBs
F# and F# tools update for Visual Studio 16.9
We’re excited to announce updates to the F# tools for Visual Studio 16.9. Since the F# 5 release last November, we’ve been hard at work to improve the F# tools experience in Visual Studio.
Frictionless repeated edits: IntelliCode suggestions in completion list
Now, in Visual Studio 16.9 you can easily apply suggestions in a frictionless way all without breaking your editing flow. You can find IntelliCode suggestions right in your IntelliSense completion list, and can find and apply the same change at other locations
Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 and v16.10 Preview 1 are Available Today!
Visual Studio team is eager to release Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 and v16.10 Preview 1. We hope you enjoy the new features highlighted from some of teams such as C++, .NET Productivity, Address Sanitizer, XAML Tooling, and IntelliCode teams. In addition, Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 is our next long-term servicing release
Tune in for .NET Conf: Focus on Windows, February 25th
The .NET Conf team is bringing you another “.NET Conf: Focus” event Thursday, February 25 all about building Windows desktop apps. We have finalized the agenda, speakers, and hosts that will make the day educational and fun. We have .NET and Windows team members along with community speakers and MVPs to show you some amazing things you can do.
Generating HTTP API clients using Visual Studio Connected Services
We’re continuing our series on building HTTP APIs with .NET 5. In the first post in this series we talked about building well-described APIs using OpenAPI, and then followed that up taking a deeper dive into some of the open-source tools and packages you can use to make your HTTP API development easier. In this post, the third in the series, we’ll talk about how Visual Studio Connected Services gives you a convenient way of generating .NET clients for your HTTP APIs so your .NET apps can use the APIs via the Internet.
Announcing .NET 6 Preview 1
Today, we are happy to deliver the first preview of .NET 6 and share what you can expect from the new release. We have been defining the overall shape of the release for the last few months, including a large set of new experiences and capabilities. The heart of .NET 6 is delivering the final parts of the .NET unification plan that started with .NET 5. The release will also include major improvements across all parts of .NET, including for cloud, desktop, and mobile apps.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 6 Preview 1
.NET 6 Preview 1 is now available and ready for evaluation. This is the first preview of .NET 6, the next major update to the .NET platform. .NET 6 is expected to ship in November of this year, and will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release.
Announcing TypeScript 4.2 RC
Today we’re excited to announce our Release Candidate of TypeScript 4.2! Between now and the stable release of TypeScript 4.2, we expect no further changes apart from critical bug fixes
Open-source HTTP API packages and tools
We’re continuing our series on building HTTP APIs with .NET 5. In the previous post, we covered Creating Discoverable HTTP APIs with ASP.NET Core 5 Web API. In this post, we’ll go further with a look at using open-source HTTP API packages and tools.
Analyzing Code with Infer#
Want to detect reliability and security bugs before they ship? Matthew Jin and Xiaoyu Liu show Infer#, a static analysis tool you can use to validate the correctness of source code without needing to execute it.
Blizzard Diablo IV debugs Linux core dumps from Visual Studio
Blizzard is using Visual Studio 2019 to debug Linux core dumps on WSL. The following blog post is written by Bill Randolph, a Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard working on the development of Diablo IV.
Improvements to the new Razor editor in Visual Studio
It’s been six months since we announced the first preview of a new experimental Razor editor for Visual Studio based on a common Razor language server and it’s time to give an update on our progress. The team has been hard at work bringing the new Razor editor up to parity with the old one, fixing bugs, and adding lots of great new functionality. We think the new editor is close to being ready for normal daily development, so now is the time to give it a try with the latest Visual Studio preview.
Windows ARM64 support for CMake projects in Visual Studio
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9 Preview 3 we added support for deploying CMake projects to a remote Windows machine and debugging them with the Visual Studio remote tools. CMake developers targeting ARM64 Windows can now cross-compile (with cl or clang-cl), deploy, and debug their projects directly from Visual Studio.
MSVC Backend Updates in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9 Preview 3
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.9 Preview 3 we have continued to improve the C++ backend with new features, new and improved optimizations, build throughput improvements, and better security. Here is a brief list of improvements for you to review.
Software development in 2021 and beyond
Software development in 2021 and beyond - An article by Amanda Silver on how we can come together to grow and support developer talent amid unprecedented demand, improve developer inclusivity and velocity, and help engineering teams scale-out through open source and low-code tools.
Azure Active Directory’s gateway is on .NET Core 3.1!
Check out this blog to learn how the Azure Active Directory team got massive perf gains by moving from .NET Framework to .NET Core 3.1.
Inspecting application metrics with dotnet-monitor
dotnet-monitor is a command line tool that makes it easier to get access to diagnostics information in a dotnet process. In the episode, Rich is joined by Sourabh who explains to us the importance of gathering application diagnostics and also gives us a demo of how to run dotnet-monitor in Kubernetes
Diagnostics improvements in .NET 5
Building upon the diagnostics improvements we introduced in .NET Core 3.0, we’ve been hard at work further improving this space. We are excited to introduce the next wave of diagnostics improvements.
Announcing TypeScript 4.2 Beta
We’re excited to hear your thoughts on TypeScript 4.2! With the beta we’re still in relatively early stages, but we’re counting on your feedback to help make this an excellent release
A more integrated terminal experience
As part of the new additions of the Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 release, and thanks to your feedback, we have added a couple new tricks to the integrated terminal! It now allows you to open a new terminal to a location based on your Solution Explorer selection and provides customizable commands for copy and paste.
Generate a GitHub Actions workflow with Visual Studio or the dotnet CLI
Learn how you can generate a GitHub Actions workflow with Visual Studio or the dotnet CLI
What’s next for System.Text.Json?
.NET 5.0 was released recently and has come with many new features and performance improvements. System.Text.Json is no exception. We have improved performance, reliability, and made it easier to adopt for people who are familiar with Newtonsoft.Json. In this post, we are going to talk about the progress that has been made with System.Text.Json, and what’s going to come next
PowerShell 7.2 Preview 2 release
Today we are proud to announce the second preview release of PowerShell 7.2. This preview is still based on .NET 5 as we wait for the first preview of .NET 6 which we expect PowerShell 7.2 to be based upon.
gRPC Web with .NET
gRPC-Web allows browser-based applications to call into gRPC services via a special proxy. .NET developers are now able to build and consume services that use gRPC-Web using the Grpc.AspNetCore.Web NuGet package. In this episode, James Newton-King joins Cecil to explain how gRPC-Web works and show us what the code looks like to support this feature
What’s new in Windows Forms runtime in .NET 5.0
Since Windows Forms was open sourced in late 2018, and ported to .NET Core, both the team and our external contributors have been busy fixing old bugs and adding new features. In this post we are going to talk about what’s new in Windows Forms runtime in .NET 5.0
Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 Preview 2 and New Year Wishes Coming to You!
As we quickly move towards the end of this unpredictable year, our team is delivering at least one more set of features your way in Visual Studio 2019 v16.9 Preview 2! Our C++, .NET, and Xamarin Forms teams have been hard at work to deliver some great new functionality.
Improving Debug-time Productivity with Source Link
Learn how you can improve debug-time with Source Link. With Source Link-enabled libraries, the debugger can download the underlying source files as you step in, and you can set breakpoints/tracepoints like you would with any other source. Source Link-enabled debugging makes it easier to understand the full flow of your code from your code down to the runtime. Source Link is language-agnostic, so you can benefit from it for any .NET language and for some native libraries.
Learn C# with Visual Studio, Visual Studio for Mac, and Unity (and win a free book!)
Learn C# with a fun beginner programming challenge, and enter to win a free copy of Head First C#! Ends December 9, so get started now!
C++20 Features in Visual Studio 2019 versions 16.7 and 16.8
We have continued our efforts to implement C++20 in the MSVC toolset, with noteworthy progress being made in VS (Visual Studio) 2019 v16.7 and VS 2019 v16.8. This blog post lists the features implemented since the C++20 Features and Fixes in VS 2019 16.1 through 16.6 blog post.
GitHub accounts are now integrated into Visual Studio 2019
Starting with version 16.8, you’ll be able to add both GitHub and GitHub Enterprise accounts directly from Visual Studio. The new functionality allows you to add and leverage them just as you do with Microsoft accounts, which means that you’ll have an easier time accessing your GitHub resources across Visual Studio.
What’s new in .NET Productivity
The .NET Productivity team (a.k.a. Roslyn) wants to help you be more productive! We’ve seen a lot of excitement in the past few months over our latest features which automate and reduce editing tasks to a single click and help save you time. In this post, I’ll cover some of the latest .NET productivity features available in Visual Studio 2019
The Coalition Sees 27.9X Iteration Build Improvement with Visual Studio 2019
Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 3.2 introduces significant build and link time improvements. In this blog post, we detail how the team in The Coalition building Gears 5 tested the compile and link times in three different versions of Visual Studio.
Getting Started With NuGet 5.8
NuGet 5.8 is included in Visual Studio 16.8 and .NET 5.0 out of the box. You can also download NuGet 5.8 for Windows, macOS, and Linux as a standalone executable.
Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 and v16.9 Preview 1 Release
Visual Studio team is proud to announce the release of Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 and v16.9 Preview 1. These releases have several notable features from the teams improving Git Productivity, C++, IntelliCode, .NET, XAML, and Web Tools. In addition, we hope you have been able to sign-up for our Preview of GitHub Codespaces as there is so much excitement about this new development environment!
Announcing the Release of the Git Experience in Visual Studio
We’re excited to announce that our new Git tooling is now the default source control experience in Visual Studio 2019, beginning with version 16.8. We’ve been working on this experience over the last year, iterating based on your feedback to build out key features, enhance performance, and fine tune quality. Above all, we’ve focused on improving discoverability for your common workflows and simplifying navigation to reduce context-switching.
Announcing .NET 5.0
We’re excited to release .NET 5.0 today and for you to start using it. It’s a major release — including C# 9 and F# 5 — with a broad set of new features and compelling improvements. It’s already in active use by teams at Microsoft and other companies, in production and for performance testing.
Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 5
.NET 5 is now released! .NET 5 is the next version of .NET Core and the future of the .NET platform. With .NET 5 you have everything you need to build rich, interactive front-end web UI and powerful backend services. ASP.NET Core in .NET 5 is loaded with lots of great new features and improvements
.NET 5.0 Launches at .NET Conf, November 10-12
.NET Conf is a free, three-day, virtual developer event co-organized by the .NET community and Microsoft. This year .NET 5.0 will launch at .NET Conf 2020. Come celebrate and learn about the new release.
GitHub Codespaces in Visual Studio
Want to see Microsoft's vision for cloud-powered development environments that enable developers to get up and running quickly and work from anywhere on any platform? Visual Studio PM Vix Ryan shows the ease of power of GitHub Codespaces.
A Tour of C++ Modules in Visual Studio
C++ module support has arrived in Visual Studio! Grab the latest Visual Studio Preview if you want to try it out. C++ modules can help you compartmentalize your code, speed up build times, and they work seamlessly, side-by-side with your existing code.
The Future of Visual Studio Extensions
With new improvements and additions such as GitHub Codespaces, Git Integrations, and IntelliCode Team Completions, Visual Studio has expanded to make development easier, more customizable, and accessible from any machine. As we continue evolving Visual Studio, what about extensions?! While still early in the design phase, we are creating a new extensibility model. This will make extensions more reliable, easier to write, and supported locally and in the cloud.
Announcing Version 1.0 of .NET for Apache Spark
Today, we announce the release of version 1.0 of .NET for Apache® Spark™, an open source package that brings .NET development to the Apache® Spark™ platform. This release is possible due to the combined efforts of Microsoft and the open source community. Version 1.0 includes support for .NET applications targeting .NET Standard 2.0 or later. Access to the Apache® Spark™ DataFrame APIs (versions 2.3, 2.4 and 3.0) and the ability to write Spark SQL and create user-defined functions (UDFs) are also included in the release.
gRPC performance improvements in .NET 5
gRPC is a modern open source remote procedure call framework. There are many exciting features in gRPC: real-time streaming, end-to-end code generation, and great cross-platform support to name a few. The most exciting to me, and consistently mentioned by developers who are interested in gRPC, is performance.
Get more done with search in Visual Studio
Over the years, the Search feature in Visual Studio has gotten faster and more capable. You might have missed some of the things it can do to help you be more productive and get the most out of Visual Studio. So, let’s take a closer look at how you can use Search in your daily work.
ASP.NET Core Series: PWA’s with Blazor
Progressive Web Applications (PWA) use modern browser APIs and capabilities to behave like a desktop app. Since Blazor WebAssembly is a standards-based client-side web app platform, developers have the ability to leverage these browser APIs and create PWAs using .NET.
Introducing .NET Live TV – Daily Developer Live Streams
Today, we are launching .NET Live TV, your one stop shop for all .NET and Visual Studio live streams across Twitch and YouTube. We are always looking for new ways to bring great content to the developer community and innovate in ways to interact with you in real-time. Live streaming gives us the opportunity to deliver more content where everyone can ask questions and interact with the product teams.
Announcing advanced Azure Machine Learning nanodegree program with Udacity
Earlier this year, we empowered over 10,000 students from all over the world to learn the basics of machine learning over the course of four months. We are excited to announce the next stage of skilling with the availability of an advanced machine learning nanodegree on Udacity. Starting today, students can enroll for the Machine Learning Engineer for Microsoft Azure Nanodegree Program
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Release Candidate 2
.NET 5 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) is now available and is ready for evaluation. ASP.NET Core in .NET 5 contains lots of great new functionality and improvements in this release.
Announcing .NET 5.0 RC 2
Today, we are shipping .NET 5.0 Release Candidate 2 (RC2). It is a near-final release of .NET 5.0, and the last of two RCs before the official release in November. RC2 is a “go live” release; you are supported using it in production. At this point, we’re looking for reports of any remaining critical bugs that should be fixed before the final release
Introducing the new Azure SDK for C++ Beta
The Azure SDK team is pleased to announce their first beta release of the new Azure SDK for C++. Unlike the previous Azure Storage specific SDK, the new Azure SDK for C++ is idiomatic to the C++ language and ensures consistency in behavior and API surface when communicating with multiple Azure services. This initial beta supports Azure Blob Storage, File Shares, and Data Lake; support for Azure KeyVault Keys is coming soon
Cross Platform Managed Memory Dump Debugging
I am really happy to announce that with the release of Visual Studio 16.8 Preview 3 you now have the ability to open and analyze managed dumps collected on Linux and use the best in class debugging tools available in Visual Studio.
Xamarin.Essentials 1.6 preview: macOS, media, and more!
Xamarin.Essentials has been a staple for developers building iOS, Android, and Windows apps with Xamarin and .NET since it was first released last year. Now, we are introducing Xamarin.Essentials 1.6, which adds new APIs ncluding MediaPicker, AppActions, Contacts, and more
Game Development with .NET
We’ve launched a new Game Development with .NET section on our site. It’s designed for current .NET developers to explore all the choices available to them when developing games. It’s also designed for new developers trying to learn how to use .NET by making games.
Build and debug Qt projects on Linux with Qt Visual Studio Tools
Qt is a popular cross-platform framework for application development and user interface design. Qt recently released a new version of the Qt Visual Studio Tools extension that integrates with Visual Studio’s Linux development with C++ workload. This extension allows you to build and debug MSBuild-based Qt projects on both Windows and Linux directly from Visual Studio.
C++ Core Check in Visual Studio
The C++ team has been expanding C++ Core Check’s coverage over the last five years. We have added more rules into the existing Type, Bounds, and Lifetimes profiles and have expanded into other areas of the C++ Core Guidelines
Enabling resilient DevOps practices with code to cloud automation
Learn how you can enable resilient DevOps practices with GitHub and Azure and ship faster while maintaining governance, security, and compliance standards while working remotely.
Simplify Microservice Development with Bridge to Kubernetes in Visual Studio
Setting up and running a microservice application locally can be time-consuming and complex. Visual Studio PM Nick Greenfield shows how Bridge to Kubernetes enables you to connect to a Kubernetes cluster without needing to manually source, configure and compile external dependencies on your development workstation
Achieving business resilience with cloud application development
Learn about new capabilities in Visual Studio, GitHub, and Azure to help your team move to remote development, increase velocity with confidence, and drive cost savings.
Azure Static Web Apps with .NET and Blazor
As of today, Azure Static Web Apps now has first-class support for Blazor WebAssembly and .NET Functions in preview, available in all supported regions. This was one of the top user requests since Static Web Apps was announced at Build. You can develop and deploy a frontend and a serverless API written entirely in .NET.
Using GitHub Codespaces with .NET Core
In May of this year we announced Visual Studio Codespaces and early support for .NET Core developers. Since then we’ve had some early adopters try it out and they gave us great feedback. We’ve made a bunch of progress on enabling more in the Codespaces capabilities as well. We’ve also made some fundamental changes as we are now GitHub Codespaces!
Using GitHub Actions in Visual Studio is as easy as right-click and Publish
. The publish experience in Visual Studio now has an option to generate a GitHub Actions workflow for CI/CD to your preferred Azure resources, by using deployment secrets configured in your GitHub repository.
Welcome C++ developers to GitHub Codespaces!
In May we announced Visual Studio Codespaces and its early support for C++ developers. Over the last several months we interviewed early adopters, and based on their feedback we continued to add new functionality and to improve the Codespaces experience.
New Features in Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 3.1
We are releasing Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 3.1. In this release, we are giving you access to improvements in Git Integration, C++20 conformance, .NET Productivity, Web Tools, and XAML .
A developer’s guide to Ignite 2020
Microsoft Ignite will take place online, kicking off on the morning of September 22nd, at 8:00 AM in the Pacific Time Zone. The event programming will include live segments, digital breakout sessions, and Q&A, available across multiple time zones. Be sure to visit the Ignite home page to view the event agenda and additional details. Check out the complete line up for Azure App Developer sessions
Announcing TypeScript 4.1 Beta
Today we’re announcing the availability of TypeScript 4.1 Beta!
Visual Studio IntelliCode Team Completions
With IntelliCode, you can train a custom model just for your codebase, based on your usages of those types. Learn more.
Debug Your .NET Core Apps in WSL 2 with Visual Studio
Are you a .NET Core developer who loves working in Windows and Visual Studio, but needs to test your app in Linux? Are you a cross-platform developer that needs an easy way to test more of your target environments? The .NET Core Debugging with WSL 2 – Preview extension gives you the ability to run and debug your .NET Core apps in WSL 2 without leaving Visual Studio.
A Multitude of Updates in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 Preview 3
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 Preview 3 comes with a huge collection of updates for C++ programmers. Download today to try out new additions in conformance, performance, and productivity.
C++ Coroutines in Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.8
With the adoption of coroutines into the C++ standard in 2019, we are now pleased to announce feature completion of C++20 coroutines in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8.
Announcing Entity Framework Core (EFCore) 5.0 RC1
Today, the Entity Framework Core team announces the first release candidate (RC1) of EF Core 5.0. This is a feature complete release candidate of EF Core 5.0 and ships with a "go live" license. You are supported using it in production. This is a great opportunity to start using EF Core 5.0 early while there is still time to fix remaining issues. We're looking for reports of any remaining critical bugs that should be fixed before the final release.
Standard C++20 Modules support with MSVC in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8
We are excited to announce Standard C++20 Modules support with MSVC in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8. The toolset, project system, and IDE teams have been hard at work to create a first class C++ Modules experience in Visual Studio 2019. There is a lot to share, so let’s get right into it:
C11 and C17 Standard Support Arriving in MSVC
Our team is happy to announce that C11 and C17 are becoming supported language versions in the MSVC compiler toolset starting with Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 Preview 3!
Announcing .NET 5.0 RC 1
Today, we are shipping .NET 5.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1). It is a near-final release of .NET 5.0, and the first of two RCs before the official release in November. RC1 is a “go live” release; you are supported using it in production. At this point, we’re looking for reports of any remaining critical bugs that should be fixed before the final release. We need your feedback to get .NET 5.0 across the finish line.
.NET CLI Templates in Visual Studio
Visual Studio has had templates for a long time and .NET Core’s command-line interface (CLI) has also had the ability to install templates and use them via `dotnet new` commands. Starting in Visual Studio 16.8 Preview 2 we’ve enabled a preview feature that you can turn on that enables all templates that are installed via CLI to now show as options in Visual Studio as well.
Running WordPress on .NET Core
Did you know you can actually run WordPress on .NET Core? In this episode, Benjamin and Jakub from the Peachier project show us how they enable developers to run Wordpress on .NET Core.
Automatically find latent bugs in your code with .NET 5
It’s an exciting time to be writing code! Especially for .NET developers as the platform keeps getting smarter. We now include rich diagnostics and code suggestions in the .NET SDK by default. Before you would need to install NuGet packages or other stand-alone tools to get more code analysis. Now, you will automatically get these in the new .NET 5 SDK.
Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 2 Releases New Features Today!
New features in Git Integration, .NET Productivity, Web Tools, and Xamarin are releasing in Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 2. Each of our teams continue to work hard to delight our developers. For this reason, Preview releases are some of the most exciting for us as we wait to hear how our newest features impact your work.
Announcing .NET 5.0 Preview 8
Today, we are releasing .NET 5.0 Preview 8. The .NET 5.0 release is now “feature complete”, meaning that very nearly all features are in their final form (with the exception of bug fixes still to come). Preview 8 is, appropriately, the last preview. We plan on releasing two go-live release candidates before the final .NET 5.0 release in November.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 8
.NET 5 Preview 8 is now available and is ready for evaluation. Checkout what's new in this release
Announcing TypeScript 4.0
Today we are thrilled to announce the availability of TypeScript 4.0! This version of the language represents our next generation of TypeScript releases, as we dive deeper into expressivity, productivity, and scalability.
.NET Productivity Tips and Tricks
The .NET Productivity team (a.k.a. Roslyn) is constantly thinking of new ways to make .NET developers more productive. Roslyn PM Mika Dumont shows a number of the latest features that make your coding life better, including her favorite (IntelliSense completion in DateTime and TimeSpan string literals).
Detect First Run with Xamarin.Essentials
One common scenario that developers often need to integrate into an app, is showing a prompt when an app is launched for the first time. This could be to display a disclaimer or to walk users through the functionality of the app. This can be done on first launch of the app. Even after install or for a specific version. Using Xamarin.Essentials helps integrate this functionality with a just few lines of code.
Bring the best of the Web to your .NET desktop applications with WebView2
Today, we are happy to announce the release of the WebView2 preview for .NET applications! WebView2 is available for both .NET Core and .NET Framework. It can be used inside of WPF, Windows Forms and WinUI 3.0 applications all the way down to Windows 7
Building & Debugging Microservices faster using Kubernetes and Visual Studio
See how you can take advantage of Visual Studio tools to build, debug and deploy microservices to Kubernetes faster.
Evolving .NET Framework Monoliths with .NET 5 and Kubernetes
You want to migrate your .NET monolith to microservices so you can run it in Kubernetes? That could be a year-long project, and you really don't need to do it. This session gives you a pragmatic approach to evolving your monolith, breaking features out into new microservices to get all the benefits of Kubernetes without a full rewrite.
Build High-performance Microservices with gRPC and .NET
gRPC is a high-performance RPC framework designed for microservices. In this talk you will learn how to use gRPC in .NET and see how gRPC's support for deadlines and cancellation can be used to create fast, reliable microservice apps.
Announcing TypeScript 4.0 RC
Today we’re announcing our release candidate of TypeScript 4.0
Making repeated edits easier with IntelliCode suggestions
Your repeated edit experience is now enhanced by IntelliCode suggestions in Visual Studio 2019 16.7. IntelliCode spots repetitions and suggests other places in your code where you could apply that same change.
Angular Language Service for Visual Studio
Great news everyone: The Angular Language Service is coming to Visual Studio!
Visual Studio Remote Office Hours – Being a Program Manager for .NET & Visual Studio
Join Mads Kristensen as he sits down with Kendra Havens, .NET & Visual Studio Program Manager, to discuss what a day in the life of being a PM is like
Visual Studio 2019 v16.7 and v16.8 Preview 1 Release Today
Today we are excited to announce the release of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7 and Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 Preview 1.
Learn about the latest .NET Productivity features
The .NET Productivity team (a.k.a. Roslyn) is constantly thinking of new ways to make .NET developers more productive. We’ve been working hard to take the feedback you’ve sent us and turn it into tools that you want! In this post, I’ll cover some of the latest .NET productivity features available in Visual Studio 2019.
Three reasons to migrate your ASP.NET apps and SQL Server data to Azure
Here are three ways you’ll benefit from migrating your ASP.NET apps and SQL Server data to Azure
ASP.NET Core Updates in .NET 5 Preview 7
Exciting new updates to the Git experience in Visual Studio
New experimental Razor editor for Visual Studio
Mastering Multilingual in Xamarin.Forms
Performance Improvements in .NET 5
.NET 5 has already seen a wealth of performance improvements, and even though it’s not scheduled for final release until this fall and there’s very likely to be a lot more improvements that find their way in by then. learn about a bunch of the improvements that are already available now
C++ Linux development with Visual Studio: incremental build improvements and expanded shell support
Visual Studio 2019 allows C++ developers to target both Windows and Linux (including the Windows Subsystem for Linux) from the comfort of a single IDE. Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7 Preview 3 introduces two features specific to Linux development: improved build incrementality for MSBuild-based Linux projects, and support for a wider range of Linux distributions and shells.
Improving the authentication experience for enterprises leveraging Conditional Access policies
As part of the Visual Studio 2019 16.6 update, we’ve introduced a set of new capabilities to improve your overall authentication experience. While these changes benefit all Visual Studio users, they are especially helpful if you need to work across Azure AD tenants that have enabled multi-factor authentication (MFA) policies.
A deep-dive into WinUI 3 in desktop apps
Learn about WinUI 3 in desktop apps
Exciting new updates to the Git experience in Visual Studio
We’re excited to share new updates to the Git experience in Visual Studio
Announcing Entity Framework Core EFCore 5.0 Preview 6
Today, the Entity Framework Core team announces the sixth preview release of EF Core 5.0. This release includes split queries for related collections, a new “index” attribute, improved exceptions related to query translations, IP address mapping, exposing transaction id for correlation, and much more.
C++20 Features and Fixes in VS 2019 16.1 through 16.6
We’ve been busy implementing C++20 features in MSVC’s compiler and Standard Library, and migrating the latter to microsoft/STL on GitHub – in fact, we’ve been so busy that we haven’t posted a C++ toolset changelog since the VS 2019 16.0 toolset changelog. So, here are the compiler features and STL features/fixes that have shipped for production use in the last year.
.NET Virtual Events in July
With life gone virtual, there are tons of new ways to take your development skills to the next level! Below are just a few of the amazing online events, streams, and videos to tune into this July. Stay active with your developer communities through upcoming .NET and Xamarin events. Get lots of exciting content provided by the teams at Microsoft and the global community. Read on to find out more about events this month and information to help you host your own virtual experiences!
Introducing dotnet-monitor, an experimental tool
dotnet-monitor is an experimental tool that makes it easier to get access to diagnostics information in a dotnet process.
Orchard Core Release Candidate 2 now available
We are thrilled to announce that Orchard Core RC2 is now available.
Announcing .NET 5.0 Preview 6
Today, we’re releasing .NET 5.0 Preview 6. It contains a small set of new features and performance improvements. The .NET 5.0 Preview 4 post covers what we are planning to deliver with .NET 5.0. Most of the features are now in the product, but some are not yet in their final state. We expect that the release will be feature-complete with Preview 8.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 6
.NET 5 Preview 6 is now available and is ready for evaluation. Here’s what’s new in this release:
Announcing TypeScript 4.0 Beta
Today we’re excited to release the beta of the next major milestone in the TypeScript programming language: TypeScript 4.0.
F# 5 and F# tools update for June
We’re excited to announce more updates to F# 5 today! We shipped an initial set of features with F# 5 preview 1, and they have all been stabilizing since that release including a updates from last month. Today, we’re happy to announce some new language features, a sneak peek at using F# in VSCode notebooks, and some F# tooling updates that will align with Visual Studio 2019 Update 16.7.
3 Ways to Customize Your Windows Terminal
Windows Terminal is here! From the buzz of the announcement at Microsoft Build 2019 to the release of 1.0 at Build 2020, it’s generated excitement and interest from the dev community. Get started by downloading the Preview here.
gRPC-Web for .NET now available
gRPC-Web for .NET is now officially released. We announced experimental support in January and since then we’ve been making improvements based on feedback from early adopters.
Xamarin.Forms 4.7: Grid Column & Row Definitions, Multi-Bindings, Shapes & Paths, and More!
Today, the Xamarin.Forms team is releasing Xamarin.Forms 4.7 with a collection of feature additions and improvements. These new features will let you unleash your full creative abilities when developing Xamarin.Forms applications.
Resolving PowerShell Module Assembly Dependency Conflicts
When writing a PowerShell module, especially a binary module (i.e. one written in a language like C# and loaded into PowerShell as an assembly/DLL), it’s natural to take dependencies on other packages or libraries to provide functionality.
GPU accelerated ML training inside the Windows Subsystem for Linux
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) enables Windows users to run native, unmodified Linux command-line tools directly on Windows. WSL usage has grown a lot since it was first announced 4 years ago, at Microsoft Build 2016, and now runs on more than 3.5 million monthly active devices!
Azure responds to COVID-19
The global health pandemic continues to impact every organization—large or small—their employees, and the customers they serve. Over the last several months, we have seen firsthand the role that cloud computing plays in sustaining operations across the board that helps us live, work, learn, and play.
Introducing “Web Live Preview”
If you work on any type of app that has a user interface (UI) you probably have experienced that inner-loop development cycle of making a change, compile and run the app, see the change wasn’t what you wanted, stop debugging, then re-run the cycle again. Depending on the frameworks or technology you use, there are options to improve this experience such as edit-and-continue, Xamarin Hot Reload, and design-time editors. Of course, nothing will show the UI of your app like…well, your app!
Introducing Local Process with Kubernetes for Visual Studio 2019
Today, we’re proud to announce the Local Process with Kubernetes preview feature in Visual Studio 2019 16.7 Preview 2.
.NET Core June 2020 Updates – 2.1.19 and 3.1.5
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core June 2020 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Be prepared for what’s next: Accelerate cloud migration
We are in the midst of unprecedented times with far-reaching implications of the global health crisis to healthcare, public policy, and the economy. Organizations are fundamentally changing how they run their businesses, ensure the safety of their workforce, and keep their IT operations running. Most IT leaders that we have had the opportunity to speak with over the past couple of months are thinking hard on how to adapt to rapidly changing conditions. They are also trying to retain momentum on their well-intentioned strategic initiatives.
How Do I Debug Async Code in Visual Studio?
In a recent post, we explored the basics of asynchronous code, why it’s important, and how to write it in C#. However, while it can improve your program’s overall throughput, async code is still not exempt from bugs! Writing async code makes debugging more difficult when potential deadlocks, vague error messages, and finding which task(s) are causing a bug are thrown into the mix. Luckily, Visual Studio has several new and old features compatible with managed, native, and JavaScript to help ease your frustrations with debugging async code. Let’s take a tour!
Announcing .NET 5.0 Preview 5
Today, we’re releasing .NET 5.0 Preview 5. It contains a small set of new features and performance improvements. The .NET 5.0 Preview 4 post covers what we are planning to deliver with .NET 5.0. Most of the features are now in the product, but many are not yet in their final state. We expect that the release will be very close to feature-complete by Preview 7.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 5
.NET 5 Preview 5 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 5.0 Preview 5
Today we are announcing the fifth preview release of EF Core 5.0.
.NET Core June 2020 Updates – 2.1.19 and 3.1.5
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core June 2020 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
June patches for Azure DevOps Server and Team Foundation Server
This month, we are releasing fixes for security vulnerabilities that impact our self-hosted product, Azure DevOps Server 2019, as well as the following older Team Foundation Server releases: TFS 2017 and TFS 2018. The following vulnerabilities will be fixed with this patch:
Visual Studio Subscriptions administrator feature updates
Over the past few months, we’ve interviewed a number of our Visual Studio Subscriptions administrators, and had a couple different surveys running in the administration portal to better understand what you like, don’t like, and absolutely hate about the current admin experience (yes the surveys are read by the PM team; it’s not a black hole).
Introducing YARP Preview 1
YARP is a project to create a reverse proxy server. It started when we noticed a pattern of questions from internal teams at Microsoft who were either building a reverse proxy for their service or had been asking about APIs and technology for building one, so we decided to get them all together to work on a common solution, which has become YARP.
Save money and improve agility and scale by modernizing your SQL Server to Azure SQL
We’re all adapting to uncertain times. As employees shift to more remote ways of working and consumer behavior changes to meet the new normal, businesses are faced with a challenging choice: slow down operations to operate more cost-effectively, lean into new opportunities that may not have otherwise existed, or both. Either way, the ability to quickly adapt and scale to changing conditions can help businesses operate in today’s environment and emerge more agile and ready to serve their customers more effectively tomorrow.
“The Azure SQL family: Innovation and value in the cloud “
How businesses respond in times of uncertainty is as varied as the businesses themselves. Many slow down operations to operate more cost-effectively, while others lean into new opportunities that didn’t exist before. Regardless of how you respond, ensuring your organization can cost-effectively adapt and scale to rapidly changing conditions is key.
Azure Maps Creator now available in preview
As enterprises continue to evolve in their digital transformation journey, there is a need for augmenting Azure Maps content with project-specific and private business knowledge of places. Today we're launching Azure Maps Creator in preview to extend location intelligence to indoor spaces.
Microsoft and Docker collaborate on new ways to deploy containers on Azure
Now more than ever, developers need agility to meet rapidly increasing demands from customers. Containerization is one key way to increase agility. Containerized applications are built in a more consistent and repeatable way, by way of defining desired infrastructure, dependencies, and configuration as code for all stages of the lifecycle. Applications often start and stop faster at runtime too, which often helps quickly start, stop, scale out, and update in the cloud.
Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2020.05.29
Happy Friday! This is the last post for this month – and it’s been a good month. I hope you’ve had time to check out some of the sessions from build via the Microsoft Build page. If you haven’t, it’s not too late to find something to watch. I’m still catching up on sessions.
Help us improve WPF and UWP XAML designer
We would like to make your experience developing WPF and UWP applications in Visual Studio better!
Profiling template metaprograms with C++ Build Insights
The use of templates in C++ programs can sometimes lead to longer builds. C++ Build Insights puts tools at your disposal for analyzing template usage patterns and their associated impact on build time. In this article, we show you how to use the vcperf analysis tool and the C++ Build Insights SDK to understand and fix problematic template patterns. We demonstrate the practical use of these tools through a case study in which we reduced build time for the Sprout open-source metaprogramming library by 25%. We hope these methods will help you approach your template endeavors with confidence!
F# 5 and F# tools update
We’re excited to announce some updates to F# 5 today! We shipped a lot of preview features since F# 5 preview 1, and they have all been stabilizing since that release. Today, we’re happy to announce some minor additions to F# 5 and talk about some pretty cool performance work we’ve been doing.
Continuous integration workflow template for .NET Core desktop apps with GitHub Actions
We know how time consuming it can be to quickly set up continuous integration and continuous deployment workflows (CI/CD) for your WPF and Windows Forms desktop applications.
Learn with Visual Studio Remote Office Hours
A new live broadcast directly from the Visual Studio team (my garage to be exact) is now streaming near you every Thursday morning. It’s about everything Visual Studio and you get rare insights into the inner workings of features, processes, and the people that make it all happen. This is like being in the machine room and you get to see and hear it all.
Reuse Xamarin.Forms Pages in an iOS Extension
iOS extensions allow developers to customize existing system behaviors by adding extra functionality to iOS and macOS Extension Points. Such as custom context actions, password autofill, and incoming calls filters. Even actions like notification content modifiers. Xamarin.iOS supports extensions and this awesome guide will walk you through creating an iOS extension using Xamarin tools.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 5.0 Preview 4
Today we are excited to announce the fourth preview release of Entity Framework Core (EF Core) 5.0.
Keep your IntelliCode completions fresh with our GitHub Action for Team Completions
Visual Studio IntelliCode helps by giving contextually-rich code completion suggestions as you type. This allows you to code faster, onboard to new projects sooner, and learn new APIs more quickly.
Using Visual Studio Codespaces with .NET Core
What a time to be a .NET developer! Lots of great announcements at Build, new releases for .NET Core and new preview projects for cloud native development make me excited to be a .NET developer!
Welcome to C# 9.0
C# 9.0 is taking shape, and I’d like to share our thinking on some of the major features we’re adding to this next version of the language.
Announcing Experimental Mobile Blazor Bindings May update
It’s been a few months so it’s time for another update of Experimental Mobile Blazor Bindings! This release brings several bug fixes in the areas of CSS styling support, adding XML doc comments to common APIs, and several syntax improvements to common controls.
Introducing Project Tye
Project Tye is an experimental developer tool that makes developing, testing, and deploying microservices and distributed applications easier.
Improvements to XAML tooling in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7 Preview 1
Hello once again from the XAML tooling team in Visual Studio. Given this week’s many new and exciting releases at Microsoft Build 2020 I want to take this opportunity to recap what’s new for those building WPF or UWP applications, and where applicable, Xamarin.Forms. This blog post is similar to our update back in December 2019, so if you missed that post I recommend giving it a read as well.
Introducing .NET Multi-platform App UI
You can build anything with .NET. It’s one of the main reasons millions of developers choose .NET as the platform for their careers, and companies invest for their businesses. With .NET 5 we begin our journey of unifying the .NET platform, bringing .NET Core and Mono/Xamarin together in one base class library (BCL) and toolchain (SDK).
ML.NET Model Builder is now a part of Visual Studio
ML.NET is a cross-platform, machine learning framework for .NET developers. Model Builder is the UI tooling in Visual Studio that uses Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) to train and consume custom ML.NET models in your .NET apps. You can use ML.NET and Model Builder to create custom machine learning models without having prior machine learning experience and without leaving the .NET ecosystem.
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 now available
I’m thrilled to announce that Blazor WebAssembly is now officially released. This is a fully-featured and supported release of Blazor WebAssembly that is ready for production use. Full stack web development with .NET is now here!
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 4
.NET 5 Preview 4 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.
Releasing Today! Visual Studio 2019 v16.6 & v16.7 Preview 1
Microsoft Build 2020 begins today! Our entire Visual Studio team has been eagerly awaiting this virtual event as it represents great effort and dedication from all of our team members and partners. We anticipate the announcements and demonstrations showcased this week will impact your work. Consequently, we and are eager to hear your favorites. The first releases out of our home offices are Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 and 16.7 Preview 1. Both of these have productivity features to detail in a moment, but we have one more big announcement. Visual Studio Codespaces, our cloud-hosted development environments th...
Developer Velocity: Empowering developers to fuel business performance
Developers have been drivers of innovation and transformation for decades. They have pioneered innovation across countless industries and helped businesses weather tough conditions. Now, we are living in unprecedented times where organizations in every industry and sector are working to adjust to a new normal, rethinking how business is done and meeting new, changing customer demands.
Code, collaborate, and ship your apps from anywhere
Welcome to Microsoft Build 2020! This all-new 48-hour digital experience is designed to help you and other developers around the world come together to solve challenges, share knowledge, and stay connected. Here we’ll cover some of our latest innovations in developer tools and cloud platform technologies—to help you code, collaborate, and ship your apps from anywhere, so you can support the changing needs of your business and continue to deliver the quality experiences that your customers expect.
Expanding Visual Studio 2019 support for Visual Studio Codespaces
Now more than ever, developers are juggling multiple projects at work and at home. New features, bug fixes, PR reviews, & prototypes all compete for time and attention on limited resources. Visual Studio Codespaces provides hosted development environments that allow you to develop entirely in the cloud. With Visual Studio Codespaces, you can create dedicated, custom environments for each of your projects in seconds. You can connect to your codespaces from Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio Code or the built-in browser-based editor. Each codespace is an environment that’s running on Linux (public preview) or Wi...
Developing for all 1 billion Windows 10 devices and beyond
This year, Microsoft Build 2020 is a digital-only event that we all get to experience from the comfort of our homes. We hope you enjoy learning about the new features and technologies that matter most to you. Today, I will have the privilege of sharing how developers can build apps for modern work using Microsoft 365 and Windows platforms. I will focus on 4 key areas of improvements to the Windows platform:
Announcing .NET 5 Preview 4 and our journey to one .NET
.NET 5 is the next version and future of .NET. We are continuing the journey of unifying the .NET platform, with a single framework that extends from cloud to desktop to mobile and beyond. Looking back, we took the best of .NET Framework and put that into .NET Core 3, including support for WPF and Windows Forms. As we continue the journey, we will move Xamarin and .NET web assembly to use the .NET 5 libraries, and extend the dotnet tools to target mobile and web assembly in the browser. At the same time, we’ll continue to improve .NET capabilities as a leading cloud and container runtime.
Announcing TypeScript 3.9
Today we’re excited to announce the release of TypeScript 3.9!
Start Developing on Windows 10, version 2004 Today
The Windows 10 SDK for Windows 10, version 2004 is now available with a go-live license. Build 19041, also known as the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, is now in the Release Preview Windows Insider ring.
Building a Progressive Web App with Blazor
A Progressive Web Application (PWA) is a Single Page Application (SPA) that uses modern browser APIs and capabilities to behave like a desktop app. Blazor WebAssembly (now in preview) includes support for Progressive Web Applications. Today, I want to show you how to build your first Blazor PWA. I am using the latest preview of Visual Studio for Mac, you can also create them using the latest Visual Studio 2019 Preview on Windows.
.NET Core May 2020 Updates – 2.1.18 and 3.1.4
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core May 2020 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
.NET Framework May 2020 Security and Quality Rollup Updates
Today, we are releasing the May 2020 Security and Quality Rollup Updates for .NET Framework.
Faster builds with PCH suggestions from C++ Build Insights
The creation of a precompiled header (PCH) is a proven strategy for improving build times. A PCH eliminates the need to repeatedly parse a frequently included header by processing it only once at the beginning of a build. The selection of headers to precompile has traditionally been viewed as a guessing game, but not anymore! In this article, we will show you how to use the vcperf analysis tool and the C++ Build Insights SDK to pinpoint the headers you should precompile for your project. We’ll walk you through building a PCH for the open source Irrlicht project, yielding a 40% build time improvement.
Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2020.05.08
Happy Friday! This weekend in the United States we celebrate Mother’s Day. Growing up, my mom was definitely the project manager of the house. I think she may appreciate this weeks posts about work item and iteration management. All our tasks were assigned weekly, but we weren’t really an agile household (otherwise, I’d have self-organized myself out of cutting the lawn every week). We also have an interesting challenge with Azure API Management and a way to keep your private build agents .NET Core up to date.
PowerShell 7 Video Series
Enterprises, partners, and IT professionals store business-critical data in Azure Blob Storage. We are committed to providing the best-in-class data protection and recovery capabilities to keep your applications running. Today, we are announcing the general availability of Geo-Zone-Redundant Storage (GZRS)—providing protection against regional disasters and Account failover—allowing you to determine when to initiate a failover instead.
Azure Blob Storage enhancing data protection and recovery capabilities
Enterprises, partners, and IT professionals store business-critical data in Azure Blob Storage. We are committed to providing the best-in-class data protection and recovery capabilities to keep your applications running. Today, we are announcing the general availability of Geo-Zone-Redundant Storage (GZRS)—providing protection against regional disasters and Account failover—allowing you to determine when to initiate a failover instead.
Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets now provide simpler management during scale-in
We recently announced the general availability of three features for Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets. Instance protection, custom scale-in policy, and terminate notification provide new capabilities to simplify management of virtual machine instances during scale-in.
Using ML.NET for deep learning on images in Azure
In March 2020, ML.NET added support for training Image Classification models in Azure. Although the image classification scenario was released in late 2019, users were limited by the resources on their local compute environments. Training in Azure enables users to scale image classification scenarios by using GPU optimized Linux virtual machines.
Exposure Notification API Support for Xamarin Apps
Last month, Apple and Google announced plans for creating Exposure Notification APIs. By leveraging Bluetooth Low Energy, this help developers implement contact tracing for both iOS and Android. Our team has been tracking the releases of these APIs to ready them for Xamarin developers. Today, we are pleased to announce our first preview of bindings for the iOS and Android Exposure Notification APIs!
Pure Virtual C++ Conference 2020 Videos and Survey Available
The videos of all Pure Virtual C++ 2020 sessions are now available on YouTube.
Configuring Azure Services and emulators using Visual Studio
Starting with Visual Studio 16.6 Preview 2 the Connected Services tab offers a new experience called Service Dependencies. You can use it to connect your app to Azure services such as Azure SQL, Storage, Key Vault and many others. Wherever possible local emulation options are also available and more are planned for the future.
Vcpkg 2020.04 Update and Product Roadmap
This is the April 2020 blog post on vcpkg, the cross-platform, open source C/C++ library manager. In this post, we will share some information on the 2020.04 release of vcpkg and discuss the vcpkg product roadmap, which we are publishing and will keep up to date over time. To try out vcpkg for yourself and save yourself some time acquiring your project dependencies, follow the instructions on our GitHub repository.
Introducing Visual Studio Codespaces: cloud-hosted development for wherever you’re working
As we’ve all been adopting practices like social distancing and remote working, development teams have become more distributed. Our own team has been facing some of the challenges that are part of this transition, and it has motivated us to double down on our priority to help developers stay productive from anywhere. First, we made remote collaboration easier by enabling users to join Live Share sessions from their browser. Today, I’m excited to share more news, this time related to Visual Studio Online, that will help you be productive from wherever you’re working.
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Release Candidate now available
The Blazor WebAssembly Release Candidate is here! This release contains all of the features and improvements that we expect to release for the upcoming Blazor WebAssembly release. There are no more breaking changes planned at this point. Please give the Blazor WebAssembly Release Candidate a try and let us know what you think!
Rust/WinRT Public Preview
We are excited to announce that the Rust/WinRT project finally has a permanent and public home on GitHub:
Introducing C# Source Generators
We’re pleased to introduce the first preview of Source Generators, a new C# compiler feature that lets C# developers inspect user code and generate new C# source files that can be added to a compilation. This is done via a new kind of component that we’re calling a Source Generator.
Xamarin.Forms 4.6: Material Components, Shell, and the Future
Today, we are shipping Xamarin.Forms 4.6 with a host of quality improvements, including several new feature previews. With more controls available “in the box” than ever before, it has never been easier to quickly build quality mobile apps.
Announcing TypeScript 3.9 RC
Today we’re announcing the availability of TypeScript 3.9 RC, the release candidate of TypeScript 3.9. Between now and the final release, we expect no further changes apart from critical bug fixes.
Announcing General Availability of YAML CD features in Azure Pipelines
We’re excited to announce the general availability of the Azure Pipelines YAML CD features. We now offer a unified YAML experience to configure each of your pipelines to do CI, CD, or CI and CD together.
Exception Helper – Rethrown Exceptions
Ever had a bug in an async method that caused an exception? Been frustrated that the debugger doesn’t show you where that exception happened? Or been frustrated when looking at an exception that has an inner exception, but the debugger doesn’t easily show you where that exception was from? Starting from the Visual Studio 2019 16.5 release, the exception helper now contains the original call stack for a rethrown exception. This helps you get to the root cause in your code of any rethrown exceptions. This is especially helpful in the case of async exceptions, which are caught and then re-thrown by framework code.
Work flow of diagnosing memory performance issues – Part 2
In this blog post I’ll talk a bit about how to spend time wisely and then continue with the analysis. Originally I was going to delve deeper into the GCStats view but I actually just debugged a long suspension issue that I wanted to share 'cause it shows some general ideas of what to do when you hit problems during an analysis. You can skip to the analysis part directly if you like.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 5.0 Preview 3
Today we are excited to announce the third preview release of EF Core 5.0.
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Preview 5 release now available
A new preview update of Blazor WebAssembly is now available! Here’s what’s new in this release:
Announcing .NET 5.0 Preview 3
Today, we’re releasing .NET 5.0 Preview 3. It contains a set of new features and performance improvements. We’re continuing to work on the bigger features that will define the 5.0 release. The .NET 5.0 Preview 1 post covers what we are planning on building for .NET 5.0. Please take a look at the post and the dotnet/designs repository and share any feedback you have. And, of course, please install Preview 3, and test your workloads with it.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 3
.NET 5 Preview3 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.
Xamarin.Essentials: Now with Permissions, App Theme, & Authentication
Since the first release of Xamarin.Essentials, developers have enjoyed the simplification of complex native features into a single cross-platform library. They can do this across iOS, Android, UWP, Tizen, watchOS, and even tvOS! No matter what type of app you are writing, there is absolutely something in Xamarin.Essentials for you. With the recent release of Xamarin.Essentials 1.5, even more cross-platform capabilities are unlocked for developers. Let us review just a few features that you can access right now.
Creating and Packaging a .NET Standard library
In this post we will cover how you can create a .NET Standard library and then share that with other developers via NuGet. We will be demonstrating this with Visual Studio for Mac, but you can also follow along with Visual Studio, or Visual Studio Code when using the dotnet CLI. If you are on macOS, and haven’t already download Visual Studio for Mac you can download it here. We will create a new .NET Standard library from scratch, configure it for NuGet and then publish to nuget.org. The sample library will be a logging package.
Finding build bottlenecks with C++ Build Insights
C++ Build Insights offers more than one way to investigate your C++ build times. In this article, we discuss two methods that you can use to identify bottlenecks in your builds: manually by using the vcperf analysis tool, or programmatically with the C++ Build Insights SDK. We present a case study that shows how to use these tools to speed up the Git for Windows open source project. We hope these tutorials will come in handy when analyzing your own builds.
GSL 3.0.0 Release (C++)
Version 3.0.0 of Microsoft’s implementation of the C++ Core Guidelines Support Library (GSL) is now available for you to download on the releases page. Microsoft’s implementation of gsl::span has played a pivotal role in the standardization of span for C++20. However, the standard does not provide any runtime checking guarantees for memory bounds safety. The bounds safety provided by gsl::span has been very successful in preventing security issues in Microsoft products. This release maintains the safety guarantees that we have always offered but modernizes our implementation to align with C++20 span.
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Preview 4 release now available
A new preview update of Blazor WebAssembly is now available! Here’s what’s new in this release:
Embedded Fonts: Custom Fonts in Xamarin.Forms
There are a number of posts about using custom fonts in Xamarin.Forms. However, embedded fonts definitely takes the cake. No more platform-specific handling of fonts and adding font files in three different projects. Just one file and an attribute in your shared code and your font is ready to go. In this post we will see how to use it in Xamarin.Forms 4.5.530 and up.
April patches for Azure DevOps Server and Team Foundation Server
This month, we are releasing patches that impact our self-hosted product, Azure DevOps Server 2019, as well as Team Foundation Server 2018. There are no security fixes with this patch; these patches include functional changes.
Work flow of diagnosing memory performance issues – Part 1
In this blog post I’ll talk a bit about contributing to PerfView and then continue with the GCStats analysis. You can skip to the analysis part directly if you like.
Sync Mobile Apps with the Cloud via Change Tracking API
If you are creating a mobile app that will work sending data back and forth from the cloud (I guess that 99% of the apps fall into this use case), you will have at some point the need to sync data between the app and the cloud itself.
See What’s New in Visual Studio 2019 v16.6 Preview 3!
Today we are excited to reveal some new features in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 3. Despite our challenges of learning how to work from home such as interruptions by kids, pets and internet blips, we continue to deliver new features to you. We are also eagerly preparing for our first virtual Build 2020 conference in May. We’d love to hear from where in the world you’ll be watching! Until the start of the conference, we hope these new features will keep you busy creating the software your imagination designs. Thank you for downloading our preview version, and, as always, we value your feedback through D...
Porting a C++/CLI Project to .NET Core
One of the new features of Visual Studio 2019 (beginning with version 16.4) and .NET Core 3.1 is the ability to build C++/CLI projects targeting .NET Core. This can be done either directly with cl.exe and link.exe (using the new /clr:netcore option) or via MSBuild (using <CLRSupport>NetCore</CLRSupport>). In this post, I’ll walk through the steps necessary to migrate a simple C++/CLI interop project to .NET Core. More details can be found in .NET Core documentation.
Balancing work on GC threads (.NET)
In Server GC, each GC thread will work on its heap in parallel (that’s a simplistic view and is not necessarily true for all phases but on the high level it’s exact the idea of a parallel GC). So that alone means work is already split between GC threads. But because GC work for some stages can only proceed after all threads are done with their last stage (for example, we can’t have any GC thread start with the plan phase until all GC threads are done with the mark phase so we don’t miss objects that should be marked), we want the amount of GC work balanced on each thread as much as possible so the total pause can...
MSVC Backend Updates in Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.5
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 we have continued to improve the C++ backend with new features, new and improved optimizations, build throughput improvements, and better security. Here is a brief list of improvements for you to review.
Depending on the right PowerShell NuGet package in your .NET project
Alongside the executable packages published with each PowerShell release, the PowerShell team also maintain several NuGet packages that are available on NuGet to allow targeting PowerShell as an API platform in .NET.
Work flow of diagnosing memory performance issues – Part 0
I wanted to describe what I do to diagnose memory perf issues, or rather the common part of various work flows of doing such diagnostics. Diagnosing performance issues can take many forms because there’s no fixed steps you follow. But I’ll try to break it down into basic blocks that get invoked for a variety of diagnostics.
Bring your own machine to Visual Studio Online
Today Visual Studio Online provides fully-managed, on-demand, ready-to-code development environments in the cloud, but did you know you can also register your own machines and access them remotely from Visual Studio Code or our web editor? This is a great option for developers that want to cloud-connect an already configured work or home machine for anywhere access, or take advantage of the Visual Studio Online developer experience for specialized hardware we don’t currently support. We’ve made several improvements to streamline the self-hosted registration process and expand supported scenarios.
New templates for debugging CMake projects on remote systems and WSL in Visual Studio 2019
We heard your feedback that it can be difficult to configure debugging sessions on remote Linux systems or the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 2 we introduced a new debugging template to simplify debugging with gdb.
A guide to remote development with Live Share
Working in a fully distributed, remote team requires sophisticated collaboration technology, which needs to be both supercharged and frictionless. Visual Studio Live Share was built on the bold principle of making remote developer collaboration as powerful and natural as in-person collaboration. We knew that our paradigm: “share your context, not your screen,” was only feasible, if we allowed the power of the modern IDE translate to remote collaboration sessions.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 5.0 Preview 2
Today we are excited to announce the second preview release of EF Core 5.0.
Thank you, Visual Studio docs contributors (March 2020)
We want to say a big thank you to everyone who contributed to the docs in March of 2020! You are helping make the Visual Studio docs clearer, more complete, and more understandable for everyone. We love that our community takes the time to get involved and share their knowledge.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 2
.NET 5 Preview2 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.
Remoting into DevOps
The impacts of the COVID-19 global health pandemic on our lives and work will ripple out for years. With almost no notice, nearly the entire world has been thrust into remote work. As we adjust to this new normal, DevOps can help.
.NET for Apache® Spark™ In-Memory DataFrame Support
.NET for Apache Spark is aimed at making Apache® Spark™, and thus the exciting world of big data analytics, accessible to .NET developers. .NET for Spark can be used for processing batches of data, real-time streams, machine learning, and ad-hoc query.
Social Authentication with Xamarin.Essentials and ASP.NET Core
Many apps require adding user authentication. This often means enabling users to sign into existing Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and (now) Apple Sign-In accounts.
Regex Performance Improvements in .NET 5
The System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace has been in .NET for years, all the way back to .NET Framework 1.1. It’s used in hundreds of places within the .NET implementation itself, and directly by thousands upon thousands of applications. Across all of that, it represents a significant source of CPU consumption.
Helping Customers Effectively
I have to put a disclaimer here since this is not the usual type of blog posts I write. I’m by no means a master at communication. This is just what I thought that seemed to work well. YMMV of course. But I’d be very happy if they help you in some way ‘cause many of us work with customers. And I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
Doxygen and XML Doc Comment support
Whether you’re using Doxygen or XML Doc Comments, Visual Studio version 16.6 Preview 2 provides automatic comment stub generation as well as Quick Info, Parameter Help, and Member List tooltip support.
Announcing .NET 5.0 Preview 2
Today, we’re releasing .NET 5.0 Preview 2. It contains a set of smaller features and performance improvements. We’re continuing to work on the bigger features that will define the 5.0 release, some of which are starting to show up as initial designs at dotnet/designs. The .NET 5.0 Preview 1 post covers what we are planning on building for .NET 5.0. Please take a look at the post and the designs repository and share any feedback you have. And, of course, please install Preview 2, and test any workloads you can with it.
Announcing TypeScript 3.9 Beta
Today we’re announcing the availability of TypeScript 3.9 Beta!
Announcing full support for a C/C++ conformant preprocessor in MSVC
We are excited to announce full support for a conformant preprocessor in the MSVC toolset starting with Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 2.
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Preview 3 release now available
A new preview update of Blazor WebAssembly is now available! Here’s what’s new in this release:
IntelliSense Code Linter for C++
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 2, we’re excited to announce a new preview feature to help C++ developers identify and fix code defects as they write code. The IntelliSense Code Linter for C++ checks your code “as-you-type,“ underlines problems in the editor, and Lightbulb actions offer suggested fixes.
Hosted App Model
In Windows 10 version 2004, we are introducing the concept of Hosted Apps to the Windows App Model. Hosted apps are registered as independent apps on Windows, but require a host process in order to run. An example would be a script file which requires its host (eg: Powershell or Python) to be installed. By itself, it is just a file and does not have any way to appear as an app to Windows. With the Hosted App Model, an app can declare itself as a host, and then packages can declare a dependency upon that host and are known as hosted apps. When the hosted app is launched, the host executable is then launched with t...
Increase Binding Possibilities with RelativeSource
The BindingContext is one of the most important parts of the Xamarin.Forms data binding system, especially in MVVM applications. Being built into the Binding type as the common source for bindings in a specific scope reduces plumbing code needed and makes XAML more concise. Unfortunately, for any given View there is only one BindingContext available to bind against. Most of the time this isn’t a problem, but complex data hierarchies often lead to situations where an element needs to bind to the BindingContext of some parent element in addition to its own local BindingContext. For example, you are working with a c...
Introducing the New Pull Request Experience for Azure Repos
Pull Requests are a vital feature for many Azure Repos customers. We are excited to announce that our new pull request web experience is now available in preview! Not only is the new experience mobile-friendly and faster, we have also added several new features to help you review pull requests quicker and improve your overall pull request experience. Customers will see the preview option rollout in the upcoming weeks.
DirectX 12 Ultimate Getting Started Guide
So, you’re a developer sold on the next-gen features in DirectX 12 Ultimate? Look no further than this little guide!
.NET Core March 2020 Updates – 2.1.17 and 3.1.3
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core March 2020 Update. These updates only contain non-security fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Improved Git Experience in Visual Studio 2019
Last week we released version 16.6 Preview 2 of Visual Studio 2019. It contained the first iteration of a revamped Git experience to improve your productivity when working with code on GitHub, Azure Repos, and other hosting services.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 2 Brings New Features Your Way
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 2 comes with several new, exciting capabilities for you to try today. We recognize that everyone is facing unprecedented stress and concerns with current world events. The Visual Studio team are all working from home and learning how to navigate the challenges that brings to our day-to-day lives. Alas, even in these uncertain times, the team is extremely excited to bring you this latest update. Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 2 comes with several new capabilities for you to try. Also, you have the opportunity to offer feedback in Developer Community. As you downl...
Catch up on the latest .NET Productivity features
The Roslyn team continuously works to provide tooling that deeply understands the code you are writing in-order to help you be more productive. In this post, I’ll cover some of the latest .NET Productivity features available in Visual Studio 2019.
Visual Studio Subscriptions resources for remote learning and productivity
If someone had told me three months ago, that very soon I would be required to stay in my house and only leave for necessities, I wouldn’t have believed it. But many of you, like me, are facing this as a new reality. This means increased work as we juggle working from home with our families, or increased spare time on our hands that we weren’t expecting.
Announcing F# 5 preview 1
We’re excited to announce that F# 5 preview 1 is now available! Here’s how to get it
Announcing DirectX 12 Ultimate
From the team that has brought PC and Console gamers the latest in graphics innovation for nearly 25 years, we are beyond pleased to bring gamers DirectX 12 Ultimate, the culmination of the best graphics technology we’ve ever introduced in an unprecedented alignment between PC and Xbox Series X.
Extending the Reach of Windows ML and DirectML
Since the initial release, Windows ML has powered numerous Machine Learning (ML) experiences on Windows. Delivering reliable, high-performance results across the breadth of Windows hardware, Windows ML is designed to make ML deployment easier, allowing developers to focus on creating innovative applications.
.NET Framework March 2020 Update for Windows 10 1607 (Anniversary Update) and Windows Server 2016.
Today, we are releasing an update for .NET Framework 4.8 on Windows 10 1607 (Anniversary Update) and Windows Server 2016.
Updates on .NET Core Windows Forms designer
We released a preview version of Visual Studio 16.6 – Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 Preview 1 and with it a new version of .NET Core Windows Forms designer.
Visual Basic support planned for .NET 5.0
We’ve heard your feedback that you want Visual Basic on .NET Core. Earlier versions of .NET Core supported Class Library and Console applications types. Starting with .NET 5 Visual Basic will support:
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET 5 Preview 1
.NET 5 Preview1 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 5.0 Preview 1
Today we are excited to announce the first preview release of EF Core 5.0.
Async ValueTask Pooling in .NET 5
The async/await feature in C# has revolutionized how developers targeting .NET write asynchronous code. Sprinkle some and around, change some return types to be tasks, and badda bing badda boom, you’ve got an asynchronous implementation. In theory.
Continuous integration and deployment for desktop apps with GitHub Actions
From speaking to desktop developers, we’ve heard that you want to learn how to quickly set up continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) workflows for your WPF and Windows Forms applications in order to take advantage of the many benefits CI/CD pipelines have to offer, such as:
More Spectre Mitigations in MSVC
In a previous blog post, Microsoft described the Spectre mitigations available under . These mitigations, while not significantly impacting performance, do not protect against all possible speculative load attacks, described in industry research as Load Value Injection. We are now adding two new switches and to provide a more complete mitigation of Spectre attacks based on loads for customers. These switches are only available on x86 and x64 platforms.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 is now available
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 partici...
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5
This week, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 was released, bringing new features and improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio to help you build better mobile apps, faster.
Announcing .NET 5 Preview 1
At the end of last year, we shipped .NET Core 3.0 and 3.1. These versions added the desktop app models Windows Forms (WinForms) and WPF, ASP.NET Blazor for building single page applications and gRPC for cross-platform, contract-based messaging. We also added templates for building services, rich generation of client code for talking to gRPC, REST API services, and a lot more. We’re excited to see that .NET Core 3 has become the fastest adopted version of .NET ever and we’ve gained another million more users in just the last year.
.NET Conf: Focus On Xamarin is Next Week!
We are just one week away from the largest Xamarin digital event of the year, .NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin! It all starts at 8 AM PT, 16:00 UTC, Monday, March 23rd with a stellar keynote from Amanda Silver, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Program Manager, along side Xamarin Program Managers Maddy Leger and David Ortinau. Join us on live on the .NET Conf website, and stay with us the entire day for great content.
What do you want to see next in ML.NET?
ML.NET is an open source and cross-platform machine learning framework made for .NET developers.
Announcing the .NET Core Uninstall Tool 1.0!
Today we are releasing the .NET Core Uninstall Tool for Windows and Mac!
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Preview 2 release now available
A new preview update of Blazor WebAssembly is now available! Here’s what’s new in this release:
Microsoft Emulator and Windows 10X Emulator Image (Preview) build 19578 available now!
Today we released new versions of both the Microsoft Emulator and the Windows 10X Emulator Image (Preview) to the Microsoft Store. The updated Microsoft Emulator is version 1.1.54.0 and the updated Windows 10X Emulator Image is version 10.0.19578. This refresh includes many updates to Windows 10X including the Win32 Container. Information on installation and requirements can be found at Get Windows dev tools.
Binding Android Kotlin Libraries
The Android platform, along with its native languages and tooling, is constantly evolving and there are plenty of 3rd party libraries that have been developed using the latest offerings. Maximizing code and component reuse is one of the key goals of cross-platform development. The ability to reuse components built with Kotlin has become increasingly important to Xamarin developers as their popularity amongst developers continues to grow. You may already be familiar with the process of binding regular Java libraries. Additional documentation is now available describing the process of Binding a Kotlin Library, so t...
Analyze your builds programmatically with the C++ Build Insights SDK
We’re happy to announce today the release of the C++ Build Insights SDK, a framework that gives you access to MSVC build time information via C and C++ APIs. To accompany this release, we are making vcperf open source on GitHub. Because vcperf itself is built with the SDK, you can use it as a reference when developing your own tools. We’re excited to see what sort of applications you’ll be building with the SDK, and we’re looking forward to receiving your feedback!
Every Xamarin.Forms Layout is a Repeater Control
When you need to display a lot of data Xamarin.Forms has you covered with awesome controls such as ListView, CollectionView, or CarouselView. These controls are great as they have built in support for scrolling, advanced layouts, and pull-to-refresh. Sometimes, you don’t need the full power of these controls and just want to repeat a control bound to a list of data. A great example is repeating categories for a conference session, profile photos, or icons. This can easily be accomplished by utilizing Bindable Layouts in Xamarin.Forms.
How to write a Roslyn Analyzer
Roslyn analyzers inspect your code for style, quality, maintainability, design and other issues. Because they are powered by the .NET Compiler Platform, they can produce warnings in your code as you type even before you’ve finished the line.
Binding iOS Swift Libraries (Xamarin)
The iOS platform, along with its native languages and tooling, is constantly evolving. There are plenty of 3rd-party libraries that have been developed using the latest offerings. Maximizing code and component reuse is one of the key goals of cross-platform development. This post will elaborate on a high-level approach to creating a Swift Binding for Xamarin.
The Performance Benefits of Final Classes
Marking your classes or member functions as can improve the performance of your code by giving the compiler more opportunities to resolve virtual calls at compile time.
.NET Garbage Collection Provisional Mode
PM stands for Provisional Mode which means after a GC starts, it can change its mind about the kind of GC it’s doing. But what does that mean exactly?
February ML.NET Model Builder Updates
ML.NET is a cross-platform, machine learning framework for .NET developers. Model Builder is the UI tooling in Visual Studio that uses Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) to train and consume custom ML.NET models in your .NET apps. Together, you can now create custom machine learning models for scenarios like sentiment analysis, price prediction, and more.
Custom AI-Assisted IntelliSense for your team (C++)
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview 3 you can now train custom IntelliCode models on your own codebases. This generates something we call a “Team Completions model,” because you’ll start to get suggestions based on your team’s coding patterns.
5 Things to be Excited About Xamarin.Forms 4.5
Every new release of Xamarin.Forms contains dozens of improvements. Today, we are thrilled to share that Xamarin.Forms 4.5 is now available bringing you AndroidX, new capabilities for creating responsive UI, and controls “in the box” to speed your development. Let’s look at what is new in Xamarin.Forms 4.5 with several features to get excited about!
ASP.NET Core Apps Observability
Identifying software error and business impact require a monitoring solution with the ability to observe and report how the system and users behave. The collected data must provide the required information to analyze and identify a bad update.
AVX2 floating point improvements in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5
In Visual Studio 2019 We’ve been working hard on optimizing floating point operations with AVX2 instructions. This post will outline work done so far and recent improvements made in version 16.5.
The Spring 2020 Roadmap for Visual Studio published
The Visual Studio roadmap has been updated to provide a peek into the work planned for Visual Studio through June 2020. It captures significant capabilities that we plan to add, but it’s not a comprehensive feature list. Our goal is to clarify what’s coming so you can plan for upgrades and provide feedback on which features would make Visual Studio a more productive development environment for you and your team.
.NET Framework February 2020 Preview of Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the February 2020 Preview of Quality Rollup Updates for .NET Framework.
AVX-512 Auto-Vectorization in MSVC
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 we added AVX-512 support to the auto-vectorizer of the MSVC compiler. This post will show some examples and help you enable it in your projects.
What’s New in Visual Studio Online
Last November, we unveiled the public preview of Visual Studio Online, which provides managed, on-demand development environments that can be accessed from anywhere using either Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio IDE (in private preview), or the included browser-based editor. Since then, the Visual Studio Online team hasn’t slowed down and we’re excited to bring you several new features ranging from enhanced environment configuration with custom Dockerfile support to enabling setting changes to environments. Your feedback in surveys, phone calls, and on our GitHub have been invaluable to us in defining and priorit...
Qt to support Visual Studio Linux projects
Qt is a popular cross-platform framework for application development and user interface design. Its various libraries and toolsets can be used to create, test, and deploy applications that target multiple platforms and operating systems including Linux, Windows, macOS and embedded/microcontroller systems. Qt recently announced its plan to support Visual Studio Linux projects in an upcoming release of the Qt Visual Studio Tools extension, scheduled for this summer.
Announcing TypeScript 3.8
Today we’re proud to release TypeScript 3.8! For those unfamiliar with TypeScript, it’s a language that adds syntax for types on top of JavaScript which can be analyzed through a process called static type-checking. This type-checking can tell us about errors like typos and values that are potentially and before we even run our code. More than just that, that same type analysis can be used to provide a solid editing experience for both TypeScript and JavaScript, powering operations like code completion, find-all-references, quick fixes, and refactorings. In fact, if you’re already using JavaScript in an editor...
TraceProcessor 1.0.0
TraceProcessor version 1.0.0 is now available on NuGet with the following package ID: Microsoft.Windows.EventTracing.Processing.All
.NET Core February 2020 Updates – 2.1.16, 3.0.3, and 3.1.2
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core February 2020 Update. These updates only contain non-security fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Xamarin.Forms & Xamarin.Essentials Go AndroidX
Last week we released our official stable NuGet packages for AndroidX, which are an exciting replacement for the Android Support Libraries. AndroidX streamlines components into smaller and easier to update libraries for developers to consume. In the post last week, we also outlined several ways to start migrating your Android applications to take advantage of them. Today, I wanted to talk more about our upcoming plans for AndroidX for both Xamarin.Forms and Xamarin.Essentials.
Easily Add, Remove, and Rename Files and Targets in CMake Projects
It’s easier than ever to work with CMake projects in Visual Studio 2019 16.5 Preview 2. Now you can add, remove, and rename source files and targets in your CMake projects from the IDE without manually editing your CMake scripts. When you add or remove files with the Solution Explorer, Visual Studio will automatically edit your CMake project. You can also add, remove, and rename the project’s targets from the Solution Explorer’s targets view.
Xamarin.Forms Comes to Surface Duo and Surface Neo
Today we are announcing the preview availability of our cross-platform dual-screen support for the Surface Duo and Surface Neo, two new and amazing devices coming from the Surface team. Previously, we debuted Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.Forms support for the SDK for Surface Duo. Now that the Windows team has unveiled support for the Surface Neo, we are ready to preview our new dual-screen support library for Xamarin.Forms.
Code Navigation for CMake Scripts
Visual Studio 2019 16.5 Preview 2 makes it easy to make sense of complex CMake projects. Code navigation features such as Go To Definition and Find All References are now supported for variables, functions, and targets in CMake script files. This can be a huge timesaver because CMake projects with more than a handful of source files are often organized into several CMake scripts to encapsulate each part of the project.
AndroidX NuGet Packages are Stable! (Xamarin)
Last year, we introduced AndroidX for Xamarin. In addition to that, today we are happy to bring you stable AndroidX NuGet packages!
Decompilation of C# code made easy with Visual Studio
Have you ever found yourself debugging a .NET project or memory dump only to be confronted with a No Symbols Loaded page? Or maybe experienced an exception occurring in a 3rd party .NET assembly but had no source code to figure out why? You can now use Visual Studio to decompile managed code even if you don’t have the symbols, allowing you to look at code, inspect variables and set breakpoints.
Making our Unity Analyzers Open-Source
Here at the Visual Studio Tools for Unity team our mission is to improve the productivity of Unity developers. In Visual Studio 2019 we’ve introduced our Unity Analyzers, a collection of Unity specific code diagnostics and code fixes. Today we’re excited to make our Unity Analyzers Open-Source.
.NET Framework February 2020 Security and Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the February 2020 Security and Quality Rollup Updates for .NET Framework.
Using .NET for Apache® Spark™ to Analyze Log Data
At Spark + AI Summit in May 2019, we released .NET for Apache Spark. .NET for Apache Spark is aimed at making Apache® Spark™, and thus the exciting world of big data analytics, accessible to .NET developers.
.NET Interactive is here! | .NET Notebooks Preview 2
In November 2019, we announced .NET support for Jupyter notebooks with both C# and F# support. Today we are excited to announce Preview 2 of the .NET Notebook experience.
Announcing .NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin
We are pleased to announce .NET Conf: Focus on Xamarin on Monday, March 23rd, 2020 beginning at 08:00 PST! This is a free, one-day livestream event that features speakers from the community and product teams that are working on building native mobile apps with Xamarin technology!
UIWebView Deprecation and Xamarin.Forms
A little while ago, Apple started sending out warning messages about the deprecation. This has not gone unnoticed by our Xamarin.Forms users, who directly created an issue for it. Today we have some great news to share: we have a solution for you! This post will give you a bit of background about our considerations and of course, how to avoid rejection to the Apple App Store.
Announcing Experimental Mobile Blazor Bindings February update
I’m delighted to share an update of Experimental Mobile Blazor Bindings with several new features and fixes. On January 14th we announced the first experimental release of Mobile Blazor Bindings, which enables developers to use familiar web programming patterns to build native mobile apps using C# and .NET for iOS and Android.
Toggling Tabs with Triggers (Xamarin)
Xamarin.Forms makes setting Tabs Icons super easy! All there is to do is set the Icon property to the path of an image and you are done.
Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2020 Q1
Last week we updated the Features Timeline to provide visibility to several of our key investments for this quarter. I am happy to share a few highlights on some of the features for Q1. Note that each feature links to our public roadmap project where you can find more details about each item and see its status.
Improve Parallelism in MSBuild (C++)
Starting in Visual Studio 2019 16.3 we have been adding features to improve build parallelism. These features are still experimental, so they are off by default. When developing tools for Android, we introduced clang/gcc to the MSBuild platform. Clang/gcc relied on the parallelism model of the build system but MSBuild only parallelizes at the project level. This led to the creation of Multi-ToolTask (MTT) as a MSBuild Task. It forgoes MSBuild batching system and works around the typical single task limitations. This allows tasks to execution in parallel and engage other scheduling features not present in MSBuild....
C++ Modules conformance improvements with MSVC in Visual Studio 2019 16.5
C++20 is right around the corner. Along with the new standard comes the much anticipated Modules feature! The compiler team initially announced that we were working on the Modules TS back in 2017 and since then we have been hard at work improving the feature and improving compiler conformance around this feature. We finally feel it is time to share some of the progress we have made on the conformance front for Modules.
Announcing TypeScript 3.8 RC
Today we’re announcing the Release Candidate for TypeScript 3.8! Between this RC and our final release, we expect no changes apart from critical bug fixes.
MSVC Backend Updates in Visual Studio 2019 Versions 16.3 and 16.4
Versions 16.3 and 16.4 of Visual Studio 2019 brought many new improvements in code generation quality, build throughput, and security. If you still haven’t downloaded your copy, here is a brief overview of what you’ve been missing out on.
CMake, Linux targeting, and IntelliSense improvements in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview 2
Visual Studio’s native support for CMake allows you to target both Windows and Linux from the comfort of a single IDE. Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview 2 introduces several new features specific to cross-platform development, including:
What’s New in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview 2 for C++, Xamarin, and Azure Tooling Experiences
Last week, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview 2 was released, bringing many new features and improvements for developers in Visual Studio to help you build better software faster. Please read some highlights of new features and improved developer experiences in this page.
Xamarin Customer Showcase: Little Cupid Transforms TV into Augmented Reality
Mobile apps can transform the way we watch TV and interact with our favorite shows using our mobile phones. We sit down with Kenney Myers, an acclaimed actor and producer, who explains what the Little Cupid Show app is all about, his inspiration, and what the future holds.
Announcing MBaaS Service Retirement
Microsoft has always been focused on enabling developers to be more productive, to achieve their ambitions, and subsequently make the world better for it. We strive to build amazing experiences so that developers can seamlessly build, test, deploy, run, and monitor their code. Earlier this year, we launched the App Center Auth and Data services in early preview. Together with App Center Push, the three services form the App Center Mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) offering, and give developers an easy entry into using Azure as a backend for mobile apps.
Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Preview 1 release now available
Today we released a new preview update for Blazor WebAssembly with a bunch of great new features and improvements.
A new experiment: Call .NET gRPC services from the browser with gRPC-Web
I’m excited to announce experimental support for gRPC-Web with .NET. gRPC-Web allows gRPC to be called from browser-based apps like JavaScript SPAs or Blazor WebAssembly apps.
Xamarin Goes Dual Screen
Surface Duo introduces a whole new class of ultra-portable experiences running on dual screens. Today we are excited to announce our public preview of the SDK for Surface Duo. Xamarin developers can take advantage of the new SDK to enlighten existing apps and create innovative experiences that inspires creativity.
Announcing dual-screen preview SDKs and Microsoft 365 Developer Day
In November, we shared our vision for dual-screen devices and how this new device category will help people get more done on smaller and more mobile form factors. Today, we are excited to give you an update on how you can get started and optimize for dual-screen devices by:
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview
This week, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.5 Preview 2 was released, bringing several new features and improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio to help you build better mobile apps, faster.
DevOps for Android App Bundles (Xamarin)
Android App Bundle is a new app packaging format from Google for Android applications that dramatically reduces the install size for end users. Traditionally, when building an Android app, one would create one large APK file that all users would receive. When packaging your app in an App Bundle, applications are delivered dynamically to users based on their specific device. This means, the app that is installed is reduced in size by up to 50% with absolutely no code changes! We introduced support last year in Visual Studio 2019 16.3 and Visual Studio for Mac 2019 8.3 to package apps with App Bundles.
Removing older images in Azure Pipelines hosted pools
Over the past year, we have been able to update Azure Pipelines hosted images faster than ever before. We have also rolled out new images – Windows Server 2019 with Visual Studio 2019, Ubuntu 18.04, and macOS Mojave 10.14. We have seen a phenomenal growth in the use of hosted pools.
D3D12 Translation Layer and D3D11On12 are now open source
If you’re a developer looking to port your game to DX12, we have good news: There’s a helper library available to get you there more easily!
Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2020.01.17
The new year is underway, and the days are getting longer. This week, we have some exciting news to share, and some great articles to discuss. Grab a warm beverage and let’s get started!
Announcing: Visual Studio for Mac: Refresh(); event on February 24
Join us online on February 24th for the Visual Studio for Mac Refresh(); event!
Collecting and analyzing .NET memory dumps
Building upon the diagnostics improvements introduced in .NET Core 3.1, we’ve introduced a new tool for collecting heap dumps from a running .NET Core process.
.NET Framework January Security and Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the January 2020 Security and Quality Rollup Updates for .NET Framework.
Simplifying Visual State Manager with TargetName
The Visual State Manager (VSM) has been around since Xamarin.Forms 3.0, but we’re not done developing it. One of the things we really wanted to add is the ability to change a property on any child element within scope. Up until now, you could only set values of properties of the element you applied the VSM to. Recently a PR was merged that changes that for our new Xamarin.Forms 4.5 pre-release version. This functionality will add a lot of extra flexibility to the VSM. In this post I will tell you all about it and show you how to use it yourself.
Announcing Experimental Mobile Blazor Bindings
Today I’m excited to announce a new experimental project to enable native mobile app development with Blazor: Experimental Mobile Blazor Bindings. These bindings enable developers to build native mobile apps using C# and .NET for iOS and Android using familiar web programming patterns. This means you can use the Blazor programming model and Razor syntax to define UI components and behaviors of an application. The UI components that are included are based on Xamarin.Forms native UI controls, which results in beautiful native mobile apps.
.NET Core January 2020 Updates – 2.1.15, 3.0.2, and 3.1.1
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core January 2020 Update. These updates also contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Announcing TypeScript 3.8 Beta
Today we’re announcing the availability of TypeScript 3.8 Beta! This Beta release contains all the new features you should expect from TypeScript 3.8’s final release.
C++ Improvements to Accuracy and Performance of Linux IntelliSense
Accurate C++ IntelliSense requires access to the C++ headers that are referenced by C++ source files. For Linux scenarios the headers referenced by a Linux MSBuild or CMake project are copied to Windows by Visual Studio from the Linux device (or VM, or Docker container, or WSL system) being targeted for the build. Visual Studio then uses these headers to provide IntelliSense. If the headers are not the correct versions, for example they are gcc headers rather than clang headers, or C++11 headers rather than C++17 headers, then the IntelliSense may be incorrect, which can be very confusing to the user. Also, for s...
Tips and Tricks for XAML Hot Reload
Happy 2020, Xamarin community! To kick start your productive new year, we want to share some favorite tips for XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms. With XAML Hot Reload, you can make changes to your XAML files, hit save, and immediately see those changes reflected in your running app!
.NET Conf: Focus on Blazor Teaser
In this episode, Robert is joined by Daniel Roth, who provides a look at the upcoming (Tuesday January 14) .NET Conf: Focus on Blazor (https://focus.dotnetconf.net). This is a free, one-day livestream event that features speakers from the community and .NET product teams that are working on building web apps with C# and Blazor. He also gives a nice overview of Blazor.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.4 is now available
The Visual Studio for Mac team is kicking off the new year with our best release ever! Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.4, released today, brings several exciting enhancements to the developer experience. Many of these items were top requests from our community and include:
Top Xamarin Videos of 2019
Each week, we bring to you great developer content and deep dives from the team and community in the form of Xamarin videos. In addition to our regularly scheduled shows you will find the Xamarin Community Standups and event recordings including the Xamarin Developer Summit. This last year we crushed every single milestone we set for ourselves including new videos and video views. In addition to breaking the 50,000 subscriber count! We want to give a huge “Thank You” to all of you that watched, commented, and subscribed.
December 2019 unified Azure SDK Release
Welcome to another release announcement for the unified Azure SDK. This month, we have expanded our service support to include a preview of the Azure Storage DataLake SDK.
C++ Inliner Improvements: The Zipliner
Visual Studio 2019 versions 16.3 and 16.4 include improvements to the C++ inliner. Among these is the ability to inline some routines after they have been optimized, referred to as the “Zipliner.” Depending on your application, you may see some minor code quality improvements and/or major build-time (compiler throughput) improvements.
Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2020.01.03
This is the first post of 2020, and the community did not take a break for the holidays! Today, I am reminded of the importance of 101s and introductory trainings. Wherever you are on your (Azure) DevOps journey, this community has content for you!
January Events for Xamarin and .NET Developers
New year, tons of awesome new ways to kick off your resolutions with Xamarin and .NET related events this January. Explore all the recent news and updates with your community at developer Meetups around the world. Including online, virtual events to watch from the comfort of your home!
Top Xamarin Blog Posts of 2019
2019 was an awesome year for Xamarin developers! It was packed full with new releases, exciting events, and product announcements. As well as brand new features to boost productivity and accelerate mobile development. Each week on the Xamarin blog, we aim to keep developers up to date with all of the happenings in the Xamarin universe. While also providing deep, technical content to help optimize your apps.
Languages & Runtime: .NET Community Standup – Dec. 12th 2019
Join members from the .NET teams for our community standup covering great community contributions for Framework, .NET Core, Languages, CLI, MSBuild, and more.
An Introduction to DataFrame
Last month, we announced .NET support for Jupyter notebooks, and showed how to use them to work with .NET for Apache Spark and ML.NET. Today, we’re announcing the preview of a DataFrame type for .NET to make data exploration easy. If you’ve used Python to manipulate data in notebooks, you’ll already be familiar with the concept of a DataFrame. At a high level, it is an in-memory representation of structured data. In this blog post, I’m going to give an overview of this new type and how you can use it from Jupyter notebooks. To play along, fire up a .NET Jupyter Notebook in a browser.
The .NET Conf Focus on Blazor Event Agenda is live – check it out
Schedule Session times are approximate. We will update final times soon! All times listed in Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -8).
Publish smaller apps with the Android App Bundle
The Android App Bundle (.aab) is a new upload format that includes all of your app’s compiled code and resources, but defers APK generation and signing to Google Play at install time.
Tips for learning Azure in the new year
As 2020 is upon us, it's natural to take time and reflect back on the current year’s achievements (and challenges) and begin planning for the next year. One of our New Year’s resolutions was to continue live streaming software development topics to folks all over the world. In our broadcasts in late November and December, the Azure community saw some of our 2020 plans. While sharing, many others typed in the chat from across the world that they’d set a New Year’s resolution to learn Azure and would love any pointers.
Debugging Linux CMake Projects with gdbserver
Gdbserver is a program that allows you to remotely debug applications running on Linux. It is especially useful in embedded scenarios where your target system may not have the resources to run the full gdb.
An Introduction to System.Threading.Channels
“Producer/consumer” problems are everywhere, in all facets of our lives. A line cook at a fast food restaurant, slicing tomatoes that are handed off to another cook to assemble a burger, which is handed off to a register worker to fulfill your order, which you happily gobble down. Postal drivers delivering mail all along their routes, and you either seeing a truck arrive and going out to the mailbox to retrieve your deliveries or just checking later in the day when you get home from work. An airline employee offloading suitcases from a cargo hold of a jetliner, placing them onto a conveyer belt, where they’re shu...
An Introduction to DataFrame
Last month, we announced .NET support for Jupyter notebooks, and showed how to use them to work with .NET for Apache Spark and ML.NET. Today, we’re announcing the preview of a DataFrame type for .NET to make data exploration easy. If you’ve used Python to manipulate data in notebooks, you’ll already be familiar with the concept of a DataFrame. At a high level, it is an in-memory representation of structured data. In this blog post, I’m going to give an overview of this new type and how you can use it from Jupyter notebooks. To play along, fire up a .NET Jupyter Notebook in a browser.
Build C++ Applications in a Linux Docker Container with Visual Studio
Docker containers provide a consistent development environment for building, testing, and deployment. The virtualized OS, file system, environment settings, libraries, and other dependencies are all encapsulated and shipped as one image that can be shared between developers and machines. This is especially useful for C++ cross-platform developers because you can target a container that runs a different operating system than the one on your development machine.
Relive Xamarin Developer Summit with On-Demand Videos
This summer developers from around the world gathered for the Xamarin Developer Summit. The two-day event was packed full of deep technical content from the Xamarin team and amazing community members. For those that could not attend, we hosted a live stream of the main session hall on the Xamarin Developers YouTube channel. Tens of thousands of developers tuned in live to watch and chat with developers around the globe. We have worked with the event organizers to make the remaining of the videos available on-demand. You have access to over 25 sessions from the event in a single playlist on YouTube or Channel 9. W...
Get Moving with Xamarin.Forms 4.4
We were speaking with a customer last year that builds dozens of mobile applications every year. They said, “We cannot remember the last time we made a mobile app that did NOT include a carousel view.” Many of you have expressed almost identical sentiments to us. So, we are very pleased to introduce a new control in Xamarin.Forms 4.4.0. Along with this we also have for displaying the pages or items in the carousel. As well as for providing contextual actions to any element in a . The release theme of getting things moving would not be complete without showcasing the new GIF animation support for images. Let’s ...
ConfigureAwait FAQ (.NET)
.NET added async/await to the languages and libraries over seven years ago. In that time, it’s caught on like wildfire, not only across the .NET ecosystem, but also being replicated in a myriad of other languages and frameworks. It’s also seen a ton of improvements in .NET, in terms of additional language constructs that utilize asynchrony, APIs offering async support, and fundamental improvements in the infrastructure that makes async/await tick (in particular performance and diagnostic-enabling improvements in .NET Core).
Participate in the Developer Economics Survey
The Developer Economics Q4 2019 Survey is now open! Every year more than 40,000 developers around the world participate in this survey, so this is a chance to be part of something big and share your experience as a developer and your view of the future of the software industry. Take the survey now or first read answers to the questions below.
GC Perf Infrastructure – Part 1 (.NET)
We open sourced our new GC Perf Infrastructure! It’s now part of the dotnet performance repo. I’ve been meaning to write about it ‘cause some curious minds had been asking when they could use it after I blogged about it last time but didn’t get around to it till now.
Multi-language identification and transcription in Video Indexer
Multi-language speech transcription was recently introduced into Microsoft Video Indexer at the International Broadcasters Conference (IBC). It is available as a preview capability and customers can already start experiencing it in our portal. More details on all our IBC2019 enhancements can be found here.
We made Windows Server Core container images >40% smaller
Over the past year, we’ve been working with the Windows Server team to make Windows Server Core container images a lot smaller. They are now >40% smaller! The Windows Server team has already published the new images in the Server Core Insider Docker repo, and will eventually publish them to their stable repo with their 20H1 release. You can check them out for yourself. I’ll tell you how we did it and what you need to know to take advantage of the improvements.
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4
This week, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4 was released with many improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio. This release brings major productivity enhancements including the GA release of XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms, smaller Android APKs, tooling to migrate your applications to Android X, and numerous performance and reliability improvements. All developers can also take advantage of enhancements to Visual Studio 2019 in version 16.4 including pin-able properties in the debugger, IntelliSense support for XAML snippets, and new C# refactoring capabilities.
.NET Framework December 2019 Security and Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the December 2019 Security and Quality Rollup Updates for .NET Framework.
Modernizing Find in Files
Find in Files is one of the most commonly used features in Visual Studio. It’s also a feature that gets a substantial amount of feedback, and due to the age of the code, has been very costly to improve. Earlier this year, we decided to reimplement the feature from the ground up in order to realize significant performance and usability improvements.
A Bite-Sized Daily Digest for Crashes in Visual Studio App Center
We’re excited to announce the launch of a daily digest for crashes in Visual Studio App Center! This bite-sized email gives you a single view of your daily activity of new crash groups.
Updates to .NET Core Windows Forms designer in Visual Studio 16.5 Preview 1
We are happy to announce the new preview version of the .NET Core Windows Forms designer, which is available with the Visual Studio 16.5 Preview 1.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 3.1 and Entity Framework 6.4
We are excited to announce the general availability of EF Core 3.1 and EF 6.4 on nuget.org. The final versions of .NET Core 3.1 and ASP.NET Core 3.1 are also available now.
Embracing nullable reference types (.NET)
Probably the most impactful feature of C# 8.0 is Nullable Reference Types (NRTs). It lets you make the flow of nulls explicit in your code, and warns you when you don’t act according to intent.
Now available: Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1.1 RTW
Today, we are releasing Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1.1 RTW. Azure DevOps Server offers all the services of Azure DevOps, including Pipelines, Boards, Repos, Artifacts and Test Plans, as a self-hosted product that can be installed in your on-premises datacenter or in a virtual machine on the cloud.
5 Quick Tips For CollectionView (Xamarin)
Quick Tips to get started with ! Below are some useful new features and best practices for creating powerful native mobile experiences.
.NET Core 2.2 will reach End of Life on December 23, 2019
.NET Core 2.2 was released on December 4, 2018. As a non-LTS (“Current”) release, it is supported for three months after the next release. .NET Core 3.0 was released on September 23, 2019. As a result, .NET Core 2.2 is supported until December 23, 2019.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.1
.NET Core 3.1 is now available and is ready for production use! .NET Core 3.1 is a Long Term Support (LTS) release.
What’s new in XAML developer tools in Visual Studio 2019 for WPF & UWP
Since the launch of Visual Studio 2019 we’ve released many new features for XAML developers working on WPF or UWP desktop applications. With this week’s release of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4 and 16.5 Preview 1 we’d like to use this opportunity to do a recap of what’s new throughout the year. If you missed our previous releases or simply have not had a chance to catch-up, this blog post will be the one place where you can see every major improvement we’ve made throughout 2019.
Pinnable Properties: Debug & Display Managed Objects YOUR Way
A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about the DebuggerDisplay attribute. This is a managed attribute that lets you customize how you view objects in debugging windows by “favoriting” specific properties. Since that post, we’ve streamlined DebuggerDisplay’s behavior with Pinnable Properties, a new managed feature available for Visual Studio 16.4!
DirectX 12 and Fortnite
On Monday, Epic Games announced that DirectX 12 support is coming to Fortnite. And today, the wait is over: anyone updating to the v11.20 patch has the option to try out Fortnite’s beta DX12 path!
‘Tis the Season for the Visual Studio 2019 v16.4 Release
Here in Redmond, glimpses of holiday cheer are filling our campus buildings as the season shifts to twinkling lights and frosty temperatures. The Visual Studio team is seizing this time as an opportunity to celebrate the comradery needed to respond to developer needs and suggestions. Equally, we are reflecting over what we can improve in the upcoming year as well as plan product features to deliver.
Announcing .NET Core 3.1
We’re excited to announce the release of .NET Core 3.1. It’s really just a small set of fixes and refinements over .NET Core 3.0, which we released just over two months ago. The most important feature is that .NET Core 3.1 is an long-term supported (LTS) release and will be supported for three years. As we’ve done in the past, we wanted to take our time before releasing the next LTS release. The extra two months (after .NET Core 3.0) allowed us to select and implement the right set of improvements over what was already a very stable base. .NET Core 3.1 is now ready to be used wherever your imagination or business...
Developing for the new category of dual-screen devices built for mobile productivity
Last month we shared our vision for dual-screen devices, designed to help people get more done on smaller and more mobile form factors. Today, we are going to share how developers can unlock this new era of mobile creativity. There are two stages to optimize for dual-screen devices:
Azure DevOps will no longer support Alternate Credentials authentication
We, the Azure DevOps team, work hard to ensure that your code is protected while enabling you to have friction free access. Until now, we’ve offered customers the ability to use Alternate Credentials in situations where they are connecting to Azure DevOps using legacy tools. While using Alternate Credentials was an easy way to set up authentication access to Azure DevOps, it is also less secure than other alternatives such as personal access tokens (PATs). As such, we believe the use of Alternate Credentials authentication represents a security risk to our customers because they never expire and can’t be scoped t...
CPU- and GPU-boundedness (DirectX)
We wrote this article to explain two key terms: CPU-bound and GPU-bound. There’s some misinformation about this terms, and we’re hoping this article can help fix this problem.
Pull-to-refresh with Xamarin.Forms RefreshView
There are tons of great new features packed into Xamarin.Forms 4.3. A new favorite feature is CollectionView. A highly performant and flexible way of displaying a list of data in a variety of layouts. One frequently-asked question with CollectionView, or other scrolling layouts, is how to add Pull-to-Refresh functionality similar to ListView. The answer: wrap it in the new RefreshView.
.NET Framework November 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the November 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup
.NET Core November 2019 Updates – 2.1.14, 2.2.8, and 3.0.1
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core November 2019 Update. These updates only contain non-security fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Developing on Windows – Hello World
My name is Avri and I’m a Program Manager here at Microsoft focused on improving the Windows developer experience! I’m a member of the engineering team here, where I get to collaborate with a bunch of other FANTASTIC people to create and improve Windows developer tools; and in this blog series, I’ll call out tons of ways to improve your end-to-end dev experience. Blogs in this series will include news on Windows Terminal, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Windows Performance, VS Code and Visual Studio, VM’s and Containers, Developer PowerToys, and more!
HockeyApp is being retired
The time has come to say goodbye. Last year we announced the transition from HockeyApp to Visual Studio App Center, a single solution for continuously building, testing, releasing, and monitoring your apps.
gRPC vs HTTP APIs
ASP.NET Core now enables developers to build gRPC services. gRPC is an opinionated contract-first remote procedure call framework, with a focus on performance and developer productivity. gRPC integrates with ASP.NET Core 3.0, so you can use your existing ASP.NET Core logging, configuration, authentication patterns to build new gRPC services.
Set Environment Variables for Debug, Launch, and Tools with CMake and Open Folder
There are many reasons why you may want to customize environment variables. Many build systems use environment variables to drive behavior; debug targets sometimes need to have PATH customized to ensure their dependencies are found; etc. Visual Studio has a mechanism to customize environment variables for debugging and building CMake projects and C++ Open Folder. In Visual Studio 2019 16.4 we made some changes to simplify this across Visual Studio’s JSON configuration files.
AI-assisted IntelliSense for your team’s codebase
Visual Studio IntelliCode uses machine learning to offer useful, contextually-rich code completion suggestions as you type, allowing you to learn APIs more quickly and code faster. Although IntelliCode’s base model was trained on over 3000 top open source C# GitHub repositories, it does not include all the custom types in your code base. To produce useful, high-fidelity, contextually-rich suggestions, the model needs to be tailored to unique types or domain-specific APIs that aren’t used in open source code. To make IntelliSense recommendations based on the wisdom of your team’s codebase, the model needs to train...
What’s new in Azure DevOps Sprint 160
Sprint 160 has just finished rolling out to all organizations and you can check out all the new features in the release notes. Here are some of the features that you can start using today.
Coming to DirectX 12: D3D9On12 and D3D11On12 Resource Interop APIs
D3D is introducing D3D9on12 with resource interop APIs and adding similar resource interop APIs to D3D11on12. With this new support, callers can now retrieve the underlying D3D12 resource from the D3D11 or D3D9 resource object even when the resource was created with D3D11 or D3D9 API. The new D3D9On12 API can be found in the insider SDK in D3D9on12.h. These features are available in Windows Insider builds now and do not require new drivers to work.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.1 Preview 3
.NET Core 3.1 Preview 3 is now available. This release is primarily focused on bug fixes.
Announcing Windows Community Toolkit v6.0
We’re thrilled to announce today the next update to the Windows Community Toolkit, version 6.0, made possible with help and contributions from our developer community. This release brings ARM64 support to the toolkit as well as an update to XAML Islands for .NET Core 3 support. In addition, we have new features like the EyeDropper control and new Win32 notification helpers. We also have an update to our preview of Microsoft Graph enabled XAML controls.
.NET Framework November 13, 2019, Update for .NET Framework 4.8
Today, we released an update for .NET Framework 4.8 to Microsoft Update Catalog.
Improvements in .NET Core 3.0 for troubleshooting and monitoring distributed apps
Operating distributed apps is hard. Distributed apps typically consists of multiple components. These components may be owned and operated by different teams. Every interaction with an app results in distributed trace of code executions across many components. If your customer experiences a problem – pinpointing the root cause in one of components participated in a distributed trace is a hard task.
Coming to DirectX 12: More control over memory allocation
In the next update to Windows, D3D12 will be adding two new flags to the D3D12_HEAP_FLAG enumeration. These new flags are “impermanent” properties, which don’t affect the resulting memory itself, but rather the way in which it’s allocated. As such, it’s important to call out that these flags aren’t reflected from ID3D12Heap::GetDesc or ID3D12Resource::GetHeapProperties. Let’s dive in.
Announcing .NET Core 3.1 Preview 3
Today, we’re announcing .NET Core 3.1 Preview 3. .NET Core 3.1 is a small and short release focused on key improvements in Blazor and Windows desktop, the two big additions in .NET Core 3.0.. It will be a long term support (LTS) release. We are coming near the end of the 3.1 release and expect to release it in early December.
ML.NET Model Builder Updates
ML.NET is a cross-platform, machine learning framework for .NET developers, and Model Builder is the UI tooling in Visual Studio that uses Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) to easily allow you to train and consume custom ML.NET models. With ML.NET and Model Builder, you can create custom machine learning models for scenarios like sentiment analysis, price prediction, and more without any machine learning experience!
.NET Framework Repair Tool
Today, we are announcing an update to .NET Framework Repair tool. In case you are not familiar with previous releases of this tool, here is a bit of background. Occasionally, some customers will run into issues when deploying a .NET Framework release or its updates and the issue may not be fixed from within the setup itself.
Building Modern Cloud Applications using Pulumi and .NET Core
This is a guest post from the Pulumi team. Pulumi is an open source infrastructure as code tool that helps developers and infrastructure teams work better together to create, deploy, and manage cloud applications using their favorite languages. For more information, see https://pulumi.com/dotnet.
Coming to DirectX 12— Mesh Shaders and Amplification Shaders: Reinventing the Geometry Pipeline
D3D12 is adding two new shader stages: the Mesh Shader and the Amplification Shader. These additions will streamline the rendering pipeline, while simultaneously boosting flexibility and efficiency. In this new and improved pre-rasterization pipeline, Mesh and Amplification Shaders will optionally replace the section of the pipeline consisting of the Input Assembler as well as Vertex, Geometry, Domain, and Hull Shaders with richer and more general purpose capabilities. This is possible through a reimagination of how geometry is processed.
Now available: Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1.1 RC
Today, we are releasing Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1.1 RC. This is a go-live release, meaning it is supported on production instances, and you will be able to upgrade to our final release.
EA and Visual Studio’s Linux Support
EA is using Visual Studio’s cross-platform support to cross-compile on Windows and debug on Linux. The following post is written by Ben May, a Senior Software Engineer of Engineering Workflows at EA. Thanks Ben and EA for your partnership, and for helping us make Visual Studio the best IDE for C++ cross-platform development.
Continuously deploy and monitor your UWP, WPF, and Windows Forms app with App Center
App Center is an integrated developer solution with the mission of helping developers build better apps. Last week, we announced General Availability support of distribute, analytics and diagnostics service for WPF and Windows Forms desktop applications. We also expanded our existing UWP offerings to include crash and error reporting for sideloaded UWP apps.
.NET Core with Jupyter Notebooks – Available today | Preview 1
When you think about Jupyter Notebooks, you probably think about writing your code in Python, R, Julia, or Scala and not .NET. Today we are excited to announce you can write .NET code in Jupyter Notebooks.
DirectX Raytracing (DXR) Tier 1.1
Real-time raytracing is still in its very early days, so unsurprisingly there is plenty of room for the industry to move forward. Since the launch of DXR, the initial wave of feedback has resulted in a set of new features collectively named Tier 1.1.
Announcing ML.NET 1.4 general availability (Machine Learning for .NET)
Coinciding with the Microsoft Ignite 2019 conference, we are thrilled to announce the GA release of ML.NET 1.4 and updates to Model Builder in Visual Studio, with exciting new machine learning features that will allow you to innovate your .NET applications.
Introducing C++ Build Insights
C++ builds should always be faster. In Visual Studio 2019 16.2, we’ve shown our commitment to this ideal by speeding up the linker significantly. Today, we are thrilled to announce a new collection of tools that will give you the power to make improvements of your own.
Announcing TypeScript 3.7
We’re thrilled to announce the release of TypeScript 3.7, a release packed with awesome new language, compiler, and tooling features.
Improved Continuous Delivery capabilities and caching for Azure Pipelines
We are thrilled to announce a new set of updates for Azure Pipelines, the Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery platform part of Azure DevOps. Our team has been hard at work for the past few months to deliver new features, including some that were much-requested by our users.
Re-imagining collaboration for Visual Studio with Live Share app casting and contacts
The power of Visual Studio for desktop and mobile development is unmatched in the industry, and we wanted to ensure that the best in class also had the best collaboration story. Live Share is reimagining this collaboration story by reducing the barriers to collaboration, increasing the fidelity of the collaboration experience while building desktop apps, and enhancing this workflow.
Coming to DirectX 12— Sampler Feedback: some useful once-hidden data, unlocked
Suppose you are shading a complicated 3D scene. The camera moves swiftly throughout the scene, causing some objects to be moved into different levels of detail. Since you need to aggressively optimize for memory, you bind resources to cope with the demand for different LODs. Perhaps you use a texture streaming system; perhaps it uses tiled resources to keep those gigantic 4K mip 0s non-resident if you don’t need them. Anyway, you have a shader which samples a mipped texture using A Very Complicated sampling pattern. Pick your favorite one, say anisotropic.
Developer platform updates at Microsoft Ignite 2019
Earlier this year, we announced some awesome advancements in how developers can better connect with their customers and build people-centric experiences using the Microsoft 365 platform. Today, we’re continuing that story and sharing how you can use these enhancements to build more innovative applications and be more productive. We are focusing on three key areas:
An Update on C++/CLI and .NET Core
The first public release of our C++/CLI support for .NET Core 3.1 is now available for public preview! It is included in Visual Studio 2019 update 16.4 Preview 2. We would love it if you could try it out and send us any feedback you have. For more info about what this is and the roadmap going forward, check out my last post on the future of C++/CLI and .NET Core.
.NET Core 3 for Windows Desktop
In September, we released .NET Core support for building Windows desktop applications, including WPF and Windows Forms. Since then, we have been delighted to see so many developers share their stories of migrating desktop applications (and controls libraries) to .NET Core. We constantly hear stories of .NET Windows desktop developers powering their business with WPF and Windows Forms, especially in scenarios where the desktop shines, including:
Introducing Orleans 3.0
We are excited to announce the Orleans 3.0 release. A great number of improvements and fixes went in, as well as several new features, since Orleans 2.0. These changes were driven by the experience of many people running Orleans-based applications in production in a wide range of scenarios and environments, and by the ingenuity and passion of the global Orleans community that always strives to make the codebase better, faster, and more flexible. A BIG Thank You to all who contributed to this release in various ways!
Announcing Visual Studio Online Public Preview
Available beginning at Microsoft’s Ignite conference as a public preview, Visual Studio Online provides managed, on-demand development environments that can be used for long-term projects, to quickly prototype a new feature, or for short-term tasks like reviewing pull requests. You can work with environments from anywhere using either Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio IDE (in private preview), or the included browser-based editor.
Re-imagining developer productivity with AI-assisted tools
Harnessing the wisdom of the community, Visual Studio IntelliCode is revolutionizing developer productivity. We started with AI-assisted IntelliSense and are now expanding the application of artificial intelligence to significantly accelerate learning, radically improve development agility, and increase code quality by means of two exciting new capabilities: whole line completions and refactoring.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.1 Preview 2
.NET Core 3.1 Preview 2 is now available. This release is primarily focused on bug fixes, but it contains a few new features as well.
All Things Developer Tools at Microsoft Ignite
There is a lot of developer goodness happening at Ignite this week. Visual Studio Online is available as a public preview for developers to try cloud hosted development environments with your tool of choice. Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4 Preview 3 and Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.3 Preview 2 just released with tons of new productivity features. There are also a bunch of great sessions that deep dive into all this and much more.
Announcing .NET Core 3.1 Preview 2
Today, we’re announcing .NET Core 3.1 Preview 2. .NET Core 3.1 will be a small and short release focused on key improvements in Blazor and Windows desktop, the two big additions in .NET Core 3.0.. It will be a long term support (LTS) release with an expected final ship date of December 2019.
Microsoft C++ Team At CppCon 2019: Videos Available
Last month a large contingent from the Microsoft C++ team attended CppCon. We gave fourteen presentations covering our tools, developments in the standard, concepts which underlie the work we do, and more.
Announcing the Azure Boards app for Microsoft Teams
Developers today rely on communication platforms like Microsoft Teams extensively to get work done. Often, Microsoft Teams is the place where ideas are discussed, insights are generated and product defects are identified. The same discussions then can continue in Azure Boards where development teams actually plan and manage their work. We are excited to announce the Azure Boards app for Microsoft Teams that brings work in Azure Boards closer to the team channel in Microsoft Teams.
Start building with Azure Cognitive Services for free
Innovate at no cost to you, with out-of-the box AI services that are newly available for Azure free account users. Join the 1.3 million developers who have been using Cognitive Services to build AI powered apps to date. With the broadest offering of AI services in the market, Azure Cognitive Services can unlock AI for more scenarios than other cloud providers. Give your apps, websites, and bots the ability to see, understand, and interpret people’s needs — all it takes is an API call — by using natural methods of communication. Businesses in various industries have transformed how they operate using the very same...
Dev Preview of New DirectX 12 Features
In this blog post, we will preview a suite of new DirectX 12 features, including DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1, Mesh Shader, and Sampler Feedback. We will briefly explain what each feature is and how it will improve the gaming experience. In subsequent weeks, we will publish more technical details on each feature along with feature specs. All these features are currently available in Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds (20H1) through the Windows Insider Program.
Build Great Xamarin Apps with App Center
Visual Studio App Center offers integrated and end-to-end developer services for building, managing and powering your Xamarin iOS and Android apps. From modular SDKs designed to implement services with just a few lines of code to simplified continuous integration and delivery pipelines. In addition to powerful Authentication, Data Sync, and Push Notifications backend services that seamlessly scale as your app grows. App Center empowers your team to be more productive.
Announcing TypeScript 3.7 RC
We’re pleased to announce TypeScript 3.7 RC, the release candidate of TypeScript 3.7. Between now and the final release, we expect no further changes except for critical bug fixes.
AddressSanitizer (ASan) for Windows with MSVC
We are pleased to announce AddressSanitizer (ASan) support for the MSVC toolset. ASan is a fast memory error detector that can find runtime memory issues such as use-after-free and perform out of bounds checks. Support for sanitizers has been one of our more popular suggestions on Developer Community, and we can now say that we have an experience for ASan on Windows, in addition to our existing support for Linux projects.
A Look Inside D3D12 Resource State Barriers
Many D3D12 developers have become accustomed to managing resource state transitions and read/write hazards themselves using the ResourceBarrier API. Prior to D3D12, such details were handled internally by the driver. However, D3D12 command lists cannot provide the same deterministic state tracking as D3D10 and D3D11 device contexts. Therefore, state transitions need to be scheduled during D3D12 command list recording. When used responsibly, applications are able to minimize GPU cache flushes and resource state changes. However, it can be tricky to properly leverage resource barriers for correct behavior while a...
Securely Access, Visualize and Manage your Mobile App Data with Data Metrics View and Data Explorer capabilities in Visual Studio App Center
Over the past few weeks, the Visual Studio App Center team has shipped new functionality to make managing and syncing your data much easier. Recently, we shipped an entirely new portal experience for App Center Data, enabling you to view your app’s utilization metrics and engage with your app data.
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 19002 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 19002 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 19002 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.
Xamarin.Forms 4.3 is live! Introducing CollectionView
Today we’re incredibly pleased to announce the stable release of Xamarin.Forms 4.3.0. This release marks the removal of the experimental flag from CollectionView as it moves into stable status. Along with this, comes a number of enhancements and contributions from the community. Including SourceLink support, the ability to display HTML on Labels, and more.
October 2019 unified Azure SDK preview
Welcome back to another release of the unified Azure Data client libraries. For the most part, the API surface areas of the SDKs have been stabilized based on your feedback. Thank you to everyone who has been submitting issues on GitHub and keep the feedback coming.
Upcoming SameSite Cookie Changes in ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core
SameSite is a 2016 extension to HTTP cookies intended to mitigate cross site request forgery (CSRF). The original design was an opt-in feature which could be used by adding a new SameSite property to cookies. It had two values, Lax and Strict. Setting the value to Lax indicated the cookie should be sent on navigation within the same site, or through GET navigation to your site from other sites. A value of Strict limited the cookie to requests which only originated from the same site. Not setting the property at all placed no restrictions on how the cookie flowed in requests. OpenIdConnect authentication operation...
Fall .NET Core Survey
It’s been a busy time for .NET Core – we just shipped 3.0, and are currently working on a few updates for v3.1 (due in November.) As we turn our attention to .NET Core 5.0, we want to take a step back and see what you are doing with .NET Core and how we can make it even better.
What Windows 10, version 1909 Means for Developers
As stated in this article, Windows 10, version 1909 is a scoped set of features for select performance improvements, enterprise features and quality enhancements. Developers should be aware of this release, but no action is necessary at this time.
.NET Framework October 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the October 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup and Cumulative Updates for .NET Framework.
Announcing .NET Core 3.1 Preview 1
Today, we’re announcing .NET Core 3.1 Preview 1. .NET Core 3.1 will be a small release focused on key improvements in Blazor and Windows desktop, the two big additions in .NET Core 3.0. It will be a long term support (LTS) release with an expected final ship date of December 2019.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.1 Preview 1
.NET Core 3.1 Preview 1 is now available. This release is primarily focused on bug fixes, but it contains a few new features as well.
Usability Improvements for CMake in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4: Launch Target Selection and Overview Pages
We hear your feedback, and in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4 Preview 2 we have addressed one of our top Developer Community issues related to CMake development in Visual Studio by revamping the selection of CMake launch targets. We have also added Overview Pages for CMake to help you get started with CMake and cross-platform development. If you’re not familiar with Visual Studio’s CMake support, be sure to check our CMake Support in Visual Studio introductory page.
Visual Studio 2019 v16.4 Preview 2, Fall Sports, and Pumpkin Spice
Here at our Redmond campus in the Pacific Northwest, we are cloaked with a brilliant display of fall colors and team members walking around in their favorite American football jerseys often with coffee in hand. While I may not have confirmed, I suspect fall flavors are hinted in the steamy beverages.
Azure Monitor adds Worker Service SDK, new ASP.NET core metrics
Application Insights from Azure Monitor empowers developers and IT professionals to observe, debug, diagnose, and improve their distributed services hosted on the cloud, on-premises, and through hybrid solutions.
Blazor Server in .NET Core 3.0 scenarios and performance
Since the release of Blazor Server with .NET Core 3.0 last month lots of folks have shared their excitement with us about being able to build client-side web UI with just .NET and C#. At the same time, we’ve also heard lots of questions about what Blazor Server is, how it relates to Blazor WebAssembly, and what scenarios Blazor Server is best suited for. Should you choose Blazor Server for your client-side web UI needs, or wait for Blazor WebAssembly? This post seeks to answer these questions, and to provide insights into how Blazor Server performs at scale and how we envision Blazor evolving in the future.
Connecting Network Cameras to Windows 10 Devices
Network cameras, which are Internet Protocol-based cameras that transmit video data over a local area network (LAN), are becoming increasingly prevalent – especially in surveillance and security scenarios. Windows now allows users to associate network cameras to their PC, enabling photo capture and streaming of video in camera applications. Currently Windows only supports ONVIF Profile S compliant cameras*, which are standards-compliant network cameras optimized for real-time streaming video capture.
Leveraging Cognitive Services to simplify inventory tracking
Who spends their summer at the Microsoft Garage New England Research & Development Center (or “NERD”)? The Microsoft Garage internship seeks out students who are hungry to learn, not afraid to try new things, and able to step out of their comfort zones when faced with ambiguous situations. The program brought together Grace Hsu from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Christopher Bunn from Northeastern University, Joseph Lai from Boston University, and Ashley Hong from Carnegie Mellon University. They chose the Garage internship because of the product focus—getting to see the whole development cycle from i...
HockeyApp Transition to Visual Studio App Center – September Update
Visual Studio App Center is closing important feature gaps as HockeyApp is transitioning to App Center later this year. See what we’ve been working on in September and learn more about what we’ve committed to on our roadmap.
Introducing the DevOps for Mobile Video Series
The entire Xamarin team and community have produced and published some amazing Xamarin content on the Xamarin Developers YouTube. Each week, find new videos of all topics to stay up to date on the latest and greatest in mobile development with Xamarin. One topic that developers have been asking for is DevOps for mobile apps. James has teamed up with good friend, Abel Wang, the DevOps expert. They have created an eight-part series covering all things DevOps for mobile developers. Tackling a wide range of topics including continuous integration, user interface testing, provisioning, distribution, and more! Be guide...
.NET Framework October 2019 Security and Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the October 2019 Security and Quality Rollup and Cumulative Updates for .NET Framework.
Code analysis with clang-tidy in Visual Studio
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.4 Preview 1 brings a significant improvement to the C++ code analysis experience: native support for clang-tidy, a Clang-based “linter” tool developed by the LLVM Project that delivers a variety of code improvements such as modernization and standards conformance, static analysis, and automatic formatting.
Visual Studio extensibility is better with IntelliCode
Installing the Visual Studio extension development workload presents you with a choice of optional components. And looking at the component list might leave you rather confused. Because how are various C++ components and the Class Designer especially relevant to writing extension? And where is IntelliCode?
What’s new in Azure DevOps Sprint 158
Sprint 158 just finished rolling out to all organizations and you can check out all the new features in the release notes. Here are some of the features that you can start using today.
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 18990 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 18990 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 18990 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.
Announcing TypeScript 3.7 Beta
We’re pleased to announce TypeScript 3.7 Beta, a feature-complete version of TypeScript 3.7. Between now and the final release, we’ll be fixing bugs and further improving performance and stability.
C++20’s Conditionally Explicit Constructors
is a C++20 feature for simplifying the implementation of generic types and improving compile-time performance.
Introducing .NET Core Windows Forms Designer Preview 1
We just released a GA version of .NET Core 3.0 that includes support for Windows Forms and WPF. And along with that release we’re happy to announce the first preview version of the Windows Forms Designer for .NET Core projects!
Windows 10 WinRT API Packs released
With the announcement of the release of .NET Core 3.0, we are pleased to announce we have posted on nuget.org the released versions of the Windows 10 WinRT API Pack. The Windows 10 WinRT API Pack allows your WPF or Winforms application to quickly and easily access Windows functionality like Geolocation, Windows AI, Machine Learning, Bluetooth and much more.
.NET Framework September 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup
We have released the September 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup and Cumulative Updates for .NET Framework for Windows 10
Android 10.0 General Availability
Android 10.0 introduces many features such as dark mode, live captions, foldable phone support, new wi-fi and connectivity APIs, and much more.
Azure DevOps Demo Generator is now open source
The Azure DevOps Demo Generator is a community operated service which can provision template-based projects inside your Azure DevOps organization. It was originally created for Microsoft as an educational resource supporting the Azure DevOps Labs. Although it started as a way populate lab projects, it has evolved to support integrations with various third-party DevOps tools including GitHub, Jenkins, Terraform, and many others.
Watch the latest Visual Studio extensibility videos
We have been posting several short videos about Visual Studio extensibility to our YouTube channel in the past couple of months. We chose the topics for the first videos, but now it’s time for you to tell us what videos to record next.
Tracepoints: Debug with less clutter
Have you ever accidentally shipped a log statement to production? Are you tired of cleaning up log statements while debugging? The tool to solve your problems has been here all along!
ML.NET and Model Builder at .NET Conf 2019 (Machine Learning for .NET)
We are excited today to announce updates to Model Builder and improvements in ML.NET. You can learn more in the “What’s new in ML.NET?.” session at .NET Conf.
Announcing Xamarin Hot Restart
Today at .NET Conf 2019, we announced Xamarin Hot Restart which enables you to test changes made to your app, including multi-file code edits, resources, and references, using a much faster build and deploy cycle.
The Future of C++/CLI and .NET Core 3
.NET Core 3.0 is now available and we have received a lot of questions about what that means for the future of C++/CLI. First, we would like to let everyone know that we are committed to supporting C++/CLI for .NET Core to enable easy interop between C++ codebases and .NET technologies such as WPF and Windows Forms. This support isn’t going to be ready when .NET Core 3.0 first ships, but it will be available in .NET Core 3.1 which ships with Visual Studio 2019 16.4 – roadmap.
Using the Android App Bundle with Visual Studio App Center
You might have heard about the new official publishing format for your Android apps: The Android App Bundle. Originally announced at Google I/O ‘18, this new format brings a host of new features and improvements for both you as a developer and your app’s users.
ASP.NET Core and Blazor updates in .NET Core 3.0
Today we are thrilled to announce the release of .NET Core 3.0! .NET Core 3.0 is ready for production use, and is loaded with lots of great new features for building amazing web apps with ASP.NET Core and Blazor.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 3.0 and Entity Framework 6.3 General Availability
We are extremely excited to announce the general availability of EF Core 3.0and EF 6.3 on nuget.org. The final versions of .NET Core 3.0 and ASP.NET Core 3.0 are also available now.
Announcing F# 4.7
We’re excited to announce general availability of F# 4.7 in conjunction with the .NET Core 3.0 release! In this post, I’ll show you how to get started, explain everything in F# 4.7 and give you a sneak peek at what we’re doing for the next version of F#.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0
We’re excited to announce the release of .NET Core 3.0. It includes many improvements, including adding Windows Forms and WPF, adding new JSON APIs, support for ARM64 and improving performance across the board. C# 8 is also part of this release, which includes nullable, async streams, and more patterns. F# 4.7 is included, and focused on relaxing syntax and targeting .NET Standard 2.0. You can start updating existing projects to target .NET Core 3.0 today. The release is compatible with previous versions, making updating easy.
.NET Core Support and More in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 – Update Now!
As we continue to deliver on our mission of any developer, any app, any platform, it’s always an exciting time on the Visual Studio team when we get to launch major features. Today we’ve released Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 which contains support for the release of .NET Core 3.0, significant C++ improvements, and great updates for Python developers as well as TypeScript 3.6 support. You can download version 16.3 on visualstudio.com or update from the Visual Studio installer.
How to debug and profile any EXE with Visual Studio
Have you ever needed to debug or profile an executable (.exe file) that you don’t have source for or can’t build? Then the least known Visual Studio project type, the EXE project, is for you!
Release Candidate builds of Entity Framework Core 3.0 and Entity Framework 6.3 are now available
We previously said that preview 9 would be your last chance to test EF Core 3.0 and EF 6.3 before general availability. But it turns out that we made enough improvements to our libraries and across the whole of .NET Core 3.0 to justify publishing a release candidate build. Hence the packages for EF Core 3.0 RC1 and EF 6.3 RC1 were uploaded to nuget.org today.
ASP.NET Core and Blazor updates in .NET Core 3.0 Release Candidate 1
.NET Core 3.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available. This release contains only a handful of bug fixes and closely represents what we expect to release for .NET Core 3.0.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Release Candidate 1
Today, we’re announcing .NET Core 3.0 Release Candidate 1. Just like with Preview 9, we’ve focused on polishing .NET Core 3.0 for a final release. We are now getting very, very close. We intend to release the final version on September 23 at .NET Conf.
Get Ready for iOS 13 and Xcode 11
Support for iOS 13 and Xcode 11 to accompany Apple’s Xcode Gold Master (GM) release was just announced! Additionally, we have also just published updated documentation to help you quickly get started with all the new features. Now, build your Xamarin.iOS (and Xamarin.Forms for iOS) apps with Xcode 11 GM and submit your iOS 13, tvOS 13 or watchOS 6 apps to the Apple App Store.
Xamarin.Forms 4.3 Prerelease and the CarouselView Challenge
Today we’re announcing the first prerelease of Xamarin.Forms 4.3! The focus of this release is the new CollectionView, a successor to the current ListView. Back in April, we asked you to participate in a CollectionView challenge. The purpose of the challenge was to gather feedback from you, the community, to make certain that the CollectionView can provide out-of-the-box functionality that meets your biggest needs.
DRED v1.2 supports PIX marker and event strings in Auto-Breadcrumbs
In Windows 10 1903, DRED 1.1 provided D3D12 developers with the ability to diagnose device removed events using GPU page fault data and automatic breadcrumbs. As a result, TDR debugging pain has been greatly reduced. Hooray! Unfortunately, developers still struggle to pinpoint which specific GPU workloads triggered the error. So, we’ve made a few tweaks in DRED in the Windows 10 20H1 Release Preview. Specifically, DRED 1.2 adds ‘Context Data’ to auto-breadcrumbs by integrating PIX marker and event strings into the auto-breadcrumb data. With context data, developers can more precisely determine where a GPU fault o...
Keep Up to Date With the Latest Xamarin Docs
The Xamarin documentation is the best source of information for building apps with Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms. Follow the quickstart to build your first Android or iOS app with Xamarin.Forms. Then complete the tutorials to learn more about common mobile app concepts.
.NET Core September 2019 Updates – 2.1.13 and 2.2.7
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core September 2019 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Say hello to the new Visual Studio terminal!
Building on the momentum from the recently announced Developer PowerShell, we are excited to share the first preview of the new Visual Studio terminal. This new preview experience is part of Visual Studio version 16.3 Preview 3.
GC Perf Infrastructure – Part 0
In this blog entry and some future ones I will be showing off functionalities that our new GC perf infrastructure provides. Andy and I have been working on it (he did all the work; I merely played the consultant role). We will be open sourcing it soon and I wanted to give you some examples of using it and you can add these to your repertoire of perf analysis techniques when it’s available.
C++20 Concepts Are Here in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3
C++20 Concepts are now supported for the first time in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 Preview 2. This includes both the compiler and standard library support.
HockeyApp Transition to Visual Studio App Center – August Update
Visual Studio App Center is closing important feature gaps as HockeyApp is transitioning to App Center later this year. See what we’ve been working on in August and learn more about what we’ve committed to on our roadmap.
Refactoring made easy with IntelliCode!
Have you ever found yourself refactoring your code and making the same or similar changes in multiple locations? Maybe you thought about making a regular expression so you could search and replace, but the effort to do that was too great? Eventually you probably resigned yourself to the time-intensive, error prone task of going through the code manually.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 3.0 Preview 9 and Entity Framework 6.3 Preview 9
The Preview 9 versions of the EF Core 3.0 package and the EF 6.3 package are now available for download from nuget.org.
Boost Performance with Compiled Bindings in Xamarin.Forms
Data binding is at the core of every Xamarin.Forms application. It enabled developers to easily bridge their user interface with their code behind form a simple markup. Data binding also simplifies user interactions and updates to the user interface automatigical! With all this awesome comes with some trade-offs. Xamarin.Forms has to analyze and resolve each binding, which can take precious CPU cycles. This is where compiled bindings come in and help boost performance when using data binding.
ASP.NET Core and Blazor updates in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 9
.NET Core 3.0 Preview 9 is now available and it contains a number of improvements and updates to ASP.NET Core and Blazor.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 9
Today, we’re announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 9. Just like with Preview 8, we’ve focused on polishing .NET Core 3.0 for a final release and aren’t adding new features. If these final builds seem less exciting than earlier previews, that’s by design.
.NET Framework August 30, 2019 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 version 1903
The August 2019 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 on Windows 10 version 1903 was released.
Hardware Intrinsics in .NET Core
Several years ago, we decided that it was time to support SIMD code in .NET. We introduced the System.Numerics namespace with , , , , and related types. These types expose a general-purpose API for creating, accessing, and operating on them using hardware vector instructions (when available). They also provide a software fallback for when the hardware does not provide the appropriate instructions. This enabled a number of common algorithms to be vectorized, often with only minor refactorings. However, the generality of this approach made it difficult for programs to take full advantage of all vector instructions ...
Join us for .NET Conf 2019, Sept 23-25
.NET Conf is back again this year and will be live streaming to a device near you September 23-25 on www.dotnetconf.net! .NET Conf is a FREE, 3 day virtual developer event co-organized by the .NET community and Microsoft. This year .NET Core 3.0 will launch at .NET Conf 2019! Come celebrate and learn about the new release. You won’t want to miss this one.
Announcing ML.NET 1.4 Preview and Model Builder updates (Machine Learning for .NET)
We are excited to announce ML.NET 1.4 Preview and updates to Model Builder and CLI. ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework for .NET developers. ML.NET also includes Model Builder (a simple UI tool) and CLI to make it super easy to build custom Machine Learning (ML) models using Automated Machine Learning (AutoML).
Modernizing iOS Apps for Dark Mode with Xamarin
With iOS 13, Apple introduces dark mode: A system-wide option for light and dark themes. iOS users may now choose the theme or allow iOS to dynamically change appearance based on the environment and time. Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Forms deliver native iOS experiences to keep your applications looking shiny and fresh no matter what time of day.
Announcing TypeScript 3.6
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of TypeScript 3.6! For those unfamiliar, TypeScript is a language that builds on JavaScript by adding optional static types. These types can be checked by the TypeScript compiler to catch common errors in your programs (like misspelling properties and calling functions the wrong way). Tools like the TypeScript compiler and Babel can then be used to transform TypeScript code that uses all the latest and greatest standard features to standards-compliant ECMAScript code that will work on any browser or runtime (even much older ones that support ES3 or ES5).
How the .NET Team uses Azure Pipelines to produce Docker Images
Producing Docker images for .NET might not seem like that big of a deal. Once you’ve got a Dockerfile defined, just run “docker build“ and “docker push“ and you’re done, right? Then just rinse and repeat when new versions of .NET are released and that should be all that’s needed. Well, it’s not quite that simple.
Redesigning Configuration Refresh for Azure App Configuration
Since its inception, the .NET Core configuration provider for Azure App Configuration has provided the capability to monitor changes and sync them to the configuration within a running application. We recently redesigned this functionality to allow for on-demand refresh of the configuration. The new design paves the way for smarter applications that only refresh the configuration when necessary. As a result, inactive applications no longer have to monitor for configuration changes unnecessarily.
Vcpkg: 2019.07 Update
The 2019.07 update of vcpkg, a tool that helps you manage C and C++ libraries on Windows, Linux, and macOS, is now available. This update is a summary of the new functionality and improvements made to vcpkg over the past month. Last month was the first time we created a vcpkg release (Vcpkg: 2019.06 Update).
Getting Started with GitHub Actions in Visual Studio
GitHub Actions uses a clean new syntax for expressing workflows based on YAML scripts—so you can edit, reuse, share, and fork them like code. By including actions in your repositories, others would be able to easily test and build projects using the same actions used on the original projects.
Visual Studio Tips and Tricks: Increasing your Productivity for .NET
The .NET team is constantly thinking of new ways to make developers more productive. We’ve been working hard over the past year to take the feedback you’ve sent us and turn it into tools that you want! In this post I’ll cover some of the latest productivity features available in Visual Studio 2019 Preview.
Build and Debug MySQL on Linux with Visual Studio 2019
The MySQL Server Team recently shared on their blog how to use Visual Studio 2019 to edit, build, and debug MySQL on a remote Linux server. This leverages Visual Studio’s native support for CMake and allows them to use Visual Studio as a front-end while outsourcing all the “heavy lifting” (compilation, linking, running) to a remote Linux machine.
Xamarin.Forms 4.2.0 Hits GA & CollectionView Updates
Today, we are excited to announce that Xamarin.Forms 4.2.0 is now available in stable. This release continues the 4.0 series with improvements to Shell, community enhancements, performance enhancements, and bug fixes. There are some sweet new enhancements that you can take advantage of right now in 4.2.0.
Get more fresh content on Visual Studio’s YouTube channel
Whether you like short how-to videos or longer deep dives, the Visual Studio YouTube channel has something for you. With fresh content published several times a week, there are always new and interesting videos to help you stay current on everything Visual Studio.
Now available: Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1 RTW
Today, we are announcing the availability of Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1. Azure DevOps Server brings the Azure DevOps experience to self-hosted environments. Customers with strict requirements for compliance can run Azure DevOps Server on-premises and have full control over the underlying infrastructure.
The PowerShell you know and love now with a side of Visual Studio
While we know that many of you enjoy, and rely on the Visual Studio Command Prompt, some of you told us that you would prefer to have a PowerShell version of the tool. We are happy to share that in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2, we added a new Developer PowerShell!
C++ Cross-Platform Development with Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3: vcpkg, CMake configuration, remote headers, and WSL
In Visual Studio 2019 you can target both Windows and Linux from the comfort of a single IDE. Visual Studio’s native support for CMake lets you open any folder containing C++ code and a CMakeLists.txt file directly in Visual Studio to edit, build, and debug your CMake project on Windows, Linux, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Visual Studio’s MSBuild-based Linux support allows you to create and debug console applications that execute on a remote Linux system or WSL. For either of these scenarios, the Linux development with C++ workload is required.
Announcing the general availability of Python support in Azure Functions
Python support for Azure Functions is now generally available and ready to host your production workloads across data science and machine learning, automated resource management, and more. You can now develop Python 3.6 apps to run on the cross-platform, open-source Functions 2.0 runtime. These can be published as code or Docker containers to a Linux-based serverless hosting platform in Azure. This stack powers the solution innovations of our early adopters, with customers such as General Electric Aviation and TCF Bank already using Azure Functions written in Python for their serverless production workloads. Our ...
Find solutions faster by analyzing crash dumps in Visual Studio
When unexpected crashes occur in your managed application you are often left with little evidence of the issue; capturing and analyzing memory dumps may be your last best option. Thankfully Visual Studio is a great tool for analyzing your apps memory dumps! In this post we show you how easy it is to get important insights from a crash dump, and the steps to resolve the issue using Visual Studio.
.NET Core and systemd
In preview7 a new package was added to the set of packages that enables integration with systemd. For the Windows focused, systemd allows similar functionality to Windows Services, there is a post on how to do what we discuss here for Windows Services in this post. This work was contributed by Tom Deseyn from Red Hat. In this post we will create a .NET Core app that runs as a systemd service. The integration makes systemd aware when the application has started/is stopping, and configures logs to be sent in a way that journald (the logging system of systemd) understands log priorities.
Announcing TypeScript 3.6 RC
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of the release candidate of TypeScript 3.6. This release candidate is intended to be fairly close to the full release, and will stabilize for the next few weeks leading up to our official release.
Productivity Improvements for C++: New Default Colorization, Template Argument Filtering in Call Stack Window, and IntelliCode On-By-Default
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 Preview 2 we’ve introduced a new default semantic colorization scheme for C++. For a long time, many of the default colors were simply black. However, colorization can help you quickly understand the structure of code at a glance. To take advantage of this, we’ve created two new color schemes, and of course you can still customize your colors further by typing “Change font” in the Ctrl + Q search bar.
Code, Recent Items, and Template Search In Visual Studio
We are introducing the ability to search for code, recent items, and templates through the new search experience in Visual Studio. These features can all be accessed by one single shortcut (Ctrl+Q) and are currently available in our Preview build (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/preview/). They will be available in Visual Studio 2019, version 16.3, targeted for the end of September.
Introducing Boots: Streamline Xamarin Continuous Integration
Many Xamarin developers take advantage of Azure DevOps or Visual Studio App Center to build and release their mobile applications. Each environment has its own installation of Mono, Xamarin, and everything you would need to build your Xamarin project.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 8
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 8. Just like with Preview 7, we’ve focused on polishing .NET Core 3.0 for a final release and are not adding new features. If these final previews seem anti-climatic, that’s by design.
New C++ Core Check Rules
The C++ Core Guidelines Checker receives three new rules with the release of Visual Studio version 16.3 Preview 2. In addition, some warnings published in the warnings.h that ships with Visual Studio have been moved or renamed.
ASP.NET Core and Blazor updates in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 8
.NET Core 3.0 Preview 8 is now available and it includes a bunch of new updates to ASP.NET Core and Blazor.
Azure SDK August 2019 preview and a dive into consistency
The second previews of Azure SDKs which follow the latest Azure API Guidelines and Patterns are now available (.Net, Java, JavaScript, Python). These previews contain bug fixes, new features, and additional work towards guidelines adherence.
Side-by-side Minor Version MSVC Toolsets in Visual Studio 2019
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 3 ships with the first side-by-side minor versions of the v142 MSVC toolset. We first shipped minor side-by-side versions of MSVC toolsets with Visual Studio 2017, but a few things have changed in 2019. This post covers what’s new; primarily more granular versions of the toolsets in the installer and support for CMake projects.
Public Preview of XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms
As a developer, we often get into a cycle of running an app, noticing that some adjustment needs to be made, stopping the app, estimating the adjusted values, and then repeating the whole process over again to see if the estimate was correct. We call this the “inner development loop,” and it can quickly become quite tedious.
Azure SignalR Service now supports Event Grid!
Since we GA’ed Azure SignalR Service in last September, serverless has become a very popular use case in Azure SignalR Service and is used by many customers. Unlike the traditional SignalR application which requires a server to host the hub, in serverless scenario no server is needed, instead you can directly send messages to clients through REST APIs or our management SDK which can easily be used in serverless code like Azure Functions.
Game performance improvements in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2
This spring Gratian Lup described in his blog post the improvements for C++ game development in Visual Studio 2019. From Visual Studio 2019 version 16.0 to Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 we’ve made some more improvements. On the Infiltrator Demo we’ve got 2–3% performance wins for the most CPU-intensive parts of the game.
Async loaded .NET projects may impact Visual Studio extensions
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3, the CSProj project system (C#/VB non-SDK style) introduces a new way of loading called Partial Load Mode (PLM). After the solution loads, the project system is doing design time builds in the background, leaving the UI responsive and interactive. However, for the time it takes to run the design time build, certain features may not be working as they used to. Extenders, read on.
Try out Nullable Reference Types
With the release of .NET Core 3.0 Preview 7, C# 8.0 is considered "feature complete". That means that the biggest feature of them all, Nullable Reference Types, is also locked down behavior-wise for the .NET Core release. It will continue to improve after C# 8.0, but it is now considered stable with the rest of C# 8.0.
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2019 Previews
Today, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 Preview 2 and Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.3 Preview 2 released with many improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio. This release includes major productivity enhancements such as XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms and improvements to the XAML Previewer for Xamarin.Forms. As well as support for the latest Android Q APIs.
Update on .NET Standard adoption
It’s about two years ago that I announced .NET Standard 2.0. Since then we’ve been working hard to increase the set of .NET Standard-based libraries for .NET. This includes many of the BCL components, such as the Windows Compatibility Pack, but also other popular libraries, such as the JSON.NET, the Azure SDK, or the AWS SDK. In this blog post, I’ll share some thoughts and numbers about the .NET ecosystem and .NET Standard.
Add Contact Features in 4 Lines of Code with Xamarin.Essentials
Integrating contact functionality has been a common task that I have been asked to develop for mobile apps over the years. This has ranged from a full contacts directory to simple contact information inside an app. Most requested features include the ability to call the contact, send an sms or email, and navigate to a location. In the past, I would have to implement several native APIs myself or install several libraries that could provide the functionality. Today, with Xamarin.Essentials all of this functionality is available in a single library and can be implemented in just 4 lines of code! So, let’s build a c...
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 Preview 2 and Visual Studio for Mac version 8.3 Preview 2 Released!
Visual Studio version 16.3 Preview 2 and Visual Studio for Mac version 8.3 Preview 2 are available. Because many of the features in this release are a response to Developer Community feedback, we are excited to share our changes. First of all, the latest Preview versions both PC and Mac are available to download from VisualStudio.com. You can also upgrade internally by clicking the notification bell within Visual Studio 2019. Likewise, within the Visual Studio 2019 for Mac IDE, click the Visual Studio > Check for Updates menu item. Our release notes contain many more details, so make sure to take a look.
Announcing WPF and WinForms Support in Visual Studio App Center
A few years ago, the Visual Studio App Center team set off with a big mission: to help developers focus on building better apps. We are striving to deliver the best continuous integration, delivery, and monitoring tools for mobile developers, but also thinking of a future where App Center supports more than just mobile apps. Today, we’re excited to announce the preview release of the App Center WPF and Windows Forms SDK, enabling support for diagnostics, analytics and distribution for apps targeting .NET Framework. Here’s a quick look at what you can do in App Center to get started today.
Preview Features in Visual Studio
The Preview Features page under Tools > Options > Environment has a new look! We introduced the Preview Features page so that you can easily find these capabilities and be able to control their enablement. The new layout provides more information and an opportunity to give feedback on the features. While these features are in development, you can disable any of these features if you run into issues. We also encourage you to provide feedback on the capabilities or any issues you find. Some features you may find on this page includes ones in early development that affect existing functionality, ones that are...
Improving .NET Core installation in Visual Studio and on Windows
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 and .NET Core 3.0 Preview 7 improve the installation experience of .NET Core on Windows. The goal is to reduce the number of .NET Core versions that might be on a machine. The improvements are based on customer feedback and our own experiences as well as laying the groundwork for future improvements.
Optimize your Xamarin.Android Builds
Xamarin.Android has a lot of nobs and levers when it comes to configuring your project. For example, do you know what the best settings are in Debug mode for quick builds? Or what to do in Release mode to make your APK as small as possible or have the fastest startup time? In this post, we will look into how you can optimize your Xamarin.Android builds to give you the best results for your mobile apps.
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 18950 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 18950 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 18950 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.
TraceProcessor 0.2.0
TraceProcessor version 0.2.0 is now available on NuGet with the following package ID: Microsoft.Windows.EventTracing.Processing.All
Introducing Azure Dedicated Host
We are excited to announce the preview of Azure Dedicated Host, a new Azure service that enables you to run your organization’s Linux and Windows virtual machines on single-tenant physical servers. Azure Dedicated Hosts provide you with visibility and control to help address corporate compliance and regulatory requirements. We are extending Azure Hybrid Benefit to Azure Dedicated Hosts, so you can save money by using on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses. Azure Dedicated Host is in preview in most Azure regions starting today.
Visual Studio App Center, User Identity, & Shared Devices
One of the design goals for the Visual Studio App Center SDK is to simplify things for developers, making it easy for them to use App Center in their mobile (and desktop) apps. Because of this, the SDK does a lot of work for developers, especially at startup whenever the app lets the SDK know which App Center services are in play.
Theming in Visual Studio just got a lot easier
Sometimes the default themes for Visual Studio just aren’t enough. Lucky for us, we’ve just redesigned the process of creating and importing custom themes.
Improving the Performance of Standard Library Functions
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 we improved the codegen of several standard library functions. Guided by your feedback on Developer Community (Inlining std::lldiv and Improved codegen for std::fmin, std::fmax, std::round, std::trunc) we focused on the variants of standard division (, , ) and .
Smarter Member List Filtering for C++
We are always looking for ways to make you more productive while coding in Visual Studio. In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2, we have created a smarter, more relevant Member List. Specifically, we now apply method filtering based on type qualifiers. To illustrate this, consider the following example:
Inlining Decisions in Visual Studio (C++)
My name is Terry Mahaffey and I work on the code generation team in MSVC. Lately I’ve been doing some work on our inliner and I wanted to give a brief introduction to it before later diving into some of the changes we’ll be shipping.
HttpRepl: A command-line tool for interacting with RESTful HTTP services
The ASP.NET team has built a command-line tool called HttpRepl. It lets you browse and invoke HTTP services in a similar way to working with files and folders. You give it a starting point (a base URL) and then you can execute commands like “dir” and “cd” to navigate your way around the API:
Status on Visual Studio feature suggestions
Visual Studio receives over 500 feature suggestions from customers every month on the Developer Community website. Handling that amount is a huge effort and we’d like to share with you how we handle this volume and the steps that we take to respond to them all. What happens to suggestion tickets after they’re opened, how many make it into Visual Studio, and what happens to the rest? Let’s find out.
MSVC Backend Updates in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 we continue to improve the C++ backend with build throughput improvements and new and improved optimizations. These build on top of our MSVC backend improvements in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.0 which we previously announced. We will be following up on many of the improvements here with their own blog posts.
Introducing AndroidX for Xamarin
The Android Support Library has had a long history of over the last 7 years providing backwards compatibility to Android framework APIs. Over the years, this library has grown in adoption as the majority of Android apps in the Google Play Store use the Support Library in some fashion today.
Improved Linker Fundamentals in Visual Studio 2019
On the C++ team we’ve heard loud and clear from users that build times are a pain point. So we’ve continued our focus on improving the step, linking, that dominates F5 build times. Fast F5 build times, or iteration build times, are a key contributor to developer productivity and we felt that there was a large opportunity so we narrowed in on changes that we felt could move the needle 2x or more. This is on top of the significant improvements we made to the tool chain to speed up link times in the VS 2019 16.0 release. Let me give a teaser of the kinds of wins we were able to achieve.
Faster Startup Times With Startup Tracing On Android
If you use AOT today, it improves startup times drastically, but you suffer in APK size bloat. This, unfortunately, is not a bargain that most Android applications can take in this modern-day as we must keep our users at the forefront of our decisions. They also ensure that they don’t have to download a large APK just to use our services. There must be a better way forward we thought.
Now available: Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1, Release Candidate 2
Today, we are announcing the release of Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1 RC2. This is our last planned prerelease before our final release of Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1. This second release candidate includes some bug fixes since RC1. You can upgrade from Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1 RC1 or previous versions of Azure DevOps Server or TFS. You can find the full details in our release notes.
Announcing GitLab Support for Visual Studio App Center
In Visual Studio App Center, a first step to building your app is to select a source provider. As a crucial step in the build process, we are always hoping to make this as seamless as possible. To continue this mission, we are excited to announce the completion of our top feature request for the past few months – support for GitLab.com as a source provider! Here’s what it looks like:
Caching and faster artifacts in Azure Pipelines
I’m excited to announce the public previews of pipeline caching and pipeline artifacts in Azure Pipelines. Together, these technologies can make every run of your pipeline faster by accelerating the transfer of artifacts between jobs and stages, and by caching the results of common operations like package restores.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 Generally Available and 16.3 Preview 1
Today we are making Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 generally available, as well as Preview 1 of version 16.3. You can download both versions from VisualStudio.com. If you already have Preview installed, you can alternatively click the notification bell from inside Visual Studio to update. We’ve highlighted some notable features below, but you can also see a list of all the changes in the current release notes or the Preview release notes.
Skill up on Visual Studio 2019 with Pluralsight
With the launch of Visual Studio 2019 in April, we announced having partnered with Pluralsight to provide new training content to help you build your skills with Visual Studio 2019. We’re thrilled to announce that all 10 courses, spanning over 14 hours of content in the Visual Studio 2019 Path on Pluralsight, are now available. You’ll also be able to benchmark your current skill level with a Pluralsight Skill IQ assessment, which will offer course recommendations.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 3.0 Preview 7 and Entity Framework 6.3 Preview 7
Today, we are making new previews of EF Core 3.0 and EF 6.3 available on nuget.org. .NET Core 3.0 Preview 7 and ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 7 were also made available today.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 7
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 7. We’ve transitioned from creating new features to polishing the release. Expect a singular focus on quality for the remaining preview releases.
ASP.NET Core and Blazor updates in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 7
.NET Core 3.0 Preview 7 is now available and it includes a bunch of new updates to ASP.NET Core and Blazor.
Vcpkg: 2019.06 Update
The 2019.06 update of vcpkg, a tool that helps you manage C and C++ libraries on Windows, Linux, and MacOS, is now available. This is the first time we’ve created a vcpkg release on our GitHub repository. This update is designed to bring you a summary of the new functionality and improvements made to vcpkg over about a month’s time. The 2019.06 update covers the month of June.
Announcing TypeScript 3.6 Beta
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of TypeScript 3.6 Beta. This beta is intended to be a feature-complete version of TypeScript 3.6. In the coming weeks we’ll be working on bugs and improving performance and stability for our release candidate, and eventually the full release.
Introducing PowerShell as .NET Global Tool
PowerShell is very suitable for CI/CD scenarios due to its easy and well understood scripting paradigm, and its cross-platform support makes it great for building and testing cross-platform applications. A .NET Global Tool is a special NuGet package that contains a console application.
Making it easier to bring your Linux based web apps to Azure App Service
Application development has radically changed over the years. From having to host all the physical hardware hosting the app and its dependences on-premises, to moving to a model where the hardware is hosted by external companies yet still managed by the users on to hosting your apps on a fully managed platform where all hardware and software management is done by the hosting provider. And then finally over to a full serverless solution where no resources need to be set up to run applications.
Announcing ML.NET 1.2 and Model Builder updates (Machine Learning for .NET)
We are excited to announce ML.NET 1.2 and updates to Model Builder and the CLI. ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework for .NET developers. ML.NET also includes Model Builder (a simple UI tool for Visual Studio) and the ML.NET CLI (Command-line interface) to make it super easy to build custom Machine Learning (ML) models using Automated Machine Learning (AutoML).
.NET Framework July 2019 Security and Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the July 2019 Cumulative Update, Security and Quality Rollup, and Security Only Update for .NET Framework.
Azure Pipelines integration with Jira Software
Some teams prefer to have a choice of tools for configuring development pipelines, and that is most effective when the tools are integrated and users can retain context as they move between systems for details.
Create and manage Azure Pipelines from the command line
We recently introduced a unified YAML experience in Azure Pipelines where you can configure pipelines to do CI, CD or CI and CD together. Over the past few months we have been building capability to manage YAML backed pipelines from the command line to cater to developers who prefer working from the command line interface or require commands to automate set up and management. We are excited to announce the availability of command in the Azure DevOps extension for developers who want to create and manage YAML backed Azure Pipelines from the CLI. The command group allows you to , , , , and a pipeline, enabling ...
Snppts – Beautiful UI Snippets for Xamarin.Forms
Features like , and the control gives developers the power to bring their ideas to life and create beautiful user interfaces. A lot of people in the community are creating awesome things with these. Although, with so much happening sometimes their efforts go unfound. This is why Snppts was created.
Resolve code issues in live apps running in Azure Kubernetes Services with the Snapshot Debugger
With ASP.NET core, my life as a Windows-first developer just broadened dramatically. I can now develop apps without being tied to a single platform. Having spent most of my career as a “Windows only” developer, I am now taking on the task of redesigning a twenty-year-old, IIS based service, so that it could be built on a Mac and hosted on Linux in Azure.
Participate in the Developer Economics Survey
The Developer Economics Q2 2019 survey is here in its 17th edition to shed light on the future of the software industry. Every year more than 40,000 developers around the world participate in this survey, so this is a chance to be part of something big, voice your thoughts, and make your own contribution to the developer community.
Xamarin.Essentials welcomes tvOS, watchOS, and Tizen
This week marked the launch of Xamarin.Essentials 1.2 packed full of new enhancements and optimizations. The main highlight is the new file preview features enabling you to send, view, and email files from a single cross-platform API. We are actively seeking feedback on these features. So be sure to chat with the team on Gitter or leave an issue on GitHub.
Clang/LLVM Support for MSBuild Projects
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 Preview 3 includes built-in Clang/LLVM support for MSBuild projects. In our last release, we announced support for Clang/LLVM for CMake. In the latest Preview of Visual Studio, we have extended that support to also include MSBuild projects. While in most cases we recommend using the MSVC compiler, we are committed to making Visual Studio one of the most comprehensive IDEs on Windows. You may want to use Clang instead if you are developing cross platform code, especially if it already depends on Clang or GCC extensions. You can now use Clang/LLVM to target both Windows and Linux usi...
Checklist for writing great Visual Studio extensions
Great Visual Studio extensions share a few key features that sets them apart from the rest. They look and feel well crafted, are performant and reliable, do what they advertise to perfection, and blend in naturally among Visual Studio’s own features.
Announcing XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms
Today at Xamarin Developer Summit, we announced XAML Hot Reload for Xamarin.Forms, which enables you to make changes to your XAML UI and see them reflected live, without requiring another build and deploy.
A brand new course on the fundamentals of scripting and programming for game development using C#, VisualStudio and Unity
We are excited to announce a refresh of our popular beginner and intermediate scripting tutorial videos, available free on Unity Learn. We teamed up with Microsoft to bring Unity game developers tutorials that will help you get started with the fundamentals of scripting and programming for using C#, Microsoft Visual Studio and Unity 2019.
Previewing Azure SDKs following new Azure SDK API Standards
Today we’re happy to share a new set of libraries for working with Azure Storage, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Key Vault, and Azure Event Hubs in Java, Python, JavaScript or TypeScript, and .NET. These libraries provide access to new service features, and represent the first step towards applying a new set of standards across the Azure SDKs that we believe will make the libraries easier to learn and integrate into your software. You can get these libraries today from your favorite package manager, and we would love to hear your feedback on GitHub. To get started follow the instructions linked below:
.NET Core July 2019 Updates – 2.1.12 and 2.2.6
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core July 2019 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
Write Better Code Faster with Roslyn Analyzers
Roslyn, the .NET compiler platform, helps you catch bugs even before you run your code. One example is Roslyn’s spellcheck analyzer that is built into Visual Studio. Let’s say you are creating a static method and misspelled the word static as statc. You will be able to see this spelling error before you run your code because Roslyn can produce warnings in your code as you type even before you’ve finished the line. In other words, you don’t have to build your code to find out that you made a mistake.
Exploring the Visual Studio App Center Data Roadmap
At Build 2019, we released App Center Data in public preview after starting development earlier this year. The App Center Data service enables you to easily scale, persist, and sync your data in the cloud for your mobile applications. App Center Data takes the work out of managing your data across different devices and platforms. Segmenting your data and associating it with a user’s identity can be easily done in a few steps. You can easily curate an offline experience in your app, performing both offline reads and writes with our easy-to-use modular App Center client SDKs.
A brand new course on the fundamentals of scripting and programming for game development using C#, VisualStudio and Unity
We are excited to announce a refresh of our popular beginner and intermediate scripting tutorial videos, available free on Unity Learn. We teamed up with Microsoft to bring Unity game developers tutorials that will help you get started with the fundamentals of scripting and programming for using C#, Microsoft Visual Studio and Unity 2019.
Previewing Azure SDKs following new Azure SDK API Standards
Today we’re happy to share a new set of libraries for working with Azure Storage, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Key Vault, and Azure Event Hubs in Java, Python, JavaScript or TypeScript, and .NET. These libraries provide access to new service features, and represent the first step towards applying a new set of standards across the Azure SDKs that we believe will make the libraries easier to learn and integrate into your software. You can get these libraries today from your favorite package manager, and we would love to hear your feedback on GitHub. To get started follow the instructions linked below:
iOS 13 Preview Release Now Available
Today, we are excited to share our first preview release focused on support for iOS 13 and Xcode 11! With today’s preview, you can begin building applications using Xcode 11 and start integrating new APIs for iOS 13. APIs such as “Sign in with Apple”, along with support for watchOS 6, tvOS 13, and macOS 10.15.
Xamarin.Forms 4.1.0 Stable Now Available
Today we are happy to announce Xamarin.Forms 4.1 availability on NuGet. Our 3.0.0 series of releases focused heavily on growing Xamarin.Forms by filling in the gaps. We learned that this should be available by default and want to continue effectively growing Xamarin.Forms to best meet your needs and improve productivity. Thank you for filling out surveys, scheduling discussion time, sharing your projects, and collaborating through GitHub!
Customize object displays in the Visual Studio debugger YOUR way
Have you ever stared at objects in a debugger window and wished that you could view those objects by something other than their type? I certainly have! Expanding items to determine each one’s identity can become tiresome very fast. Ideally, it would be great to quickly locate them by a particular property value. Luckily for us, Visual Studio has two not-so-well-known attributes known as DebuggerDisplay for managed users, and Natvis for native C++ users. These attributes let you customize how you view objects in debugger windows such as the Watch, Autos, Locals, and datatips!
Using Azure Search custom skills to create personalized job recommendations
The Microsoft Worldwide Learning Innovation lab is an idea incubation lab within Microsoft that focuses on developing personalized learning and career experiences. One of the recent experiences that the lab developed focused on offering skills-based personalized job recommendations. Research shows that job search is one of the most stressful times in someone’s life. Everyone remembers at some point looking for their next career move and how stressful it was to find a job that aligns with their various skills.
JSON Web Token and React Native Support Arrives to Visual Studio App Center Auth
We shipped App Center Auth in early preview on May 7, and it’s been an exciting month and a half since our launch! During this time we’ve actively engaged with our developers and rolled out a couple of product improvements based on your feedback.
Styling for Multiple Device Resolutions
A few months ago we received a request from one of our customers which required us to develop and test an application on multiple device resolutions. While doing this we realized that we were doing something wrong in our development process.
Xamarin and .NET Community Developer Events in July
Jumpstart your next mobile development project by networking with your local community and getting the latest updates about Xamarin and .NET related technologies. Discover upcoming developer events happening this July, including conferences and virtual opportunities around the world!
Configuring a Server-side Blazor app with Azure App Configuration
With .NET Core 3.0 Preview 6, we added authentication & authorization support to server-side Blazor apps. It only takes a matter of seconds to wire up an app to Azure Active Directory with support for single or multiple organizations. Once the project is created, it contains all the configuration elements in its to function. This is great, but in a team environment – or in a distributed topology – configuration files lead to all sorts of problems. In this post, we’ll take a look at how we can extract those configuration values out of JSON files and into an Azure App Configuration instance, where they can be ...
Auditing for Azure DevOps is now in Public Preview
We’re excited to announce that Auditing for Azure DevOps is now available for all organizations as a Public Preview! As Azure DevOps keeps growing and is adopted by enterprises, our customers have been demanding for the ability to monitor activities and changes throughout their organizations.
Visual Studio tips and tricks
Whether you are new or have been using Visual Studio for years, there are a bunch of tips and tricks that can make you more productive. We’ve been sharing tips on Twitter using the #vstip hashtag for a while, and this is a collection of the best ones so far.
Migrating MacOS Apps to 64-bit Before the Apple Transition
Apple has been moving towards 64-bit only applications on macOS for a number of releases. Last June, Apple started requiring Apps on the macOS App Store to be 64-bit only and macOS 10.13.4 and above prompt when launching 32-bit applications.
Simplify Your Code With Rocket Science: C++20’s Spaceship Operator
C++20 adds a new operator, affectionately dubbed the “spaceship” operator: . There was a post awhile back by our very own Simon Brand detailing some information regarding this new operator along with some conceptual information about what it is and does. The goal of this post is to explore some concrete applications of this strange new operator and its associated counterpart, the (yes it has been changed, for the better!), all while providing some guidelines for its use in everyday code.
Announcing the general availability of Azure premium files
Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Azure premium files for customers optimizing their cloud-based file shares on Azure. Premium files offers a higher level of performance built on solid-state drives (SSD) for fully managed file services in Azure
Announcing ML.NET 1.1 and Model Builder updates (Machine Learning for .NET)
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) for .NET developers.
Microsoft’s MT-DNN Achieves Human Performance Estimate on General Language Understanding Evaluation (GLUE) Benchmark
Understanding natural language is one of the longest running goals of AI, which can trace back to 1950s when the Turing test defines an “intelligent” machine. In recent years, we have observed promising results in many Natural Language Understanding (NLU) tasks both in academia and industry, as the breakthroughs in deep learning are applied to NLU, such as the BERT model developed by Google in 2018.
Get Started with Free Xamarin Training on Microsoft Learn
Learn how to build cross-platform mobile applications with the new Xamarin.Forms content on Microsoft Learn. The new and completely free platform where you can earn points and badges, level up, and advance your skills.
Faster Xamarin.Android Builds & Smaller Dex Files
One of our current focus areas in Xamarin.Android is build performance. The “inner dev loop” directly impacts developer productivity–the time it takes to make a small code change and see the result on a device or emulator. Reevaluating parts of Xamarin.Android’s codebase has been how we’ve been able to make progress.
Retrieving data. Wait a few seconds and try to cut or copy again.
This guide will show you how to fix Typescript compile errors in Javascript project that recently added Typescript support via a . It assumes that the is configured according to the description in part 1 of this post, and that you also installed types for some of your dependencies from the namespace. This guide is more of a list of tasks that you can pick and choose from, depending on what you want to fix first. Here are the tasks:
Streamlining Azure DevOps extension development
Azure DevOps has an incredibly deep set of functionality to allow you to build extensions for your team. You can add and modify elements in the UI as well as build back-end tasks. While the majority of features your team needs on a day-to-day basis are built in, extensions allow you to modify Azure DevOps to meet your needs. In this blog post, we’re going to highlight some tips and tricks to accelerate development of your own extension.
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 18917 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 18917 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 18917 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 18917 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 18917 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 18917 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.
Forwarded Headers Middleware Updates in .NET Core 3.0 preview 6
With the ASP.NET Core 2.1 release, we included and by default. These methods put a site into an infinite loop if deployed to an Azure Linux App Service, Azure Linux virtual machine (VM), or behind any other reverse proxy besides IIS. TLS is terminated by the reverse proxy, and Kestrel isn’t made aware of the correct request scheme.
Create interactive documentation with the new Try .NET template
In our previous post, we announced a global tool which allows developers to create interactive workshops and documentation. Tutorials created with let users start learning without having to install an editor. Features like IntelliSense and live diagnostics give users a sophisticated learning and editing experience. Today, we are releasing a new template called . This template can be installed next to existing templates. It creates a project and associated files to help content authors understand the basics of . This can serve as the foundation of your own awesome documentation!
Introducing next generation reading with Immersive Reader, a new Azure Cognitive Service
Today, we’re unveiling the preview of Immersive Reader, a new Azure Cognitive Service in the Language category. Developers can now use this service to embed inclusive capabilities into their apps for enhancing text reading and comprehension for users regardless of age or ability. No machine learning expertise is required. Based on extensive research on inclusivity and accessibility, Immersive Reader’s features are designed to read the text aloud, translate, focus user attention, and much more. Immersive Reader helps users unlock knowledge from text and achieve gains in the classroom and office.
XAML Islands v1 – Updates and Roadmap
At Microsoft Build, we announced that the Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903) would include XAML Islands v1.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.1 is now available (and a Preview for 8.2)
Today, we are excited to announce the release of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.1 along with the first preview of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.2. Both releases contain exciting new features as well as improvements to performance and stability across the IDE. You can download the latest update on the Visual Studio download page or update an existing installation via the Updater within Visual Studio for Mac. You can find release notes for both the stable and preview releases on our Release Notes page. We’ve also updated our Roadmap to give you a look at what’s coming over the next 3 months in versions...
Automatic Android SDK Management
As a mobile developer building apps for Android, there are many tools used under the hood to build, deploy, and debug your Android applications. We know this can be an intimidating process. So to ensure that you will have the best experience while focusing on developing your apps, we want to make sure you’re using the latest tooling. The new and improved Automatic Android SDK Management tool is here to help!
Announcing Entity Framework Core 3.0 Preview 6 and Entity Framework 6.3 Preview 6
New previews of the next versions of EF Core and EF 6 are now available on NuGet.Org.
The Evolving Infrastructure of .NET Core
With .NET Core 3.0 Preview 6 out the door, we thought it would be useful to take a brief look at the history of our infrastructure systems and the significant improvements that have been made in the last year or so.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 Preview 2
We are announcing the release of the second preview of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2. The latest version is available for you to download from VisualStudio.com, or, if you already have the Preview installed, just click the notification bell from inside Visual Studio to update. This latest preview adds the ability debug JavaScript code using the new Microsoft Edge Insider, an improved installation experience, and updates to the application installer command-line packaging. We’ve highlighted some of the notable features below. You can see a list of all the changes in the release notes.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 6
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 6. It includes updates for compiling assemblies for improved startup, optimizing applications for size with linker and EventPipe improvements. We’ve also released new Docker images for Alpine on ARM64.
Try the new System.Text.Json APIs
For .NET Core 3.0, we’re shipping a brand new namespace called System.Text.Json with support for a reader/writer, a document object model (DOM), and a serializer. In this blog post, I’m telling you why we built it, how it works, and how you can try it.
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.1 is now generally available
We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.1. It’s been just over a month since we released SSMS 18.0. While we brought in many fantastic capabilities, we also regressed some functionality for some of our users. We are happy to share that we’ve fixed those and are also bringing in some new features along with bug fixes.
Three ways to get notified about Azure service issues
Preparing for the unexpected is part of every IT professional’s and developer’s job. Although rare, service issues like outages and planned maintenance do occur. There are many ways to stay informed, but we’ve identified three effective approaches that have helped our customers respond quickly to service issues and mitigate downtime. All three take advantage of Azure Service Health, a free Azure service that lets you configure alerts to notify you automatically about service issues that might have an impact on your availability.
Configure Visual Studio across your organization with .vsconfig
As application requirements grow more complex, so do our solutions. Keeping developers’ environments configured across our organizations grows equally complex. Developers need to install specific workloads and components in order to build a solution. Some organizations add these requirements to their README or CONTRIBUTING documents in their repositories. Some organizations might publish these requirements in documents for new hires or even just forward emails. Configuring your development environment often becomes a day-long chore. What’s really needed is a declarative authoring model that just configures Visual...
.NET Framework May 2019 Security and Quality Rollup
Today, we are releasing the May 2019 Cumulative Update, Security and Quality Rollup, and Security Only Update.
How to optimize your Azure environment
Without the right tools and approach, cloud optimization can be a time-consuming and difficult process. There is an ever growing list of best practices to follow, and it’s constantly in flux as your cloud workloads evolve. Add the challenges and emergencies you face on a day-to-day basis, and it’s easy to understand why it’s hard to be proactive about ensuring your cloud resources are running optimally.
Join Microsoft Teams at Xamarin Developer Summit
On July 11-12th, the community-run Xamarin Developer Summit is set to launch in Houston, Texas. The two-day conference is packed full of amazing Xamarin content, covering a wide range of mobile development topics by expert speakers from around the world. Microsoft is excited to partner with the Xamarin Developer Summit community and for helping to bring even more Xamarin awesomeness to this conference.
Supporting the community with WF and WCF OSS projects
At the Build conference in May 2019, we mentioned that, after we add WinForms, WPF and Entity Framework 6 to .NET Core 3.0, we do not plan to add any more of the technologies from .NET Framework to .NET Core.
Improving Azure DevOps cherry-picking
One of the more powerful git commands is the cherry-pick command. This command takes one or more existing commits and applies each commit’s changes as a new commit on a different branch. This can be an extremely powerful component of many git workflows such as the Azure DevOps team’s Release Flow. To highlight a common use-case for it, let’s talk about hot-fixing release branches.
Performance Improvements in Visual Studio 2019
Performance has been a big focus area for Visual Studio 2019, with improvements in many areas, including:
Going all in on ‘Suggest a Feature’ in Visual Studio Developer Community
In October 2018, we announced that the Developer Community site we have used for reporting issues will work for feature requests in one convenient place. We also shared the plan to migrate from UserVoice forum to Developer Community. Since then, we have received and responded to over 2500 new feature suggestions on Developer Community with hundreds of those shipped in Visual Studio. Thank you for making the move and continuing to help us improve the functionality in Visual Studio! Now that feature suggestions are fully up and running on Developer Community, we have taken the final step of the move by turning off ...
CheckBox with Xamarin.Forms 4.1.0 Pre-Release
Just a few weeks ago we shipped Xamarin.Forms 4.0, which introduced the new Shell navigation for quickly bootstrapping your applications. As well as image source unification to make it convenient to use the same images everywhere, like the new FontImageSource. Several months ago our very own James Montemagno submitted a pull request introducing a CheckBox control. In recent days we also shipped a service release to quickly respond to the feedback you sent us. You’re not slowing down, and neither are we!
What’s new in Azure SignalR 1.1.0 Preview 1
We just shipped 1.1.0 Preview 1 of Azure SignalR Service SDK to support some new features in ASP.NET Core 3.0, including endpoint routing and server-side Blazor. Let’s take a look how you can use them in your Azure SignalR application.
Azure Service Fabric 6.4 Refresh Release
The updates for .NET SDK, Java SDK and Service Fabric runtimes will be available through Web Platform Installer, NuGet packages and Maven repositories in 7-10 days within all regions.
Code Reviews Using the Visual Studio Pull Requests Extension
The Pull Requests for Visual Studio is a new experimental extension that adds several code review tools to Visual Studio. This extension aims to make it easy for you to launch and view pull requests inside the integrated development environment (IDE) without needing to switch windows or use the web. We learned from customers that having a high-quality code review process is very important to increase productivity. To achieve that, this extension is enabling you to use existing and new Visual Studio code navigation, debugging and sharing capabilities in your code review process.
Azure IoT Edge Tools Extension (Preview) Announcement
We’re excited to announce the preview availability of the new Azure IoT Edge Tools Extension (Preview) for Visual Studio 2019. The extension provides a rich set of functionalities to support development of IoT Edge solutions with Visual Studio 2019:
Introducing Push to User for Visual Studio App Center
We made some recent changes to Visual Studio App Center that enable our customers to associate app users with their data in App Center. App Center customers can use this user association to send push notifications to specific users through App Center Push. In this article, I’ll explain how it all works.
Default implementations in interfaces
With last week’s posts Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 5 and Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 3, the last major feature of C# 8.0 is now available in preview.
Create Interactive .NET Documentation with Try .NET
When it comes to developers’ documentation, it is essential that we capture their interest and lead them down the path of success as soon as possible. Across multiple languages, developer ecosystems have been providing their communities with interactive documentation where users can read the docs, run code and, edit it all in one place.
Simplify the management of application configurations with Azure App Configuration
We’re excited to announce the public preview of Azure App Configuration, a new service aimed at simplifying the management of application configuration and feature flighting for developers and IT. App Configuration provides a centralized place in Microsoft Azure for users to store all their application settings and feature flags (a.k.a., feature toggles), control their accesses and deliver the configuration data where it is needed.
Xamarin.Forms 4.0: Getting Started with Shell
Xamarin.Forms 4.0 introduced amazing new features to help streamline development when building beautiful mobile apps with C#. The main highlight was the new Xamarin.Forms Shell, which seeks to reduce the complexity of building mobile apps by providing fundamental app architecture features. Such as a full visual hierarchy, common navigation experience, URI-based routing, and integrated search handling.
Porting desktop apps to .NET Core
Since I’ve been working with the community on porting desktop applications from .NET Framework to .NET Core, I’ve noticed that there are two camps of folks: some want a very simple and short list of instructions to get their apps ported to .NET Core while others prefer a more principled approach with more background information. Instead of writing up a “Swiss Army knife”-document, we are going to publish two blog posts, one for each camp:
Announcing TypeScript 3.5
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of TypeScript 3.5! If you’re new to TypeScript, it’s a language that builds on JavaScript that adds optional static types. TypeScript code gets type-checked to avoid common mistakes like typos and accidental coercions, and then gets transformed by a program called the TypeScript compiler.
Exploring new frontiers for Git push performance
In previous posts I’ve talked about performance improvements that our team contributed to the Git community. At Microsoft, we’ve been pushing Git to its limits with the largest and busiest Git repositories on the planet, improving core Git as we go and sending these improvements back upstream. With Git 2.21.0 and later you can take advantage of a new sparse pack algorithm that we developed to dramatically improve the git push operation on large repos. For example, the Windows team saw a 7.7x performance boost once they enabled this new feature. In this post I want to explain the new sparse pack algorithm and why ...
Accelerate bot development with Bot Framework SDK and other updates
Conversational experiences have become the norm, whether you’re looking to track a package or to find out a store’s hours of operation. At Microsoft Build 2019, we highlighted a few customers who are building such conversational experiences using the Microsoft Bot Framework and Azure Bot Service to transform their customer experience.
Announcing the preview of Windows Server containers support in Azure Kubernetes Service
Kubernetes is taking the app development world by storm. Earlier this month, we shared that the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) was the fastest growing compute service in Azure’s history. Customers like Siemens Healthineers, Finastra, Maersk, and Hafslund are realizing the benefits of using AKS to easily deploy, manage and scale applications without getting into the toil of maintaining infrastructures. As the community and adoption grows, Kubernetes itself is evolving, adding more enterprise-friendly features and extending to more scenarios. The release of production-level support for Windows Server containers i...
Announcing TypeScript 3.5 RC
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of our release candidate (RC) of TypeScript 3.5. Our hope is to collect feedback and early issues to ensure our final release is simple to pick up and use right away.
Performance Improvements in .NET Core 3.0
Back when we were getting ready to ship .NET Core 2.0, I wrote a blog post exploring some of the many performance improvements that had gone into it. I enjoyed putting it together so much and received such a positive response to the post that I did it again for .NET Core 2.1, a version for which performance was also a significant focus. With //build last week and .NET Core 3.0‘s release now on the horizon, I’m thrilled to have an opportunity to do it again.
Updates to synchronous autoload of extensions in Visual Studio 2019
Since announcing that Visual Studio 2019 v16.1 will block any extension from synchronously autoloading, we’ve seen a tremendous effort of both 1st and 3rd-party extensions to implement async background load. It’s been truly amazing to see the community of extension authors stepping up to the task. Many even did it long before we announced Visual Studio 2019.
Moving from Node.js to .NET Core
Here on Visual Studio App Center, our platform is built as a set of microservices, which has afforded teams to make language and platform choices that work best for them, and ultimately allowed us to move and iterate quickly. Over time, two distinct stacks have emerged:
Welcome to the Shell Era: Xamarin.Forms 4.0 Released
For the past year, Xamarin has been on a focused journey to improve your productivity by reducing your complexity when building cross-platform mobile applications. Notice the reference to “your” complexity, and not some abstract notion of complexity. That is because the Xamarin team spends countless hours obsessing over feedback, using that information to conduct studies and have honest one-on-one conversations to learn how we can best serve you.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 now generally available (and 16.2 Preview 1 as well)
Today, we are making Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 generally available, as well as the first preview release of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2. You can download both versions from VisualStudio.com. If you already have Preview installed, you can alternatively click the notification bell from inside Visual Studio to update. We’ve highlighted some notable features below and you can also see a list of all the changes in the current release notes or the Preview release notes.
Visual interface for Azure Machine Learning service
During Microsoft Build we announced the preview of the visual interface for Azure Machine Learning service. This new drag-and-drop workflow capability in Azure Machine Learning service simplifies the process of building, testing, and deploying machine learning models for customers who prefer a visual experience to a coding experience. This capability brings the familiarity of what we already provide in our popular Azure Machine Learning Studio with significant improvements to ease the user experience.
Introducing Visual Studio App Center Auth
For the past few months, the team has been working to develop a seamless identity management service to easily manage user identities at scale in Visual Studio App Center. Today, we’re really excited to launch App Center Auth in early preview!
Announcing Entity Framework 6.3 Preview with .NET Core Support
The first preview of the EF 6.3 runtime is now available in NuGet. Note that the package is versioned as 6.3.0-preview5. We plan to continue releasing previews of EF 6.3 every month in alignment with the .NET Core 3.0 previews, until we ship the final version.
.NET Core May 2019 Updates – 1.0.16, 1.1.14, 2.1.11 and 2.2.5
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core May 2019 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
General Availability For Azure Dev Spaces
Last week at Build, we announced general availability of Azure Dev Spaces. This add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) enables your team to develop applications with cloud velocity. Run your service in a live AKS cluster and test it end-to-end, without affecting your teammates. Save maintenance time and money by allowing your entire dev team to share an AKS cluster, rather than requiring separate environments for each developer.
Azure Pipelines Now Supports Additional Hosted macOS Versions
Azure Pipelines, our hosted CI/CD solution, has been offering developers the ability to build and test applications using Microsoft-hosted macOS and Xcode agents, including apps for iOS and watchOS.
Xamarin API Docs: Open Sourced and Available Now
Today, we are happy to announce the release of all Xamarin API Documentation as Open Source! API documentation drives the IntelliSense experience while being one of the best ways to help developers achieve their goals.
Modernizing Windows CE systems with Windows 10 IoT
Microsoft has provided platforms and operating systems for embedded devices for decades. As new offerings such as Windows 10 IoT have become available, our customers and partners are increasingly interested in the advanced security, platform and cloud connectivity features that these OSes provide. Customers moving from most earlier editions of Windows, like Windows XP and Windows 7, can do so with little effort because of binary-compatible applications. Other operating systems, like Windows CE, require device builders to modify source code. Porting applications like this can be challenging.
Introducing diagnostics improvements in .NET Core 3.0
In .NET Core 3.0, we are introducing a suite of tools that utilize new features in the .NET runtime that make it easier to diagnose and solve performance problems.
AddressSanitizer (ASan) for the Linux Workload in Visual Studio 2019 (C++)
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 3 we have integrated AddressSanitizer (ASan) into Visual Studio for Linux projects. ASan is a runtime memory error detector for C/C++ that catches the following errors:
Signing into Azure DevOps using your GitHub credentials
Across all of Microsoft, we are focusing on empowering developers to build better apps, faster. One way we are accomplishing that is by providing a range of products and services covering all stages of the software development lifecycle. This includes IDEs and DevOps tools, application and data platforms on the cloud, operating systems, Artificial Intelligence and IoT solutions, and more. All of these are centered around developers, both as individuals working in teams and organizations, and as members of developer communities.
The Next Evolution of Xamarin Training: Microsoft Learn
We’re excited to announce two new learning paths on Building Xamarin Apps in Microsoft Learn: A free and interactive learning portal.
What’s new with Azure Pipelines
Azure Pipelines, part of the Azure DevOps suite, is our Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI and CD) platform, used every day by large enterprises, individual developers, and open source projects. Today, we’re thrilled to announce new features for Azure Pipelines, including some much-requested ones:
.NET Core is the Future of .NET
We introduced .NET Core 1.0 on November 2014. The goal with .NET Core was to take the learning from our experience building, shipping and servicing .NET Framework over the previous 12 years and build a better product. Some examples of these improvements are side-by-side installations (you can install a new version and not worry about breaking existing apps), self-contained applications (applications can embed .NET, so .NET does not need to be on the computer), not being a component of the Windows operating system (.NET ships new releases independent of the OS schedule) and many more. On top of this, we made .NET ...
Announcing ML.NET 1.0
We are excited to announce the release of ML.NET 1.0 today. ML.NET is a free, cross-platform and open source machine learning framework designed to bring the power of machine learning (ML) into .NET applications.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 5
.NET Core 3.0 Preview 5 is now available. This iteration was brief for the team and primarily includes bug fixes and improvements to the more significant updates in Preview 4. This post summarizes the important points in this release.
Announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 5
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 5. It includes a new Json serializer, support for publishing single file executables, an update to runtime roll-forward, and changes in the BCL. If you missed it, check out the improvements we released in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 4, from last month.
Introducing .NET 5
Today, we’re announcing that the next release after .NET Core 3.0 will be .NET 5. This will be the next big release in the .NET family.
C++ with Visual Studio 2019 and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 3 we have added native support for using C++ with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). WSL lets you run a lightweight Linux environment directly on Windows, including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications. In Visual Studio you no longer need to add a remote connection or configure SSH in order to build and debug on your local WSL installation. This will save you time getting up and running in a Linux environment and eliminates the need to copy and maintain sources on a remote machine.
Improvements to Visual Studio App Center Distribution
Here at Visual Studio App Center, we try to incorporate customer obsession in our day to day. Earlier this year we started an effort for widespread customer outreach to understand our users and guide product prioritization. The effort helped us gain a lot of insight and helped our prioritization last quarter. However, as we continue to grow, we unfortunately don’t have the capacity to reach out to as many customers as we would like.
Azure DevOps Labs now includes Azure DevOps Server 2019 VM and labs
Today, I am excited to announce the availability of Azure DevOps Server 2019 Virtual Machine and the corresponding self-paced labs on Azure DevOps Labs.
Announcing the general availability of IntelliCode plus a sneak peek
We’re excited to announce the general availability of Visual Studio IntelliCode and offer a sneak peek at an up-and-coming feature we think you’ll love! With the release of Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.1, IntelliCode will be included with any workload supporting C#, C++, TypeScript/JavaScript, and XAML. However, only the C# and XAML models are currently generally available. C++ and TypeScript/JavaScript remain in preview at this time. We’ve learned so much from all of you in during our year in public preview and are thrilled for this next step.
Visual Studio Container Tools Extension (Preview) Announcement
Today we’re excited to announce the preview availability of the new Visual Studio Container Tools Extension (Preview) for Visual Studio 2019. This is an important milestone in the iteration of our container tooling in Visual Studio, as we try to empower developers to work better with their containerized applications directly from within the IDE. The current Visual Studio Tools for Containers provide a great getting started experience for developers building new containerized applications, as well as capabilities to containerize an existing application. The extension tooling, available today, will provide develope...
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.1 Preview 1
Today, we are proud to announce the next major update for Visual Studio for Mac: Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.1 Preview. In this update, we are offering our new C# editor as the default experience in addition to introducing support for .NET Core 3 Preview and new project templates. We’ve also been working to improve performance and reliability across the board, based on feedback that we’ve heard from the Visual Studio for Mac community.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 3
The third Preview version of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 is now available. You can download it from VisualStudio.com. Or, if you’re already on the Preview channel, just click the notification bell from inside your Visual Studio 2019 Preview installation to update. This latest preview contains a range of additions, including IntelliCode support by default, various C++ productivity enhancements, and .NET tooling updates. We’ve highlighted some notable features below, and you can see a list of all the changes in the Preview release notes.
Intelligent Productivity and Collaboration, from Anywhere
Developers today are encountering an overwhelming amount of complexity due to the growing emphasis on time-to-market, and a broader variety of technologies being used than ever before (e.g. polyglot apps, microservices). Additionally, teams are becoming more geographically distributed, which increases the need for efficient collaboration in order to maintain knowledge transfer within agile environments.
Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2019 Q2
Last week we published an update to the Features Timeline. The features listed below link to the public roadmap project where you can find more details about each item. Here are a few highlights on some of the features for Q2.
Introducing .NET for Apache® Spark™ Preview
Today at Spark + AI summit we are excited to announce .NET for Apache Spark. Spark is a popular open source distributed processing engine for analytics over large data sets. Spark can be used for processing batches of data, real-time streams, machine learning, and ad-hoc query.
Azure SignalR Service now supports ASP.NET!
We’ve just shipped the official version of the SignalR Service SDK with ASP.NET support:
5 tips to get more out of Azure Stream Analytics Visual Studio Tools
Azure Stream Analytics is an on-demand real-time analytics service to power intelligent action. Azure Stream Analytics tools for Visual Studio make it easier for you to develop, manage, and test Stream Analytics jobs. This year we provided two major updates in January and March, unleashing new useful features. In this blog we’ll introduce some of these capabilities and features to help you improve productivity.
Visual Studio C++ Template IntelliSense Populates Based on Instantiations in Your Code
Ever since we announced Template IntelliSense, you all have given us great suggestions. One very popular suggestion was to have the Template Bar auto-populate candidates based on instantiations in your code. In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 2, we’ve added this functionality via an “Add All Existing Instantiations” option in the Template Bar dropdown menu. The following examples are from the SuperTux codebase.
Improved C++ IntelliCode now Ships with Visual Studio 2019
IntelliCode support for C++ previously shipped as an extension, but it is now an in-box component that installs with the “Desktop Development with C++” workload in Visual Studio 2019 16.1 Preview 2. Make sure that IntelliCode is active for C++ by enabling the “C++ base model” under Tools > Options > IntelliCode > General:
C++17/20 Features and Fixes in Visual Studio 2019
The second preview of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 is now available. You can download it from VisualStudio.com, or, if you already have installed Preview, just click the notification bell inside Visual Studio to update. This latest preview contains additional performance and reliability fixes as well as enhancements for debugging, NuGet, extensibility, and C++ development. We’ve highlighted some notable features below. You can see a list of all the changes in the Preview release notes.
Redesigning the New Project Dialog
Last week, we released Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 2. If you have the latest update – awesome and thank you. If not, you can download it from the link above. Or, if you already have the Preview, just click the notification bell inside Visual Studio to update. This post discusses one of the most visible interface changes we’ve made in Visual Studio 2019 – the New Project Dialog.
Shrinking Your Android App Size
Mobile devices are limited in many ways. Whether it’s how much of a charge your battery can hold, the amount of storage you have left, or the speed of your internet connection to view more cat gifs. We need to keep this into consideration for our users to give them the absolute best mobile experience.
Upcoming Updates for .NET Framework 4.8
The .NET Framework 4.8 product release is now available. The .NET Framework 4.8 product will receive updates on the same cadence and the usual channels (Windows Update, WSUS, Catalog) as all .NET Framework and Windows cumulative updates. For Windows 10, .NET Framework 4.8 updates will now be delivered as independent updates, alongside the Windows cumulative updates. In this post, I explain how updates to .NET Framework 4.8 are delivered so you are ready for them.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 2
The second preview of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 is now available. You can download it from VisualStudio.com, or, if you already have installed Preview, just click the notification bell inside Visual Studio to update. This latest preview contains additional performance and reliability fixes as well as enhancements for debugging, NuGet, extensibility, and C++ development. We’ve highlighted some notable features below. You can see a list of all the changes in the Preview release notes.
Blazor now in official preview!
With this newest Blazor release we’re pleased to announce that Blazor is now in official preview! Blazor is no longer experimental and we are committing to ship it as a supported web UI framework including support for running client-side in the browser on WebAssembly.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 3.0 Preview 4
Today, we are making the fourth preview of Entity Framework Core 3.0 available on NuGet, alongside .NET Core 3.0 Preview 4 and ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 4. We encourage you to install this preview to test the new functionality and assess the impact of the included breaking changes.
Announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 4
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 4. It includes a chart control for Windows Forms, HTTP/2 support, GC updates to use less memory, support for CPU limits with Docker, the addition of PowerShell in .NET Core SDK Docker container images, and other improvements. If you missed it, check out the improvements we released in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 3 just last month.
Announcing the .NET Framework 4.8
We are thrilled to announce the release of the .NET Framework 4.8 today. It’s included in the Windows 10 May 2019 Update. .NET Framework 4.8 is also available on Windows 7+ and Windows Server 2008 R2+.
Move your data from AWS S3 to Azure Storage using AzCopy
AzCopy v10 (Preview) now supports Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 as a data source. You can now copy an entire AWS S3 bucket, or even multiple buckets, to Azure Blob Storage using AzCopy.
Azure.Source – Volume 78
When it comes to adding a performance tier between compute and file storage, Avere Systems has led the way with its high-performance caching appliance known as the Avere FXT Edge Filer. Last week at NAB, attendees will got a first look at the new Azure FXT Edge Filer, now with even more performance, memory, SSD, and support for Azure Blob. Since Microsoft’s acquisition of Avere last March, we’ve been working to provide an exciting combination of performance and efficiency to support hybrid storage architectures with the Avere appliance technology. We are currently previewing the FXT 6600 model at customer sites, ...
.NET Core Workers in Azure Container Instances
In .NET Core 3.0 we are introducing a new type of application template called Worker Service. This template is intended to give you a starting point for writing long running services in .NET Core. In this walkthrough you’ll learn how to use a Worker with Azure Container Registry and Azure Container Instances to get your Worker running as a microservice in the cloud.
Getting Ready for macOS’s Hardened Runtime and Notary
With macOS Mojave, Apple introduced support for Hardened Runtime and Notary service. These two services are designed to improve application security on macOS. Recently Apple has stated:
.NET application migration using Azure App Services and Azure Container Services
Designed for developers and solution architects who need to understand how to move business critical apps to the cloud, this online workshop series gets you hands-on with a proven process for migrating an existing ASP.NET based application to a container based application. Join us live for 90 minutes on Wednesday and Fridays through May 3 to get expert guidance and to get your questions answered.
New features for extension authors in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1
Earlier this week, we released Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 Preview 1 (see release notes). It’s the first preview of the first update to Visual Studio 2019. If you’re not already set up to get preview releases, then please do that now. The preview channel installs side-by-side with the release channel and they don’t interfere with each other. I highly recommend all extension authors install the preview.
Sharing Files & Email Attachments with Xamarin.Essentials Preview Features
In the recent release of Xamarin.Essentials (1.1.0), we introduced several new stable features including detect shake, browser customization, and a plethora of platform helpers. The team has also been working hard on one of the top requested features around files. So to get feedback from developers, we snuck a few preview features into 1.1.0. Including the ability to share a file or add a file as an email attachment! It is extremely easy to get started using these new preview features with just a few lines of code.
.NET Core April 2019 Updates – 2.1.10 and 2.2.4
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core April 2019 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on included fixes.
How to accelerate DevOps with Machine Learning lifecycle management
DevOps is the union of people, processes, and products to enable the continuous delivery of value to end users. DevOps for machine learning is about bringing the lifecycle management of DevOps to Machine Learning. Utilizing Machine Learning, DevOps can easily manage, monitor, and version models while simplifying workflows and the collaboration process.
Become a Dev Rockstar by Learning About your Users with Visual Studio App Center and Azure
As a customer of Visual Studio App Center, you linked your code repository, configured your first mobile build definitions, committed your code, watched your builds in real-time, and installed your mobile app on real devices. Bravo! You have set up a full Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment mobile pipeline where code is committed and new features are available to your testers or customers within minutes.
Getting Started With WorkManager (Xamarin)
If you need to schedule a background task on Android, you’re probably familiar with all of the various ways to accomplish this such as:
Introducing the App Service Migration Assistant for ASP.NET applications
In June 2018, we released the App Service Migration Assessment Tool. The Assessment Tool was designed to help customers quickly and easily assess whether a site could be moved to Azure App Service by scanning an externally accessible (HTTP) endpoint. Today we’re pleased to announce the release of an updated version, the App Service Migration Assistant! The new version helps customers and partners move sites identified by the assessment tool by quickly and easily migrating ASP.Net sites to App Service.
Announcing ML.NET 1.0 RC – Machine Learning for .NET
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) for .NET developers. Using ML.NET, developers can leverage their existing tools and skillsets to develop and infuse custom AI into their applications by creating custom machine learning models for common scenarios like Sentiment Analysis, Recommendation, Image Classification and more!.
Web and Azure Tool Updates in Visual Studio 2019
Hopefully by now you’ve seen that Visual Studio 2019 is now generally available. As you would expect, we’ve added improvements for web and Azure development. As a starting point, Visual Studio 2019 comes with a new experience for getting started with your code and we updated the experience for creating ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core projects to match:
Little great things about Visual Studio 2019
A few days ago, we announced the general availability of Visual Studio 2019. But I’ve been using Visual Studio 2019 exclusively since the first internal build – long before the release of Preview 1 in December of 2018. During this time, there has been a lot of little features that have put a smile on my face and made me more productive.
.NET Core Workers as Windows Services
In .NET Core 3.0 we are introducing a new type of application template called Worker Service. This template is intended to give you a starting point for writing long running services in .NET Core. In this walkthrough we will create a worker and run it as a Windows Service.
GlideX For Fast Images on Android
Getting good image performance on Android has traditionally been a difficult task. Google has some documentation on the subject, which unfortunately mentions some complex topics:
Migrating Delegate.BeginInvoke Calls for .NET Core
I recently worked with a couple customers migrating applications to .NET Core that had to make code changes to workaround and methods on delegates not being supported on .NET Core. In this post, we’ll look at why these APIs aren’t implemented for .NET Core, why their usage isn’t caught by the .NET API Portability Analyzer, and how to fix code using them to work with .NET Core.
Re-reading ASP.Net Core request bodies with EnableBuffering()
In some scenarios there’s a need to read the request body multiple times. Some examples include
Visual Studio 2019 now available for download
Visual Studio 2019 is generally available today and available for download. With Visual Studio 2019, you and your teams will become more productive in building current and future projects as you benefit from the innovation in the IDE that makes every keystroke count.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac now available for download
Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac – the next major version of our .NET IDE on the Mac. This release is now available as an update in the Stable channel for existing Visual Studio for Mac users, and new users can download and install it today as well. You also can learn more about the new capabilities in this version by reading our release notes.
Introducing Time Travel Debugging for Visual Studio Enterprise 2019
The Time Travel Debugging (TTD) preview in Visual Studio Enterprise 2019 provides the ability to record a Web app running on a Azure Virtual Machine (VM) and then accurately reconstruct and replay the execution path. TTD integrates with our Snapshot Debugger offering and allows you to rewind and replay each line of code however many times you want, helping you isolate and identify problems that might only occur in production environments.
Visual Studio 2019 .NET productivity
Your friendly neighborhood .NET productivity team (aka. Roslyn) focuses a lot on improving the .NET coding experience. Sometimes it’s the little refactorings and code fixes that really improve your workflow. You may have seen many improvements in the previews, but for all of you who were eagerly awaiting the GA release here’s a few features you may enjoy!
Introducing the Xamarin.iOS Interpreter
Historically iOS applications have had a number of limitations when running on a device, as Apple disallows the execution of dynamically generated code. Applications are compiled “Ahead of Time” (AOT) before deployment because of this. You can read more about this architecture here.
Visual Studio 2019 now available for download
Visual Studio 2019 is generally available today and available for download. With Visual Studio 2019, you and your teams will become more productive in building current and future projects as you benefit from the innovation in the IDE that makes every keystroke count.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac now available for download
Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac – the next major version of our .NET IDE on the Mac. This release is now available as an update in the Stable channel for existing Visual Studio for Mac users, and new users can download and install it today as well. You also can learn more about the new capabilities in this version by reading our release notes.
Live Share now included with Visual Studio 2019
We’re excited to announce the general availability of Visual Studio Live Share, and that it is now included with Visual Studio 2019! In the year since Live Share began its public preview, we’ve been working to enhance the many ways you collaborate with your team. This release is the culmination of that work, and all the things we’ve learned from you along the way.
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2019
Visual Studio 2019 is the next major version of Visual Studio which is now generally available (GA)! With this version, there is a lot to love. From real-time collaboration with colleagues using Visual Studio Live Share to the new Visual Studio start window as well as delights like per-monitor DPI support and improved debug capabilities. We believe this is the best release of Visual Studio yet!
DirectML at GDC 2019
Last year at GDC, we shared our excitement about the many possibilities for using machine learning in game development. If you’re unfamiliar with machine learning or neural networks, I strongly encourage you to check out our blog post from last year, which is a primer for many of the topics discussed in this post.
Get Your Apps Ready for Apple’s New Watch Processor Architecture
Last fall, Apple announced that new applications and updates would need to support the Apple Watch Series 4.
Linker Throughput Improvement in Visual Studio 2019
In Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 we made the compiler back-end to prune away debug information that is unrelated to code or data emitted into binary and changed certain hash implementations in the PDB engine, to improve linker throughput, which resulted in more than 2x reduction on link time for some large AAA game title.
Using Newtonsoft.Json in a Visual Studio extension
The ever popular Newtonsoft.Json NuGet package by James Newton-King is used throughout Visual Studio’s code base. Visual Studio 2015 (14.0) was the first version to ship with it. Later updates to Visual Studio also updated its Newtonsoft.Json version when an internal feature needed it. Today it is an integral part of Visual Studio and you can consider it a part of the SDK alongside other Visual Studio assemblies.
.NET Framework March 2019 Update
Today, we released the March 2019 Update. Quality and Reliability This release contains the following quality and reliability improvements.
Visual Studio Subscriptions – everything you need for Azure development
Recently, our product team has been talking with Visual Studio subscribers to learn more about how they approach cloud development. Many of the subscribers we spoke with mentioned that they were unaware of the benefits included with a Visual Studio subscription, that are intended to make learning new technologies and prototyping easy.
C++ Game performance and compilation time improvements in Visual Studio 2019
The C++ compiler in Visual Studio 2019 includes several new optimizations and improvements geared towards increasing the performance of games and making game developers more productive by reducing the compilation time of large projects. Although the focus of this blog post is on the game industry, these improvements apply to most C++ applications and C++ developers.
Xamarin.Essentials Adds Detect Shake, Browser Customization, Color Helpers, and More!
Xamarin.Essentials are your ultimate open source library to access native features from a single cross-platform API. Since the first release, we have received awesome feedback on GitHub from developers that integrated it into their apps. We have also received some great pull requests to add some new features and bug fixes that have gone into the newest release 1.1.0 that are available today. This includes the ability to detect shake movement of the device, customization when opening the browser, ability to check for mock location, and several platform helpers.
Announcing TypeScript 3.4 RC
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of our release candidate (RC) of TypeScript 3.4. Our hope is to collect feedback and early issues to ensure our final release is simple to pick up and use right away.
.NET Core Container Images now Published to Microsoft Container Registry
We are now publishing .NET Core container images to Microsoft Container Registry (MCR). We have also made other changes to the images we publish, described in this post.
Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event agenda and speakers now published
We’re only 15 days away from the general availability of Visual Studio 2019 and our virtual Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event. It’s been incredible to see all the buzz and excitement in the community around the launch, from the 180+ local launch events happening all across the globe over the next months to all the posts about the features you’re most excited about on Twitter. Today, I’m happy to share the full agenda for the Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event with you, alongside the list of speakers.
Code more, scroll less with Visual Studio IntelliCode
You may know that Visual Studio IntelliCode helps you write code from commonly used libraries, based on machine learning across thousands of open sourced GitHub repos. Instead of having to search and scroll through a sorted list of methods and properties, you get suggestions on the most likely ones for your coding context as you type.
Achieve more with Microsoft Game Stack
Microsoft is built on the belief of empowering people and organizations to achieve more – it is the DNA of our company. Today we are announcing a new initiative, Microsoft Game Stack, in which we commit to bringing together Microsoft tools and services that will empower game developers like yourself, whether you’re an indie developer just starting out or a AAA studio, to achieve more.
Announcing Visual Studio App Center Integration with PlayFab: Better Tools For Better Player Engagement
In January of 2018 Microsoft announced the acquisition of PlayFab, a complete backend of services for building and growing cloud connected games. Seeing that Visual Studio App Center and PlayFab shared common goals, and complimentary services, we started looking for ways we could offer a shared experience to bring greater value and new capabilities to our customers. Today we are excited to announce a preview release of our first steps into that shared offering, bringing App Center diagnostics data into PlayFab. Now, you have even more rich data at your disposal as you manage and monitor your game.
Enhanced Xamarin Development With MFractor
MFractor is a powerful Visual Studio for Mac extension to streamline the development of your Xamarin applications. By improving many common Xamarin workflows, MFractor can save a significant amount of development time and effort over the course of your project.
Argument completion made easy with Visual Studio IntelliCode
Visual Studio IntelliCode saves you time by putting what you’re most likely to use at the top of your completion list. IntelliCode recommendations are based on thousands of open source projects on GitHub, each with over 100 stars. When combined with the context of your code, the completion list is tailored to promote common practices. As a result, instead of having to search and scroll through sorted lists, you get suggestions on the most likely ones for your coding context as you type.
A Quick Update on Google Components for iOS and Android
One of the best parts about using Xamarin for mobile development is access to all of the platform APIs from C# bindings. Additionally, any native iOS or Android library can be consumed by a Xamarin application by creating a custom binding project. That’s exactly what the Component Team here at Microsoft does for the most popular libraries that developers need access to. In the last 6 months, there have been drastic changes across several key libraries such as Google Play Services and Android Support Libraries. To catch everyone up on work that the team has been doing, what is available for you today, and what’s c...
Announcing ML.NET 0.11 – Machine Learning for .NET
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) for .NET developers. Using ML.NET, developers can leverage their existing tools and skillsets to develop and infuse custom AI into their applications by creating custom machine learning models for common scenarios like Sentiment Analysis, Recommendation, Image Classification and more!.
Visual Studio extensions and version ranges demystified
Extension authors use visual Studio version ranges to specify what versions of Visual Studio their extensions support. A version range looks like this [14.0, 17.0) and specifies the minimum and maximum version of Visual Studio as well as if the edges are included or excluded. The syntax with mismatching braces may initially seem a bit odd and what exactly do those numbers refer to? Let’s unravel the mystery of the Visual Studio version ranges.
Beautiful Material Design for Android & iOS
This week, Xamarin.Forms 3.6 shipped with another round of improvements, the most exciting of which is called Visual. Visual enables developers to create beautiful, cross-platform mobile applications that share not only a massive amount of code but also design and behavior. Material Design is the first style of cross-platform controls to take advantage of Visual.
Blazor 0.9.0 experimental release now available
Blazor 0.9.0 is now available! This release updates Blazor with the Razor Components improvements in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 3.
Making C++ Exception Handling Smaller On x64
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 3 introduces a new feature to reduce the binary size of C++ exception handling (try/catch and automatic destructors) on x64. Dubbed FH4 (for __CxxFrameHandler4, see below), I developed new formatting and processing for data used for C++ exception handling that is ~60% smaller than the existing implementation resulting in overall binary reduction of up to 20% for programs with heavy usage of C++ exception handling.
Windows Desktop Developer Twitch Workshop (March 14, 2019)
Today we’d like to announce an upcoming free live streaming workshop on March 14th, 2019 focused on Windows Desktop development for .NET applications using frameworks such as WPF, WinForms and UWP.
Xamarin.Forms 3.6: Visual Has Materialized
We’re pleased to announce the release of Xamarin.Forms 3.6 in the usual cadence of our regular releases. In addition to the usual enhancements and bug fixes, we’re also moving our Visual feature from experimental to stable status. With Visual, you can now implement a Material look-and-feel on supported controls in your Android and iOS apps.
ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 3
.NET Core 3.0 Preview 3 is now available and it includes a bunch of new updates to ASP.NET Core.
Azure DevOps Server 2019 Now Available
Following the launch of Azure DevOps in September, we’re pleased to announce the official release of Azure DevOps Server 2019! Previously known as Team Foundation Server (TFS), Azure DevOps Server 2019 brings the power of Azure DevOps into your dedicated environment. You can install Azure DevOps Server 2019 into any datacenter or sovereign, and determine when to apply updates.
Announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 3
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3.0 Preview 3. We would like to update you on the .NET Core 3.0 schedule and introduce you to improvements in .NET Core SDK installers, Docker containers, Range, and Index. We also have updates on the Windows Desktop and Entity Framework projects.
Announcing the Open Sourcing of Windows Calculator
Today, we’re excited to announce that we are open sourcing Windows Calculator on GitHub under the MIT License. This includes the source code, build system, unit tests, and product roadmap. Our goal is to build an even better user experience in partnership with the community. We are encouraging your fresh perspectives and increased participation to help define the future of Calculator.
Floating-Point Parsing and Formatting improvements in .NET Core 3.0
Starting back with the .NET Core 2.1 release, we were making iterative improvements to the floating-point parsing and formatting code in .NET Core. Now, in .NET Core 3.0 Preview 3, we are nearing completion of this work and would like to share more details about these changes and some of the differences you might see in your applications.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Preview 3 now available
Today, we’re excited to announce the Preview 3 release of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac. This is the next release of our IDE for .NET Developers on the Mac. You can download it now or use the in-product update feature if you already have a previous preview release installed.
Open Existing CMake Caches in Visual Studio
Visual Studio typically manages all the details of CMake for you, under the hood, when you open a project. However, some development workflows require more fine-grained control over how CMake is invoked. The latest Visual Studio 2019 Preview lets you have complete control over CMake if your project needs more flexibility. You can now give your custom or preferred tools complete control of your project’s CMake cache and build tree instead of letting Visual Studio manage it for you.
Best Practices and Tips for Using Xamarin.UITest
We can all agree that it is very important for mobile apps to have great user interfaces, be accessible, and be extremely performant. Given the plethora of devices with different screen sizes, screen densities, and RAM, it is of utmost importance that we not only unit test app functionality but also have a set of robust user interface tests to ensure high quality and performant apps. We, on the Mobile Customer Advisory Team, are often asked to help customers get started with UITests or help make their tests scalable and maintainable. I’d like to share some best practices and tips & tricks our team uses to hel...
CUDA 10.1 available now, with support for latest Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 versions (C++)
We are pleased to echo NVIDIA’s announcement for CUDA 10.1 today, and are particularly excited about CUDA 10.1’s continued compatibility for Visual Studio. CUDA 10.1 will work with RC, RTW and future updates of Visual Studio 2019. To stay committed to our promise for a Pain-free upgrade to any version of Visual Studio 2017 that also carries forward to Visual Studio 2019, we partnered closely with NVIDIA for the past few months to make sure CUDA users can easily migrate between Visual Studio versions. Congratulations to NVIDIA for this milestone and thank you for a great collaboration!
Cognitive Services Speech SDK 1.3 – February update
Developers can now access the latest Cognitive Services Speech SDK which now supports:
View PDF Files within Your Xamarin.Forms Apps Using the Syncfusion PDF Viewer
Probably the most popular document format used for sharing content across various applications and operating systems is a PDF (Portable Document Format). As a Xamarin developer, you may need to display PDF documents like invoices and reports within your Xamarin applications.
Visual Studio 2019 Release Candidate (RC) now available
Today we’re sharing a Visual Studio 2019 Release Candidate (RC) – one of the final steps before general availability on April 2 at the virtual launch event. You can download the RC at visualstudio.com/downloads. As always, check out the release notes for the RC for all the details.
Growing the Visual Studio App Center Service Portfolio
As you know, Visual Studio App Center delivers a solid DevOps foundation for your app projects, delivering the cloud services you use build, test and deploy your apps. Many customers use App Center services inside their apps as well, collecting volumes of information from apps running in the wild through our Analytics service and capturing data on the rare application crash through Diagnostics. App developers and marketers engage with their customers in a variety of ways through the App Center Push service.
An update to C# versions and C# tooling
Starting with Visual Studio 2019 Preview 4, we’ll be adjusting how C# versions are treated in .NET tooling.
Going Public (With Our Visual Studio App Center Plans)
Throughout Visual Studio App Center’s life, we published a product roadmap and changelog, but we never really felt comfortable talking too far into the future. With so many services and so many things we wanted to do for each, we weren’t confident in what we’d get to and when we’d do it. This is OK, but not great, and our customers consistently told us they wanted more, earlier – it’s time we delivered.
How to port desktop applications to .NET Core 3.0
In this post, I will describe how to port a desktop application from .NET Framework to .NET Core. I picked a WinForms application as an example. Steps for WPF application are similar and I’ll describe what needs to be done different for WPF as we go. I will also show how you can keep using the WinForms designer in Visual Studio even though it is under development and is not yet available for .NET Core projects.
Quick Tip: Debugging Local ASP.NET Core Web APIs on Android Emulators
When developing mobile applications with a web API backend there is always a need to debug locally on your development machine. If you are using Visual Studio for Mac and debugging iOS applications you know it is as easy as running your web API locally and using localhost as the URL for web requests. However, this is not the case for Android debugging, because Android emulators have their own networking configuration whereas the iOS simulator uses the same network as the local machine. But we’ve got you, Android app developers, covered. With a little “know how” you can now also debug your Android apps locally reg...
Use your favorite extensions with Visual Studio 2019
Do you want to try the preview of Visual Studio 2019 but worry that your favorite extensions aren’t supported yet? A record number of extensions have already added support for Visual Studio 2019. So there is a good chance your favorite extensions are among them. In fact, more than 850 extensions are currently available, and more are being updated every day.
Announcing .NET Framework 4.8 Early Access Build 3745
As we get closer to the final version, our efforts are focused on stabilizing the release over the coming weeks. Please keep up the support by trying out our latest preview 3745 and provide any feedback you may have for the build or for .NET 4.8 overall, via the .NET Framework Early Access GitHub repository.
Reflecting your feedback in Visual Studio 2019
We started sharing Visual Studio 2019 Previews with the goal to deliver the best possible experience through a more open dialog.
Announcing TypeScript 3.2
TypeScript 3.2 is here today! If you’re unfamiliar with TypeScript, it’s a language that brings static type-checking to JavaScript so that you can catch issues before you even run your code – or before you even save your file. It also includes the latest JavaScript features from the ECMAScript standard on older browsers and runtimes by compiling those features into a form that they understand.
.NET Framework February 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup
Today, we released the February 2019 Preview of Quality Rollup. Quality and Reliability This release contains the following quality and reliability improvements.
Update to Azure DevOps Projects support for Azure Kubernetes Service
Kubernetes is going from strength to strength as adoption across the industry continues to grow. But there are still plenty of customers coming to container orchestration for the first time while also building up their familiarity with Docker and containers in general. We see the need to help teams go from a container image, or just a git repo, and help get them to an app running in Kubernetes in as few steps as possible. It’s also important that we do this in a way that will allow them to customize afterward and build on their knowledge as they go.
C++ Binary Compatibility and Pain-Free Upgrades to Visual Studio 2019
Visual Studio 2019 pushes the boundaries of individual and team productivity. We hope that you will find these new capabilities compelling and start your upgrade to Visual Studio 2019 soon.
Persisting Settings and Preferences in Mobile Apps with Xamarin.Essentials
An essential part of any mobile application is the ability to persist data. Sometimes that is a large amount of data that requires a database, but often it is smaller pieces of data such as settings and preferences that need to be persisted between application launches. This is where Xamarin.Essentials can help out with its wide range of cross-platform APIs for mobile apps. Specifically, the Preferences API enables you to store application preferences in a key/value store. Let’s take look.
.NET Core 1.0 and 1.1 will reach End of Life on June 27, 2019
.NET Core 1.0 was released on June 27, 2016 and .NET Core 1.1 was released on November 16, 2016. As an LTS release, .NET Core 1.0 is supported for three years. .NET Core 1.1 fits into the same support timeframe as .NET Core 1.0. .NET Core 1.0 and 1.1 will reach end of life and go out of support on June 27, 2019, three years after the initial .NET Core 1.0 release.
Join us April 2nd for the Launch of Visual Studio 2019!
At Connect(); a little over two months ago, we released the first Visual Studio 2019 Preview. Based on your inputs, we’ve made several improvements to Visual Studio 2019 in our endeavor to make this the best Visual Studio yet. On behalf of our entire team, I’m excited to announce the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2019 on April 2, 2019 at the Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event.
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 Blog Rollup (C++)
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 was a huge release for us, so we’ve written a host of articles to explore the changes in more detail. For the short version, see the Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 Release Notes.
Using Azure DevOps from the Command Line
We talk with customers who love the command line. Donovan Brown maintains the community VSTeam command for folks that love PowerShell, but we’re pleased to announce that we now have a public preview of Azure DevOps extension for the Azure CLI which is available cross platform.
Announcing Windows Community Toolkit v5.1
It’s with great pleasure today that we announce the next update to the Windows Community Toolkit, version 5.1, made possible with help and contributions from our developer community. This update brings high-quality animation support with the inclusion of Lottie-Windows in the toolkit. In addition, it provides a control for choosing Remote Devices, a new Image Cropping control, and many control accessibility fixes.
Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2019 Q1
Last week we updated the Features Timeline to provide visibility on our key investments for this quarter. The features listed below link to the public roadmap project where you can find more details about each item. Here are a few highlights on some of the features for Q1 and Q2.
Join us April 2nd for the Launch of Visual Studio 2019!
At Connect(); a little over two months ago, we released the first Visual Studio 2019 Preview. Based on your inputs, we’ve made several improvements to Visual Studio 2019 in our endeavor to make this the best Visual Studio yet. On behalf of our entire team, I’m excited to announce the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2019 on April 2, 2019 at the Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event.
Growing the Visual Studio App Center Service Portfolio
As you know, Visual Studio App Center delivers a solid DevOps foundation for your app projects, delivering the cloud services you use build, test and deploy your apps. Many customers use App Center services inside their apps as well, collecting volumes of information from apps running in the wild through our Analytics service and capturing data on the rare application crash through Diagnostics. App developers and marketers engage with their customers in a variety of ways through the App Center Push service.
Easily Check Mobile Device Connectivity with Xamarin.Essentials
One of the best parts of a mobile device is their instant access to the internet. As a mobile app developer, it’s great to be able to pull data from the server to our apps to provide users with a delightful experience. Of course, until your user puts their device on airplane mode or hits a rough patch with no cell reception. To provide the best user experience we need access to the current network state of our users’ device.
.NET Core February 2019 Updates – 1.0.14, 1.1.11, 2.1.8 and 2.2.2
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core February 2019 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes. See the individual release notes for details on included reliability fixes.
Break When Value Changes: Data Breakpoints for .NET Core in Visual Studio 2019
“Why is this value changing unexpectedly and where or when is this occurring?!” This is a question many of us dread asking ourselves, knowing that we’ll have to do some tedious trial-and-error debugging to locate the source of this issue. For C++ developers, the exclusive solution to this problem has been the data breakpoint, a debugging tool allowing you to break when a specific object’s property changes. Fortunately, data breakpoints are no longer a C++ exclusive because they are now available for .NET Core (3.0 or higher) in Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2!
Announcing ML.NET 0.10 – Machine Learning for .NET
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) for .NET developers. Using ML.NET, developers can leverage their existing tools and skillsets to develop and infuse custom AI into their applications by creating custom machine learning models.
A better multi-monitor experience with Visual Studio 2019
Visual Studio 2019 now supports per-monitor DPI awareness (PMA) across the IDE. PMA support means the IDE and more importantly, the code you work on appears crisp in any monitor display scale factor and DPI configuration, including across multiple monitors.
What’s new in Azure DevOps Sprint 146 Update
In this update, you can now simplify the organization of your work using the Basic process, easily create tables and add a query right into the Wiki plus more, and see updates to Azure Pipelines. Check out the video to learn more about these features.
Changes to the web and JSON editor APIs in Visual Studio 2019
In Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2, The Web Tools team made some changes to improve extensibility features for extension developers. To standardize interfaces, the CSS, HTML, JSON and CSHTML editors renamed their assemblies as per the following table:
5 Things You’ll Love in Xamarin.Forms 3.5
Although Valentine’s Day isn’t for a few more days, we just couldn’t wait to celebrate the love by sharing a new stable release of Xamarin.Forms – 3.5. Your engagement and contributions with Xamarin have been heartwarming, and we love working with you.
Adding caching to Azure Pipelines
For a long while, Azure Pipelines users have been asking to improve performance on the hosted build agents by adding caching for common scenarios like package restore. The issue came up in a recent popular Hacker News item, so we wanted to share an update.
Blazor 0.8.0 experimental release now available
Blazor 0.8.0 is now available! This release updates Blazor to use Razor Components in .NET Core 3.0 and adds some critical bug fixes.
What’s New in CMake – Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2
We have made a bunch of improvements to Visual Studio’s CMake support in the latest preview of the IDE. Many of these changes are taking the first steps to close the gap between working with solutions generated by CMake and the IDE’s native support. Please try out the preview and let us know what you think.
Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2019 Q1
Last week we updated the Features Timeline to provide visibility on our key investments for this quarter. The features listed below link to the public roadmap project where you can find more details about each item.
Announcing TypeScript 3.3
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of TypeScript 3.3!
Using containerized services in your pipeline
Azure Pipelines has supported container jobs for a while now. You craft a container with exactly the versions of exactly the tools you need, and we’ll run your pipeline steps inside that container. Recently we expanded our container support to include service containers: additional, helper containers accessible to your pipeline.
Announcing F# 4.6 Preview
We’re excited to announce that Visual Studio 2019 will ship a new version of F# when it releases: F# 4.6!
Automating Releases in GitHub through Azure Pipelines
Do you own a GitHub repository? Do you create releases on GitHub to distribute software packages? Do you manually compile a list of changes to be included in release notes? If yes, you will be excited to know that you can now automate creation and modification of GitHub Releases directly from Azure Pipelines. This can be done through the GitHub Release task that is now rolled out to all users.
Concurrency Code Analysis in Visual Studio 2019 (C++)
The battle against concurrency bugs poses a serious challenge to C++ developers. The problem is exacerbated by the advent of multi-core and many-core architectures. To cope with the increasing complexity of multithreaded software, it is essential to employ better tools and processes to help developers adhere to proper locking discipline. In this blog post, we’ll walk through a completely rejuvenated Concurrency Code Analysis toolset we are shipping with Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2.
Debugging .NET Apps with Time Travel Debugging (TTD)
When you are debugging an application, there are many tools and techniques you can use, like logs, memory dumps and Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). In this post, we will talk about Time Travel Debugging, a tool used by Microsoft Support and product teams and more advanced users, but I encourage everyone to try this approach when diagnosing hard to find bugs.
Announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 2
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 2. It includes new features in .NET Core 3.0 and C# 8, in addition to the large number of new features in Preview 1. ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 2 is also released today. C# 8 Preview 2 is part of .NET Core 3 SDK, and was also released last week with Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2.
Enhanced in Visual Studio 2019: Search for Objects and Properties in the Watch, Autos, and Locals Windows
Are you inspecting many variables at once in the Locals window? Tired of constantly scrolling through the Watch window to locate the object you are currently interested in? New to Visual Studio 2019 for most languages (with some exclusions such as Xamarin, Unity, and SQL), you can now find your variables and their properties faster using the new search feature found in the Watch, Autos, and Locals windows!
C++ Productivity Improvements in Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 contains a host of productivity features, including some new quick fixes and code navigation improvements:
Do more with patterns in C# 8.0
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 is out! And with it, a couple more C# 8.0 features are ready for you to try. It’s mostly about pattern matching, though I’ll touch on a few other news and changes at the end.
.NET Core tooling update for Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2
Another preview of Visual Studio 2019, another update on the cool stuff going into it! We’re pleased to announce some updates to the .NET Core tools for Visual Studio 2019. You can try these changes out starting with Preview 2. We’d love for you to try out these new features and give us feedback.
What’s New for Xamarin Developers in Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2
Today, Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 was released and includes many improvements for mobile developers in Visual Studio. This release, we focused on key areas to make you more productive when authoring Xamarin apps, including optimizations to build and deployment times as well as improvements to our UI authoring experiences.
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 2 is now available
The second preview of Visual Studio 2019 is now available for download. This release contains a number of improvements and additions to the core experience and different development areas, many of which are a result of your direct feedback. As always, you can check out the release notes for more details or read on for the highlights.
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 18317 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 18317 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 18317 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.
Announcing TypeScript 3.3 RC
Today we’re happy to announce the availability of our release candidate (RC) of TypeScript 3.3. Our hope is to collect feedback and early issues to ensure our final release is simple to pick up and use right away.
Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC2 now available
Today, we released Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC2. This is our last planned prerelease before our final release of Azure DevOps Server 2019. RC2 includes some new features since RC1. You can upgrade from Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC1 or previous versions of TFS. You can find the full details in our release notes.
Visual Studio Mobile Developer Podcast: New Year – New Pod!
The Visual Studio Mobile Developer Podcast features Matt Soucoup and James Montemagno discussing the latest and greatest in mobile and cloud development.
Using Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) from .NET
Programs nowadays often need to download files and data from the internet – maybe they need new content, new configurations, or the latest updates. The Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is an easy way for programs to ask Windows to download files from or upload files to a remote HTTP or SMB file server. BITS will handle problems like network outages, expensive networks (when your user is on a cell plan and is roaming), and more.
Build an Azure IoT application with Cloud Explorer for Visual Studio
What we’ve heard and experienced ourselves is that when building applications, you have a frictionless experience when your code editor and tools are integrated and seamless. Yet when developing IoT apps, you often need to manage connected devices and send test messages between the device and IoT Hub at the same time that you’re debugging and working on your code. You’ll likely spend time switching between windows or even screens to monitor the messaging and many components of your development.
Help us help you! What desktop apps are you bringing to .NET Core 3.0?
Windows Desktop applications are coming to .NET Core. The recently released .NET Core 3.0 Preview 1 version includes WinForms and WPF support. To make .NET Core 3.0 viable for as many of you as possible, we have created a survey to understand the types of desktop applications you want to build with .NET Core. Based on the information you provide, we may contact some of you (if you agree) to collaborate on your .NET Core 3.0 efforts. We’ll learn from working with you how to improve the experience and documentation for bringing desktop applications to .NET Core.
Cross-Platform Development – Introducing the Xamarin.Forms Shell (MSDN Magazine)
Xamarin.Forms is a favored toolkit for cross-platform developers who love XAML and C#, because it maximizes code sharing while also providing full access to all the native platform APIs and UI controls. This capability comprises technologies and concepts that can be both exhilarating and confusing when you’re getting started. The truth is that some developers find it frustrating at the outset. You chose Xamarin to be productive, and the last thing you want to encounter is unwanted hassle. This year at Connect(); we’re thrilled to introduce Xamarin.Forms Shell, a new default starting point for mobile application d...
Better Player Engagement with Push Notifications in Unity Apps
In the world of mobile development, the ability to send targeted push notifications is one of the tools available to developers to help connect with users. In games, a well-timed push notification can deepen player engagement and increase daily active sessions. Adding and supporting push notifications has become so common that it could be considered a requirement for any app built today. Today, the Visual Studio App Center team is happy to add Unity to our supported platforms for Push Notifications and excited to have you get started today.
.NET Core January 2019 Updates – 2.1.7 and 2.2.1
Today, we are releasing the .NET Core January 2019 Update. These updates contain security and reliability fixes.
Announcing ML.NET 0.9 – Machine Learning for .NET
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform machine learning framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) for .NET developers. Using ML.NET, developers can leverage their existing tools and skillsets to develop and infuse custom AI into their applications by creating custom machine learning models.
Azure – 7 Tips and Tricks for Azure App Service (MSDN Magazine)
Azure Tips and Tricks (azuredev.tips) is a series that I created a year ago where I document my favorite secrets, shortcuts and handy features using Azure. I quickly came to appreciate the value of short and straight-to-the-point guidance for common scenarios that developers face every day. Over the last year I’ve gone from just a few posts to more than 150 tips spanning the entire Azure platform.
Azure SQL Database – Introducing Azure SQL Database Hyperscale (MSDN Magazine)
At the Ignite conference, we announced the public preview of Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, a new storage architecture providing a SQL-based and highly scalable service tier for databases that adapts on-demand to your workload’s needs. With Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, databases can quickly auto-scale up to 100TB, eliminating the need to pre-provision storage resources, and significantly expand the potential for app growth without being limited by storage size.
Starting the .NET Open Source Revolution
Today building open source software at Microsoft is normal — but when I started at Microsoft in 2007, it sure wasn’t. It took a few years to figure out the right thing to do and to get the big ship that is Microsoft turned into the wind of open source. But we’re there now and I look back on those early challenges with a smile. This is my story of the first successful open source project at Microsoft and how it paved the way to where we are today.
Build Visual Studio extensions using Visual Studio extensions
What if the community of extension authors banded together to add powerful features to Visual Studio that made it easier to create extensions? What if those features could be delivered in individually released extensions, but joined by a single installation experience that allows the user to choose which of the features to install? That’s the idea behind Extensibility Essentials – an extension pack that ships community-recommended extensions for extension authors.
Deck the Halls with an Improved Visual Studio App Center Portal UI
As we’re wrapping up 2018 here at Visual Studio App Center, our team is proud of the new features and functionality we’ve been able to deliver to you this year. Over the next two weeks, we want to share some improvements we’ve been doing behind the scenes, along with some new and exciting changes for 2019.
Azure – Deploy Your Code The Right Way with Azure Pipelines (MSDN Magazine)
Modern applications are increasingly complex systems that involve multiple technology stacks and cloud-native services. Orchestrating an automated release pipeline for these systems can be challenging. Azure Pipelines provides powerful, easy-to-use continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) services you can use to build and test your app and then deploy to your intended targets.
Machine Learning – Accelerate AI Solutions with Automated Machine Learning (MSDN Magazine)
Machine learning (ML) is being used in a wide range of applications, from autonomous cars and credit card fraud detection to predictive maintenance in manufacturing and beyond.
Q# – a Wish List for the New Year
In previous blog posts you have read about some of the ideas behind Q#, how it came into existence, and its development over the past year. You have read about quantum computing, quantum algorithms and what you can do with Q# today. With the end of the year approaching, there is only one more thing to cover: What is next?
Visual Studio – What’s New in Visual Studio 2019 (MSDN Magazine)
Visual Studio 2019 introduces exciting improvements and new features aimed at optimizing developer productivity and team collaboration. Whether you’re using Visual Studio for the first time or have been using it for years, you’ll benefit from features that improve all aspects of the development lifecycle—from smoother and more focused project creation to cloning from repository workflows, to driving the maintainability and quality of your code. Team and open source collaborative workflows are improved, as well.
.NET Core – What’s Coming in .NET Core 3.0 (MSDN Magazine)
.NET Core 3.0 is the next major version of the .NET Core platform. This article walks through the history of .NET Core and demonstrates how it has grown from basic support for Web and data workloads in version 1 to being able to run Web, desktop, machine learning, containers, IoT and more in version 3.0.
Machine Learning – ML.NET: The Machine Learning Framework for .NET Developers (MSDN Magazine)
The ML.NET library is a new open source collection of machine learning (ML) code that can be used to create powerful prediction systems. Many ML libraries are written in C++ with a Python API for easier programming. Examples include scikit-learn, TensorFlow, CNTK and PyTorch. However, if you use a Python-based ML library to create a prediction model, it’s not so easy for a .NET application to use the trained model. Fortunately, the ML.NET library can be used directly in .NET applications. And because ML.NET can run on .NET Core, you can create predictive systems for macOS and Linux, too.
Visual Studio – Collaborative Development with Visual Studio Live Share (MSDN Magazine)
I hope I’m not embarrassing myself to express how excited I am by Visual Studio Live Share! The first time I saw a demonstration of an early preview, I immediately found an excuse to use it in a live streaming session where Jeff Fritz and I worked on a .NET Core project together, each on our own computer, nearly 400 miles apart.
MSDN Magazine – Connect(); 2018 special digital edition (VS, .NET, SQL, ML & More)
Connect(); Special Issue 2018
.NET Framework December 2018 Security and Quality Rollup
This security update resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft .NET Framework that could allow remote code execution when Microsoft .NET Framework doesn’t validate input correctly. The attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could take control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts that use full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less affected than users who are granted administrative user rights.
Using multi-stage containers for C++ development
Containers are a great tool for configuring reproducible build environments. It’s fairly easy to find Dockerfiles that provide various C++ environments. Unfortunately, it is hard to find guidance on how to use newer techniques like multi-stage builds. This post will show you how you can leverage the capabilities of multi-stage containers for your C++ development. This is relevant to anyone doing C++ development regardless what tools you are using.
Build and deploy microservices on Azure Service Fabric Mesh
In the past couple of years, application developers have stopped questioning whether microservices are the right architecture to build scalable systems and started debating how to best implement them. I think this is due to several concepts that have converged in our industry in the past decade—all of which have to do with the need for businesses to bring innovation to their customers faster and faster.
Taking a closer look at Python support for Azure Functions
Azure Functions provides a powerful programming model for accelerated development and serverless hosting of event-driven applications. Ever since we announced the general availability of the Azure Functions 2.0 runtime, support for Python has been one of our top requests. At Microsoft Connect() last week, we announced the public preview of Python support in Azure Functions. This post gives an overview of the newly introduced experiences and capabilities made available through this feature.
Static websites on Azure Storage now generally available
Today we are excited to announce the general availability of static websites on Azure Storage, which is now available in all public cloud regions.
Windows Server 2019 Includes OpenSSH
The OpenSSH client and server are now available as a supported Feature-on-Demand in Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 1809! The Win32 port of OpenSSH was first included in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and Windows Server 1709 as a pre-release feature. In the Windows 10 1803 release, OpenSSH was released as a supported feature on-demand component, but there was not a supported release on Windows Server until now.
Get to code: How we designed the Visual Studio 2019 new start window
By now, many of you may have noticed a very prominent change to the launch of Visual Studio in Visual Studio 2019 Preview 1. Our goal with this new experience is to provide rapid access to the most common ways that developers get to their code: whether it’s cloning from an online repository or opening an existing project.
Visual Studio IntelliCode supports more languages and learns from your code
At Build 2018, we announced Visual Studio IntelliCode, a set of AI-assisted capabilities that improve developer productivity. IntelliCode includes features like contextual IntelliSense code completion recommendations, code formatting, and style rule inference.
A Year of Q#
The Quantum Architecture and Computation group launched Q#, our quantum computing programming language, a year ago on December 11th, 2017. Q# 0.1 was the result of a lot of hard work from a small, dedicated team of developers, researchers, and program managers. We had made the decision to build a domain-specific language for quantum computing about six months before we launched, so we were on a very tight schedule. We were lucky to have a great team of people who all pitched in and did what needed to be done so that we could meet our extremely aggressive timetable.
The Future of Mobile Development: Xamarin.Forms 4.0 Preview
Yesterday at Microsoft Connect(); 2018 we announced our plans for Xamarin.Forms 4.0 and shared a public preview. Let’s now take a deeper look at the big changes, starting with Xamarin.Forms Shell, and then touch some of the other highlights.
New Benefits in Visual Studio Subscriptions
Last week at Microsoft Connect();, we announced two new benefits to assist cloud migration for our users who have Visual Studio Subscriptions. If you missed the event or want to watch the on-demand trainings, check out the Connect(); event page. If you’re a current Visual Studio subscriber, activate your new benefits to get started right away. To learn more about our developer subscriptions and programs visit the Visual Studio website.
Announcing ML.NET 0.8 – Machine Learning for .NET
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) which makes machine learning accessible for .NET developers. ML.NET allows you to create and use machine learning models targeting scenarios to achieve common tasks such as sentiment analysis, issue classification, forecasting, recommendations, fraud detection, image classification and more. You can check out these common tasks at our GitHub repo with ML.NET samples.
Open Sourcing XAML Behaviors for WPF
Today, we are excited to announce that we are open sourcing XAML Behaviors for WPF. In the past, we open sourced XAML Behaviors for UWP which has been a great success and the Behaviors NuGet package has been downloaded over 500k times. One of the top community asks has been to support WPF in the same way. XAML Behaviors for WPF now ships as a NuGet package – Microsoft.Xaml.Behaviors.Wpf .
New Azure DevOps Work Item Experience in Visual Studio 2019
In previous versions of Visual Studio, the work item experience was centered around queries, which need to be created and managed to find the right work items. In Visual Studio 2019, we have removed queries and added a new view for work items centered at the developer. This allows the developer to quickly find the work they need and associate them to their pending changes. Removing the need for queries.
Introducing ‘Suggest a Feature’ in Developer Community for Visual Studio
Customer feedback is a critical input to help us improve Visual Studio. Up until two years ago, the Visual Studio customer feedback system left room for improvement – customers could use the “send a smile” feature in Visual Studio, but this would result in only coarse-grained feedback such as “I like this” or “I don’t like this.” The feedback we got through this UI then went into a database our team accessed, but didn’t leave an easy way for customers to see the feedback that other customers were giving so they could say, “I have that problem too!” More than that, the back-end system that gathered feedback was se...
Windows Template Studio 2.5 released! (UWP)
We’re extremely excited to announce the Windows Template Studio 2.5! As always, we love how the community is helping. If you’re interested, please head over to head over to WTS’s GitHub.
What’s new in Azure DevOps Sprint 143 Update
Sprint 143 Update of Azure DevOps is rolling out to all organizations. In this update, draft pull requests is now available in Azure Repos which allows you to easily create work in progress that may not include everyone. We are also releasing new features in Azure Artifacts, including the ability to exclude files in artifact uploads and get provenance information on packages. Watch the following video to learn more about these features.
Open Sourcing XAML Behaviors for WPF
Today, we are excited to announce that we are open sourcing XAML Behaviors for WPF. In the past, we open sourced XAML Behaviors for UWP which has been a great success and the Behaviors NuGet package has been downloaded over 500k times.
Python at Microsoft: flying under the radar
Python is an important piece of Microsoft’s future in the cloud, being one of the essential languages for services and teams to support, as well as the most popular choice for the rapidly growing field of data science and analytics both inside and outside of the company. But Python hasn’t always had such a prestigious position around Microsoft.
Azure.Source – Volume 61
On Tuesday, December 4th, Microsoft Connect(); 2018 provided a full day of developer-focused content—including updates on Azure and Visual Studio, keynotes, demos, and real-time coding with experts. Scott Guthrie’s keynote provided all the Azure and Visual Studio news on how you can stay productive and focus on what matters to you.
Take C# 8.0 for a spin
Yesterday we announced the first preview of both Visual Studio 2019 (Making every developer more productive with Visual Studio 2019) and .NET Core 3.0 (Announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Sourcing Windows Desktop Frameworks).
Linking your GitHub commits with Azure Boards
Today, we’re announcing a new integration between Azure Boards and GitHub. Development teams using GitHub can now take advantage of the rich project management capabilities offered by Azure Boards, including Kanban boards, backlogs, sprint planning tools, queries, and multiple work item types.
Building an Open Source .NET Foundation
It was April, 3rd 2014 when Anders Hejlsberg, father of the C# language, got on stage during the keynote at the Build conference in San Francisco and released the .NET Compiler Platform (“Roslyn”) as open source and made the first pull request. That same keynote, Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of Cloud & Enterprise group and one of the original creators of the ASP.NET web stack, announced the creation of the .NET Foundation. This was a pivotal point in .NET’s open source journey which spawned the avalanche of releasing software as open source at Microsoft. This is the story of the .NET Foundation.
How to develop secure applications using Azure Cosmos DB
Before we begin to discuss how to develop secure applications using Azure Cosmos DB, we should also highlight some of the different layers of security that Azure Cosmos DB offers. The following image illustrates these various layers of security:
Visual Studio Live Share for real-time code reviews and interactive education
Collaborating with your team using Visual Studio Live Share keeps getting easier! Since making Live Share available for the public use at BUILD last May, we’ve heard so much great feedback from our users, which has helped guide us in continuing to build a tool that truly enables developers to collaborate in all the ways they need from the comfort of their favorite tools.
Visual Studio IntelliCode supports more languages and learns from your code
At Build 2018, we announced Visual Studio IntelliCode, a set of AI-assisted capabilities that improve developer productivity. IntelliCode includes features like contextual IntelliSense code completion recommendations, code formatting, and style rule inference.
New Azure Pipelines announcements – VS Code extension, GitHub Releases, and more
Since we launched Azure Pipelines in September, we’ve seen strong growth in adoption of our cloud hosted build and deployment service. We’re also learning from many of the open source projects on GitHub starting to take advantage of unlimited build minutes, and with up to 10 concurrent jobs across our hosted Linux, Widows, and Mac machines. We’re seeing it make a positive difference to lots of cross-platform libraries and applications.
Using Visual Studio for Cross Platform C++ Development Targeting Windows and Linux
A great strength of C++ is the ability to target multiple platforms without sacrificing performance. If you are using the same codebase for multiple targets, then CMake is the most common solution for building your software. You can use Visual Studio for your C++ cross platform development when using CMake without needing to create or generate Visual Studio projects.
The Latest in Visual Studio 2017 for Mac – Version 7.7
Today, we are happy to share with you the next update to Visual Studio for Mac 2017. Version 7.7 incorporates much of your great feedback and is aimed at improving the core development experience for every project type from .NET Core to Xamarin and Unity. Below are just a few of the new features in Visual Studio 2017 for Mac 7.7 – for the full release notes, please read on here.
Announcing “30 Days of Microsoft Graph” Blog Series
Throughout the month of November 2018, we are publishing daily articles (30 total) that aim to introduce developers to Microsoft Graph. We’ll have content that covers 0-level to 200-level topics. Each post should take you 5-15 mins to read and try out the sample exercises. No prior knowledge of Microsoft Graph is required. We hope that beginners will quickly pick up the content and that experts will also learn a few new things.
Visual Studio 2019 Preview 1 now available
Today, in the Microsoft Connect(); 2018 keynote, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of Visual Studio 2019 Preview 1. This is the first preview of the next major version of Visual Studio. In this Preview, we’ve focused on a few key areas, such as making it faster to open and work with projects stored in git repositories, improving IntelliSense with Artificial Intelligence (AI) (a feature we call Visual Studio IntelliCode), and making it easier to collaborate with your teammates by integrating Live Share. With each preview, we’ll be adding capabilities, improving performance, and refining the user experience,...
Announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Sourcing Windows Desktop Frameworks
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 1. It is the first public release of .NET Core 3. We have some exciting new features to share and would love your feedback. You can develop .NET Core 3 applications with Visual Studio 2019 Preview 1, Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio Code.
Connect(); 2018 Xamarin Announcements
Today, at Microsoft Connect(); 2018, we have several exciting announcements about brand new capabilities and foundational improvements in the Xamarin platform driven by your generous feedback.
Announcing .NET Core 2.2
We’re excited to announce the release of .NET Core 2.2. It includes diagnostic improvements to the runtime, support for ARM32 for Windows and Azure Active Directory for SQL Client. The biggest improvements in this release are in ASP.NET Core.
Announcing ML.NET 0.8 – Machine Learning for .NET
ML.NET is an open-source and cross-platform framework (Windows, Linux, macOS) which makes machine learning accessible for .NET developers. ML.NET allows you to create and use machine learning models targeting scenarios to achieve common tasks such as sentiment analysis, issue classification, forecasting, recommendations, fraud detection, image classification and more. You can check out these common tasks at our GitHub repo with ML.NET samples.
Save the date to know what’s new with Visual Studio and Azure at Connect(); 2018
Build the apps of tomorrow, today. Tune in online on December 4, 2018 for a full day of dev-focused delight—including updates on Azure and Visual Studio, keynotes, demos, and real-time coding with experts—live from the Microsoft Azure and AI Conference.
Why do we need Q#?
You may be familiar with the Microsoft Quantum blog, which shares general news about our quantum computing program and about quantum computing in general. This blog is its developer- and community-focused partner. It will host technical posts, deep dives into the language and libraries, and tutorials. There will also be developer event announcements and recaps, new release information, and the like.
DevOps for Blockchain Apps
Blockchain has emerged from the shadow of its cryptocurrency origins to be seen as a transformative data technology that can power the next generation of software for multi-party Enterprise and consumer scenarios. With the trust and transparency that blockchain can deliver, this shared data technology is seen as a disruptor that can radically transform assumptions, costs, and approaches about how business is done.
Xamarin.Forms 3.4.0: Say Hello to ImageButton
As part of our long-term goal to have more frequent releases, we’re pleased to announce the release of Xamarin.Forms 3.4.0. As always, this release contains even more bug fixes and most notably, another new highly requested feature, an ImageButton!
Thanks, HockeyApp. Visual Studio App Center Will Take It From Here
One year ago, we announced Visual Studio App Center as the future of HockeyApp. During this journey we listened to you and have continued to improve App Center in every way. We started out with the next generation of your favorite HockeyApp services: distribution, crash reporting and analytics, and added new services exclusive to App Center: Build, Test and Push Notifications. But we didn’t stop there. We continued to build new features that make you even more productive.
Be the first to know what’s new and upcoming with Visual Studio and Azure at Connect(); 2018
Build the apps of tomorrow, today. Tune in online on December 4, 2018 for a full day of dev-focused delight—including updates on Azure and Visual Studio, keynotes, demos, and real-time coding with experts—live from the Microsoft Azure and AI Conference.
Official support for Windows 10 on ARM development
Today is an exciting day for Windows 10 on ARM. With the official release of Visual Studio 15.9, developers now have the officially supported SDK and tools for creating 64-bit ARM (ARM64) apps. In addition, the Microsoft Store is now officially accepting submissions for apps built for the ARM64 architecture.
Announcing Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC1
Yesterday, we announced Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC1. This is the evolution of TFS and the first release with our new brand and new navigation. We’ve added a ton of new features which you can read about in our release notes.
Blazor 0.7.0 experimental release now available
Blazor 0.7.0 is now available! This release focuses on enabling component coordination across ancestor-descendent relationships. We've also added some improvements to the debugging experience.
Introducing the Azure Blockchain Development Kit
“Developers! Developers! Developers!” That phrase is synonymous with Microsoft’s history of democratizing complex technologies and empowering anyone with an idea to build software.
Be the first to know what’s new and upcoming with Visual Studio and Azure at Connect(); 2018
Tune in online on December 4, 2018 for a full day of dev-focused delight—including updates on Azure and Visual Studio, keynotes, demos, and real-time coding with experts—live from the Microsoft Azure and AI Conference.
Visual Studio App Center Unity Editor Extension- A Better Unity Experience
Just a few weeks ago, we shipped our Unity SDK and support for Unity in Visual Studio App Center portal. We have been excited to see the reception so far, seeing many new Unity apps created using App Center. To help integrate more seamlessly into the tools you are already using, and make the experience better, the App Center team is happy to announce the release of the App Center Unity Editor Extension.
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.
.NET Core tooling update for Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9
Starting with Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9, we’ve changed how the Visual Studio tooling for .NET consumes .NET Core SDKs. Prior to this change, installing a preview version of the .NET Core SDK would cause all Visual Studio tooling for .NET Core to use that SDK because it had a higher version.
Visual Basic in .NET Core 3.0
I’m excited about our plans for how Visual Basic.NET will be supported in .NET Core 3.0! Like other .NET languages, Visual Basic will continue to be supported on .NET Framework, and you do not need to make any changes to your application.
Tune in to Connect(); 2018 on December 4 for updates on Azure and Visual Studio
Tune in online on December 4, 2018 for a full day of dev-focused delight—including updates on Azure and Visual Studio, keynotes, demos, and real-time coding with experts—live from the Microsoft Azure and AI Conference.
When should you right click publish
Some people say ‘friends don’t let friends right click publish’ but is that true? If they mean that there are great benefits to setting up a CI/CD workflow, that’s true and we will talk more about these benefits in just a minute. First, let’s remind ourselves that the goal isn’t always coming up with the best long-term solution.
Announcing ML.NET 0.7 (Machine Learning .NET)
We’re excited to announce today the release of ML.NET 0.7 – the latest release of the cross-platform and open source machine learning framework for .NET developers (ML.NET 0.1 was released at //Build 2018). This release focuses on enabling better support for recommendation based ML tasks, enabling anomaly detection, enhancing the customizability of the machine learning pipelines, enabling using ML.NET in x86 apps, and more.
Building C# 8.0
The next major version of C# is C# 8.0. It’s been in the works for quite some time, even as we built and shipped the minor releases C# 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3, and I’m quite excited about the new capabilities it will bring.
XAML Islands – A deep dive – Part 2
Welcome to the 2nd post of our Xaml Islands deep dive adventure! On the first blog post, we talked a little bit about the history of this amazing feature, how the Xaml Islands infrastructure works and how to use it, and also a little bit of how you can leverage binding in your Island controls.
Tune in to Connect(); 2018 on December 4 for updates on Azure and Visual Studio
Tune in online on December 4, 2018 for a full day of dev-focused delight—including updates on Azure and Visual Studio, keynotes, demos, and real-time coding with experts—live from the Microsoft Azure and AI Conference.
A preview of UX and UI changes in Visual Studio 2019
Over the years, we’ve learned that sharing the evolution of Visual Studio, with you – our users – early and often helps us to deliver the best possible experience for our community. We’re excited to share today that, as part of the development of Visual Studio 2019, we’ve been looking to refresh our theme, update our product icon and splash screens, and help you get to your code faster. I’d like to walk you through our thinking behind the changes and show off the resulting user experience that you’ll encounter every day. By leaving a comment below or suggesting a feature (or reporting a bug!) in Developer Communi...
Video: Visual Studio Productivity in 5 minutes!
Check out the latest Visual Studio productivity tips in this 5 minute video! These tips for .NET developers will have you coding C# faster and better than ever before. This video includes a ton of navigation short cuts, codefixes and refactorings, multi-caret, code clean up, and more!
Use the official range-v3 with MSVC 2017 version 15.9
We’re happy to announce that the ongoing conformance work in the MSVC compiler has reached a new milestone: support for Eric Niebler’s range-v3 library. It’s no longer necessary to use the range-v3-vs2015 fork that was introduced for MSVC 2015 Update 3 support; true upstream range-v3 is now usable directly with MSVC 2017.
Windows 10 SDK Preview Build 18272 available now!
Today, we released a new Windows 10 Preview Build of the SDK to be used in conjunction with Windows 10 Insider Preview (Build 18272 or greater). The Preview SDK Build 18272 contains bug fixes and under development changes to the API surface area.
Exploring Clang Tooling Part 3: Rewriting Code with clang-tidy (C++)
In the previous post in this series, we used clang-query to examine the Abstract Syntax Tree of a simple source code file. Using clang-query, we can prototype an AST Matcher which we can use in a clang-tidy check to refactor code in bulk. This time, we will complete the rewriting of the source code.
Security fixes for Team Foundation Server
Today, we are releasing a fix for a potential cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. This impacts Team Foundation Server 2017 and 2018. We have released patches for TFS 2017 Update 3.1, TFS 2018 Update 1.1, and TFS 2018 Update 3. We have also released TFS 2018 Update 3.1, which is a full install that includes this fix.
Announcing .NET Standard 2.1
Since we shipped .NET Standard 2.0 about a year ago, we’ve shipped two updates to .NET Core 2.1 and are about to release .NET Core 2.2. It’s time to update the standard to include some of the new concepts as well as a number of small improvements that make your life easier across the various implementations of .NET.
XAML Islands – A deep dive – Part 1
XAML Islands is a technology that enables Windows developers to use new pieces of UI from the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) on their existing Win32 Applications, including Windows Forms and WPF technologies. This allows them to gradually modernize their apps at their own pace, making use of their current code as much as they want.
Move your first steps with .NET Core 3.0 for desktop development
If you're into development in the Microsoft ecosystem, I'm sure you're familiar with .NET Core. It's a new framework, built from scratch, to bring all the goodies of the .NET Framework into the new modern world. Unlike the full .NET Framework, which has its roots deeply integrated into Windows, .NET Core is cross-platform, lightweight and easily extensible.
Announcing .NET Framework 4.8 Early Access build 3673
We are happy to share the next Early Access build for the .NET Framework 4.8. This includes an updated .NET 4.8 runtime as well as the .NET 4.8 Developer Pack (a single package that bundles the .NET Framework 4.8 runtime, the .NET 4.8 Targeting Pack and the .NET Framework 4.8 SDK).
A first look at changes coming in ASP.NET Core 3.0
While we continue to work on finalizing the next minor version of ASP.NET Core, we’re also working on major updates to our next release that will include some changes in how projects are composed with frameworks, tighter .NET Core integration, and 3rd party open source integration, all with the goal of making it easier and faster for you to develop. For broader context around .NET Core 3.0, we encourage you to check out our previous announcements around the addition of WinForms and WPF support to .NET Core 3.0 on Windows. We’ll publish more details about new features coming in ASP.NET Core 3.0 in the near future.
Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2018 Q4
In order to provide you with visibility into several of our key investments, we post quarterly updates to the roadmap on our Features Timeline page. Today, we’re sharing the latest for the final quarter of this calendar year. You’ll notice items are grouped by the quarter we anticipate delivering the feature to the hosted service and denote the version of the on-premises Azure DevOps Server we expect the feature to be included in.
Azure.Source – Volume 56
Live data local testing is now available for public preview in Azure Stream Analytics Visual Studio tools, which enables you to test jobs locally from the IDE using live event streams from Azure Event Hub, IoT Hub, and Blob Storage. The new local testing runtime can read live streaming data from the cloud or from a local static file. It works the same as the cloud runtime Azure Stream Analytics and therefore supports the same time policies needed for many testing scenarios. The query runs in a simulated environment suitable for a single server development environment and should only be used for query logic testin...
Announcing Windows Community Toolkit v5.0
I’m excited to announce the next major update of the Windows Community Toolkit, version 5.0. This update introduces the new WindowsXamlHost control built on top of the new XAML Islands APIs to simplify adding built-in or custom UWP control to a WPF or Windows Forms desktop application. Alongside, this version introduces new WinForms and WPF controls that leverage the WindowsXamlHost interfaces to wrap UWP platform controls such as the InkCanvas and the MapControl.
Local testing with live data means faster development with Azure Stream Analytics
We are excited to announce that live data local testing is now available for public preview in Azure Stream Analytics Visual Studio tools. Have you ever thought of being able to test Azure Stream Analytics queries logic with live data without running in the cloud? Are you excited by the possibility of not having to wait for your queries to deploy and other round-trip delays?
Bringing .NET application performance analysis to Linux
Both the Windows and Linux ecosystems have a swath of battle-hardened performance analysis and investigation tools. But up until recently, developers and platform engineers could use none of these tools with .NET applications on Linux.
Test Analytics in Azure Pipelines is now at your fingertips
You have walked the right path, adopted DevOps, setup tools for CI and CD and embraced continuous testing all the way in your software development process. Are you done?
Public preview: Named Entity Recognition in the Cognitive Services Text Analytics API
Today, we are happy to announce the public preview of Named Entity Recognition as part of the Text Analytics Cognitive Service. Named Entity Recognition (NER) is the ability to take free-form text and identify the occurrences of entities such as people, locations, organizations, and more. With just a simple API call, NER in Text Analytics uses robust machine learning models to find and categorize more than twenty types of named entities in any text documents.
Getting started with Universal Packages in Azure Artifacts
At the end of last sprint we flipped the switch on a new feature for Azure Artifacts called Universal Packages. With Universal Packages teams can store artifacts that don’t neatly fit into the other kinds of package types that we support. A Universal Package is just a collection of files that you’ve uploaded to our service and labelled with a name and version.
Visual Studio App Center Levels Up with Unity Support
Unity is one of the most popular and recognized game development platforms on the market to date. Microsoft has had a long-standing partnership with Unity, with Visual Studio Tools for Unity being the default installed editor experience for Unity developers around the world. Continuing in our quest to make mobile developers more productive, and better support the apps developers are building, the Visual Studio App Center team is excited to announce the public release of the App Center Unity SDK. This release enables developers to create Android, iOS and UWP Unity apps in the App Center portal, with support for ap...
ASP.NET SignalR 2.4.0 Preview 2
We’ve just released the second preview of the upcoming 2.4.0 release of ASP.NET SignalR. As we mentioned in our previous blog post on the future of ASP.NET SignalR we are releasing a minor update to ASP.NET SignalR (the version of SignalR for System.Web and/or OWIN-based applications) that includes, support for the Azure SignalR Service, as well as some bug fixes and minor features.
ExpressRoute for Azure DevOps
Today we are excited to announce that Azure DevOps is now available over Azure ExpressRoute. Customers who typically operate in the government and financial services sectors have requested this support because they want private connections that don’t go over the public Internet for security reasons. ExpressRoute also typically offers them more reliability, faster speeds, and lower latencies than typical Internet connections.
.NET Core Source Code Analysis with Intel® VTune™ Amplifier
Last year in the .NET blog, we discussed .NET Core Performance Profiling with Intel® VTune™ Amplifier 2018 including profiling Just-In-Time (JIT) compiled .NET Core code on Microsoft Windows* and Linux* operating systems. This year Intel VTune™ Amplifier 2019 was launched on September 12th, 2018 with improved source code analysis for .NET Core applications. It includes .NET Core support for profiling a remote Linux target and analyzing the results on a Windows host. We will walk you through a few scenarios to see how these new VTune Amplifier features can be used to optimize .NET Core applications.
Visual Studio App Center: A New But Familiar Upgrade for HockeyApp Customers
You’re a HockeyApp user and you’re using the service for beta distribution, crash reporting, and analytics for your Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps. You may also use the service’s powerful workflow integrations to help you better make better apps. It’s likely you’ve also heard of Visual Studio App Center and know that it’s somehow related to HockeyApp. In this post, I compare the two services, filling in the blanks for those customers who haven’t spent time with App Center. If you know the details about App Center, great! If you don’t, then I’m going to tell you why App Center offers even more than HockeyA...
Xamarin.Forms 3.3.0: Little Things, Huge Difference
The Xamarin.Forms team has been working closely with our open-source community to help fill in the “little things”. Things you’ve told us are important to building your mobile apps and being supremely productive in the process. Since Xamarin.Forms 3.0 shipped at Build 2018, we have been collaborating with you to deliver over 20 new features and fixes. With many more on the roadmap!
Announcing .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3
Today, we are announcing .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3. We have made more improvements to the overall release that we would love to get your feedback on, either in the comments or at dotnet/core #2004.
Announcing Entity Framework Core 2.2 Preview 3
Today we are making EF Core 2.2 Preview 3 available, together with a new preview of our data provider for Cosmos DB and updated spatial extensions for various providers.
Announcing TypeScript 3.1
If you haven’t heard of TypeScript, it’s a language that builds on top of modern JavaScript and adds static type-checking. When you write TypeScript code, you can use a tool like the TypeScript compiler to remove type-specific constructs, and rewrite any newer ECMAScript code to something that older browsers & runtimes can understand. Additionally, using types means that your tools can analyze your code more easily, and provide you with a rock-solid editing experience giving you things like code-completion, go-to-definition, and quick fixes. On top of that, it’s all free, open-source, and cross-platform, so i...
Azure.Source – Volume 54
Announcing the public preview of Azure Digital Twins - Azure Digital Twins is an Azure IoT service that creates comprehensive models of the physical environment. Among its many features is the ability to create spatial intelligence graphs to model the relationships and interactions between people, spaces, and devices. Announced at Ignite last month in Orlando, Azure Digital Twins is now available in Public Preview. To provide concrete examples of how partners are packaging the capabilities present in Azure Digital Twins to create digital twins of physical environments, below are images of what finished solutions ...
ASP.NET Core 2.2.0-preview3 now available
Today we’re very happy to announce that the third preview of the next minor release of ASP.NET Core and .NET Core is now available for you to try out. We’ve been working hard on this release, along with many folks from the community, and it’s now ready for a wider audience to try it out and provide the feedback that will continue to shape the release.
Complex Animations in Xamarin.Forms using Finite State Machine
If you have been a student of a technical specialty, you will surely remember the course devoted to the Finite State Machines.
Simplify extension development with PackageReference and the VSSDK meta package
Visual Studio 2017 version 15.8 made it possible to use the PackageReference syntax to reference NuGet packages in Visual Studio Extensibility (VSIX) projects. This makes it much simpler to reason about NuGet packages and opens the door for having a complete meta package containing the entire VSSDK.