Visual Studio 2017 for Mac Preview Release Notes

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Developer Community | System Requirements | Compatibility | Distributable Code | Documentation | Blogs | Servicing |

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Download

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

Note

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

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

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

How are we doing?

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

Release History

• February 6, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Preview 3
• January 23, 2019 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Preview 2
• December 18, 2018 – Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Preview 1

Release Highlights

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

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Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Preview 3 (7.7.0.1607)

released February 6, 2019

Shell

• We fixed an issue where custom key bindings for Remove Unused and Sort (Usings) don't work.

.NET Core

• We fixed an issue where the create button doesn't create new project for .NET Core 3.0 preview 2.
• We fixed an issue where .NET Core 3.0 can be selected in the New Project dialog when it is not supported.

Web Tools

• We fixed an issue where Publish to Azure creates a profile with the wrong name.

Xamarin

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

Xamarin.Android

• We fixed an issue where the JDK notification was shown on the welcome page, even for non-Android projects.
• We fixed an issue where launching Visual Studio for Mac without any Java installed shows 2 system prompts to install Java.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Preview 2 (7.7.0.1547)

released January 23, 2019

Code Editor

• We fixed an issue where Using statement indenting is incorrect.
• We fixed an issue where Roslyn throws a fatal exception (System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException).
• We fixed an issue where formatting of parameters across multiple lines is incorrect.
• We fixed an issue where the constructor generator would cause Visual Studio for Mac to crash.
• We fixed an issue where smart semicolon placement causes incorrect semicolon placement.

Shell

• We fixed an issue where switching from the application and returning, does not focus on the editor correctly.
• We fixed an issue where the cursor in editor window is lost when switching applications.
• We fixed an issue where focusing out/into Visual Studio changes the default focused element on the UI.
• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac would fail to track file changes for files in certain folders.
• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac doesn't remember opened files.
• We fixed an issue where the Toolbar selector for build configuration is disabled.

NuGet

• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac crashes after "Could not add packages" error.

.NET Core

• We removed the VB.NET option from .NET Core projects.

ASP.NET Core

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

Web Tools

• We fixed an issue where application arguments are not passed to the Azure Functions host.
• We added the following additional Azure Functions templates
  • CosmosDB trigger
  • EventHub trigger
  • IoT Hub trigger
  • SendGrid trigger
  • ServiceBus Queue trigger
  • ServiceBus Topic trigger

Xamarin

Xamarin.Android

• We fixed an issue where the Android resource update could occur at the same time as a build which could then cause build issues.
• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac would fail to upload APK to Acer Chromebook R11.

Debugger

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

Test Tools

• We fixed an issue where xUnit Fact "DisplayName" not shown in test explorer if the name has a period at the end.
• We fixed an issue where the text editor unit test integration ("Unit test 'name' could not be loaded") would fail.

F#

• We fixed an issue where open statements for F# must be manually added when pasting/writing code.

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac version 7.8 Preview 1 (7.7.0.1471)

released December 18, 2018

Code Editor

• We fixed an issue where typing can be slow in large files when accessibility is enabled.
• We fixed an issue where a fatal error can occur when trying to navigate inside the editor using VoiceOver.
• We fixed an issue where the caret location in quick fix margin is incorrect.
• We fixed a performance issue where indent correcting is taking up too much time on large files.
• We fixed an issue where Intellisense soft-selection is confusing.
• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac can't open .targets files.
• We fixed an issue where the display updates partially when commenting a collapsed method.
• We fixed an issue where C# syntax highlight doesn't work for some of the keywords.
• We fixed an issue where invoking some snippets from the toolbox in .cs files leads to poorly formatted code.
• We fixed an issue where pressing Down to choose the closing tag completion in XAML IntelliSense closes the completion window.
• We fixed an issue where the file 'redacted' could not be opened.
• We fixed an issue where sometimes pasting fails in XAML files.
• We fixed an issue where, when adding an attribute via Intellisense, it does not trim "Attribute" from the name.
• We fixed an issue where code suggestion does the wrong thing when ( is pressed after a stray arrow key.

Project System

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

Shell

• We fixed an issue where adding a new folder to a project does not allow instant renaming.
• We fixed an issue where Start Debugging after Start without Debugging results in an exception for ASP.Net projects.
• We fixed a performance issue with build output search.
• The Run Item command on the Solution Explorer has been renamed to Run Project.
• We fixed an issue where the welcome page is shown when loading a solution from finder.

NuGet

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

Assembly Browser

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

Web Tools

• We fixed an issue where it was not possible to publish to Azure API App instances.

Xamarin

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

Designers

• We fixed an issue where the toolbox regressed Android designer usage.

Xamarin.iOS

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

Xamarin.Android

• We fixed an issue where new Android apps have uppercase letters in the package name.
• We fixed an issue where "Your project is not referencing the 'Mono.Android.Version=v8.1' framework" when AndroidUseLatestPlatformSDK is true.
• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac does not recognize AndroidManifest in specific build configurations..
• We fixed an issue where opening the Report A Problem dialog also displays "Install JDK" dialog.
• We fixed an issue where the Google Play SDK warning is shown even when publishing Ad-Hoc.

Xamarin.Forms

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

Xamarin.Mac

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

Test Tools

• We fixed a performance issue where the "Test Results" pane has bad performance when very large amounts of text are shown.
• We fixed an issue where the unit test integration in the editor does not properly trigger test cases.
• We fixed an issue that could cause xunit to fail to restore.

Accessibility

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

Other

• We fixed an issue where new F# projects shows IntelliSense errors.
• We fixed an issue where unchecking the Organize Using > Place System directives first setting does not save.
• We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac is not remembering settings.
• We fixed an issue for F# projects where Visual Studio for Mac overwrites the project GUID to be lowercase instead of uppercase.
• We fixed an issue for F# projects where Visual Studio for Mac overwrites the project GUID to be lowercase instead of uppercase.

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