Microsoft today launched the official version of Visual Studio 2022. At the same time, it has brought a preview version of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac to Visual Studio 2022 for Mac, which officially supports .NET 6. Microsoft said that Visual Studio 2022 for Mac will natively support Apple’s M1 chip in a future preview version soon.
Create a native macOS experience for Visual Studio
The goal of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is to tailor a modern .NET IDE for Mac, providing the same efficient experience as in Visual Studio.
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Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is rewriting the user interface to provide a comfortable Mac user experience and better support for assistive technologies.
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Improve the speed and stability of the IDE: With the migration to native and .NET CLR, Microsoft is also improving IDE performance, solving long-standing UI errors, and reducing crashes.
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Improve the daily Git user experience with a new Git change window that is more consistent between Visual Studio IDEs.
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Use .NET 6 GA version to develop applications
Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 3 supports the latest .NET 6 version on the Mac, including support for C# 10 language features. Developers can now use it to build applications for web, cloud, and terminal-based console applications.
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New editor features: sub-word navigation and new refactoring
A great new feature of the editor in this version is subword navigation. Take the string “HelloWorld” as an example. When the developer uses Ctrl+Alt + Left Arrow and Ctrl+Alt + Right Arrow to shortcut When the key is pressed, the cursor will move between the subwords “Hello” and “World”.
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New code repair and refactoring: Code repair and refactoring are code suggestions provided by the compiler through the light bulb and screwdriver icons. To trigger quick actions and refactor menus, press Option+Enter. Here are the new recommendations provided in Preview 3:
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Namespace converted to file scope;
Prefer empty check than type check;
Simplify LINQ expressions.
Continue to move to the native macOS UI
This version continues to migrate the IDE to the fully native macOS UI, where 75% of the UI has been migrated. This version focuses on the mobile Git management branch dialog, Preferences> NuGet screen, and a set of code format preferences and project options.
Coming soon: Run natively on Apple M1 processor via .NET CLR
Native support for Apple’s M1 ARM processor will be implemented in the upcoming preview version. To enable this support, Microsoft will make the IDE run on the .NET 6 CLR (Common Language Runtime). This is a major architectural change that brings improvements to all developers using Intel and M1 processors. In the initial lab test version, the load time of the large solution was half that of the v8.10 version.
Microsoft plans to release the GA version of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac v17.0 in the first half of 2022. The final release date will be determined by user feedback. This is a major update of the IDE UI and core architecture. Microsoft will share a release candidate (RC) version when the final date approaches.
At the same time, users can continue to use Visual Studio 2019 for Mac v8.10 to build applications, including .NET 5, Xamarin, Unity, or .NET Core 3.1.
