Visual Studio 2022 for Mac has become available as of May 23, 2022. It includes 6 highlights. They are:
- New native macOS User Interface
- Runs natively on M1/Apple Silicon (ARM64) and .NET 6
- Drag and Drop docking for Tool windows
- C# 10 support
- Editor enhancements
Let us take a closer look into each of these highlights.
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Features of Visual Studio for Mac
Below is a list of some of the features for the new version of Visual Studio for Mac and macOS.
New native macOS User Interface in Visual Studio
The new native macOS User Interface includes the following features:
- Tool windows, preferences, and document tabs received a complete UI makeover.
- Themes that synchronize with macOS theme4 settings
- Status bar to report the IDE status and the addition of highlighting for warnings and errors in the solution.
Runs Natively on M1/Apple Silicon (ARM64) Processors and .NET 6
The Visual Studio for Mac IDE can now run natively on Apple Silicon (ARM64) processors with large solutions running 50% faster than in Visual Studio 2019. The Visual Studio 2022 IDE also runs on the .NET 6 Framework, instead of Mono, as its predecessors did. This improves performance.
Developers can also now use .NET 6 to build applications for console apps, or ASP.NET Core solutions, for cloud and web. In addition to Visual Studio for Mac supporting .NET, it enables developers to do development with .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5 as well.
Drag and Drop Docking for Tool Windows
As with Visual Studio on Windows platforms, tool windows inside the Visual Studio for Mac IDE can now also be docked to a side of the IDE. Simply drag the toolbox by dragging its title to the desired side with the aid of the drop-target icons.
C# 10 in Visual Studio for Mac
New additions or improvements for C# 10 on Visual Studio for Mac include the following:
- Lambda improvements
- Incremental source generators
- Record structs and with expressions on structs
- File-scoped namespaces
- CallerArgumentExpression
- Improved definite assignment
- Global using directives
- Parameter-less struct constructors
- Mixed deconstructions
- Extended property patterns
- Interpolated string handlers
- Constant interpolated strings
- Method-level AsyncMethodBuilder
- Sealed record ToString
- #line span directive
For more information on these C# feature changes in Visual Studio for Mac, have a look at the GitHub Visual Studio for Mac update page.
Visual Studio for Mac Editor Enhancements
Shared editor enhancements for Visual Studio for Mac include:
- Subword navigation: to navigate a subword such as MyAge, press either Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow (navigate backward) or Ctrl+Alt+Right (navigate forward). In this case ‘My’ and ‘Age’ are both subwords.
- Multi-caret copy and paste: Improved multi-caret copy and paste experience. Pasting multiple lines into the same number of carets will now insert each line to a respective caret. Do this by pressing Control+Option+mouse-click and use the Option+Shift+arrow key to expand your selection. Then, press Cmd+C to copy the text and Control+Option+mouse-click to create multiple carets to paste into.
View a complete list of Visual Studio for Mac changes and a list of Visual Studio for macOS improvements.
