What's New in Visual Studio 2019 v16.2 Preview 2 -- Visual Studio Magazine

What's New in Visual Studio 2019 v16.2 Preview 2

By David Ramel
06/11/2019

Microsoft has shipped Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2 Preview 2, highlighting .NET productivity improvements and other new functionality.

One of those productivity improvements was prodded by feedback from developers.

"We've heard the request to bring back the Sort Usings command and that it should be separate from the Remove Usings command," said Jacqueline Widdis, program manager on the Release Team, in a June 11 blog post. "We appreciate everyone who shared their feedback with us. You can find the Sort Usings command under Edit > IntelliSense."

Other .NET productivity improvements include:

The ability to convert a switch statements to switch expressions (a new feature in C# 8.0)
The ability to generate a parameter as a code fix. ("Place the cursor in the variable name and type (Ctrl+.) to open the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu. Select the option to Generate a variable to create a new parameter.")

Besides .NET productivity improvements, the post highlighted these:

Microsoft Edge Insider support: Developers can now debug JavaScript in the new Microsoft Edge Insider browser for ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core projects.
Visual Studio Installer support: Developers will now be warned and prompted with a "Cancel" button if an installation requires more space than what's available.
App Installer Command Line Packaging Improvements: These include an improved sideloaded command-line packaging experience for Windows Desktop projects, among others.

Other improvements, as detailed in the release notes, include:

Clang-tidy integration for local CMake projects with Clang, and C++20 Standard Library feature additions.
Keyboard accelerators (holding down the Alt key) for the start window and the new project dialog.
Drag files over the start window on Visual Studio launch and drop it to open the file or load the solution.
Customize the window size of the start window and the new project dialog.
Developer Command Prompt and Developer Power Shell are now integrated into Visual Studio.
Preview Features tools options page has an updated UI and new preview features.
Single sign on across developer tools.
Language Server Protocol general bug fixes and feature improvements
Newtonsoft.Json version 12.0.2 is supported by Visual Studio (updated from 9.0.1)

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

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