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What's Coming in Next Visual Studio 2019 Release
With Visual Studio 2019 v16.7 officially in the books, Microsoft wasted no time in providing a peek at what lies ahead for the flagship IDE.
That peek comes in Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 1, which shows that what lies ahead continues the recent pattern of improving functionality along a number of fronts, including Git integration, C++ coding, .NET productivity and more.
That first item, Git integration, was a focal point of VS 2019 v16.7, which shipped this week with the following:
- A revamped Visual Studio merge editor is decoupled from Team Foundation Version Control and now focuses on Git
- Git conflict resolution on one side or the other is improved by a one-click checkbox
- A new Git Repository window gives developers a complete full-screen experience to focus on dedicated Git activities
The focus on Git integration continues in the new preview of the next edition, providing easier navigation through the Git Repository window.
"Since we've first released it, we've made several modifications to the Git Repository window to more easily navigate through it," said Jacqueline Widdis, release manager, Visual Studio Release Team, in an August 5 blog post. "Use the View menu or the keyboard chord Ctrl+0, Ctrl+S to quickly open the window. And customize the history view through a new tool bar with filters. You can also search for commits in the branch history using the search box. If you want to update the branch with the latest commits, you can use the new Fetch, Pull, and Push commands in the incoming and outgoing commits."
[Click on image for larger view.] Git Repository Window Navigation in Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 1 (source: Microsoft).
More highlights from Preview 1 include:
- New Progress Dialog: Developers cloning a repository can track the progress of the operation via a new process dialog, which can be moved to the background while other tasks are performed.
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Razor: An experimental Razor editor was included in last month's preview 4 of VS 2019 v16.7. Improvements for Razor in the new preview include:
- Go-to-definition/implementation for Razor, including closed files
- Improved Razor editing preformance and stability for large projects and solutions
- C++: The team added compiler support for lambdas in unevaluated contexts, which lets developers use lambdas in decltype specifiers.
- .NET Productivity: A code fix removes the "in" keyword where the argument should not be passed by reference. It's enacted by placing the cursor on the error and pressing (Ctrl+.) to trigger the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu and then pressing "Remove 'in' keyword."
- New Pattern Matching: A new refactoring introduces the C#9 pattern combinators. "Along with the pattern matching suggestions such as converting '== 'to use 'is' where applicable, this code fix also suggests the pattern combinators 'and,' 'or' and 'not' when matching multiple different patterns and negating. Place your cursor inside the statement. Press (Ctrl+.) to trigger the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu."
- Remove Unnecessary Pragma Suppressions: A code fix removes unnecessary pragma suppressions and SuppressMessageAttributes. This is also done via the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu.
More detailed information on all of the above and much more is available in the release notes for Visual Studio 2019 v16.8 Preview 2.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.