News

Uno Platform VS Code Extension Adds Mobile Debugging

Uno Platform, which offers a framework for building cross-platform applications with .NET, announced a new version of its Visual Studio Code extension that adds mobile targeting.

That means VS Code devs can now use the tool to debug both Uno Platform and .NET MAUI applications for iOS and Android.

"The mobile debugging has been a highly requested item from the community," the company's Sasha Krsmanovic told Visual Studio Magazine. "This is a game changer as VS Code, with all the extensions it has in the marketplace, is starting to rival Visual Studio itself."

Uno Platform/.NET applications are based on the same foundation as .NET MAUI, Microsoft's cross-platform UI framework that is part of .NET 8. Uno Platform extends .NET MAUI to WebAssembly and Linux, as well as other platforms such as macOS and Windows. Uno Platform also enables Blazor WebAssembly applications to run on desktop and mobile platforms with native controls and features.

[Click on image for larger view.] Uno Platform Projects XAML Completion, Hot Reload and Debugging Support for VS Code (source: Uno Platform).

A May 2 blog post expanded on Krsmanovic's IDE comparison: "Just like in a fully fledged IDE like Visual Studio, you can now set breakpoints, exceptions, conditional breakpoints, logpoints and variables in your code or 3rd party code using SourceLink and sources embedded inside PDB."

Supporting features such as hot reload and IntelliSense-like code autocompletion, the extension now helps developers use VS Code to create, run and debug web, desktop and mobile applications using C# and XAML, working across Windows, Web/WebAssembly, iOS, macOS, Android and Linux.

The extension's marketplace description now indicates the tool provides:

  • XAML hot reload for mobile targets
  • XAML code completion for mobile targets
  • Debugging on mobile targets
  • XAML code completion on web targets
  • C# hot reload
  • Code-behind navigation from a XAML file

Here's a matrix that summarizes the features available to .NET developers for desktop, web and mobile targets:

[Click on image for larger view.] Feature Summary (source: Uno Platform).

The new version of the Uno Platform VS Code extension is available for download from the VS Code Marketplace. Along with working on Windows, macOS and Linux, it can also connect to remote instances of VS Code for debugging iOS applications on a macOS computer.

The tool has been installed more than 9,000 times, earning a perfect score of 5.0 from three developers who reviewed it.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

  • Windows Community Toolkit v8.2 Adds Native AOT Support

    Microsoft shipped Windows Community Toolkit v8.2, an incremental update to the open-source collection of helper functions and other resources designed to simplify the development of Windows applications. The main new feature is support for native ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation.

  • New 'Visual Studio Hub' 1-Stop-Shop for GitHub Copilot Resources, More

    Unsurprisingly, GitHub Copilot resources are front-and-center in Microsoft's new Visual Studio Hub, a one-stop-shop for all things concerning your favorite IDE.

  • Mastering Blazor Authentication and Authorization

    At the Visual Studio Live! @ Microsoft HQ developer conference set for August, Rockford Lhotka will explain the ins and outs of authentication across Blazor Server, WebAssembly, and .NET MAUI Hybrid apps, and show how to use identity and claims to customize application behavior through fine-grained authorization.

  • Linear Support Vector Regression from Scratch Using C# with Evolutionary Training

    Dr. James McCaffrey from Microsoft Research presents a complete end-to-end demonstration of the linear support vector regression (linear SVR) technique, where the goal is to predict a single numeric value. A linear SVR model uses an unusual error/loss function and cannot be trained using standard simple techniques, and so evolutionary optimization training is used.

  • Low-Code Report Says AI Will Enhance, Not Replace DIY Dev Tools

    Along with replacing software developers and possibly killing humanity, advanced AI is seen by many as a death knell for the do-it-yourself, low-code/no-code tooling industry, but a new report belies that notion.

Subscribe on YouTube