On November 16, 2016, Nat Friedman and James Montemagno introduced the newest member of Visual Studio family Visual Studio for Mac, at Connect(); 2016 event. I thought to give it a try. So, I installed the same and went through the project templates available in it. This article is a kind of getting started guide to install Visual Studio for Mac.
Installation
The installation of Visual Studio for Mac is very simple. Once you download the installation setup from Visual Studio for Mac, follow the steps mentioned below.
- Double click on ‘VisualStudioforMacPreviewInstaller.dmg’ to open the screen, shown below.
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- Depending upon the security settings, you may get the confirmation screen to confirm the execution of the installation.
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- Double click on the down arrow to start the installation.
- You will get the "Terms & Condition" screen, as shown below, before starting the installation.
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- Once you check the T&C agreement checkbox and click Continue button, you will get to the next screen to select the items to be installed.
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- After you select the components and click ‘Continue’ button, the installation will start and you will get the following screen.
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- Since the installation package contains third party applications, you will also get the screen, shown below, to accept their licenses, which you have to accept by checking the checkbox and clicking ‘Continue’ button.
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- The installation will take some time which depends upon the speed of your internet connection, as it’s around 2 GB of download and installation.
- You will get the screen, as shown below, to launch Visual Studio for Mac after the installation is complete, which is quite similar to Windows setup
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- Click ‘Start Visual Studio’ to open Visual Studio for Mac or ‘Quit’ button to close the installation.
- You will get to the below screen on clicking "Start Visual Studio" button, which will remind you of Visual Studio for Windows (if you have used it).
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Project Templates
As mentioned by Miguel de Icaza & Nat Friedman during their Q&A session at Connect (See this Video), the current version of Visual Studio for Mac is focusing more on supporting the existing features of Xamarin Studio and Support for .NET Core.
Once you click on “New Project” button on startup screen, you will get the following screen to select various project templates.
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The best part is that the screen will also show the description of what type of project you can create using the selected template on clicking of project template type (as shown in the above screenshot).
I really liked this new IDE from Microsoft and will use it for my future projects developed on Mac; and suggest everyone who use Mac for .NET development to use this and post their suggestions and votes for new features at Visual Studio For Mac User Voice Page.