Introduction
One of the important features of Visual Studio 2019 is Live Share that is used to get our team started with collaborative editing and debugging in just a few simple steps. We can share the code through Visual Studio 2019 or Visual Studio Code to our teammates without using any other screen sharing software.
Step 1
We need to install the Visual Studio 2019 or Visual Studio Code using the following link “https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/”.
Step 2
The Live Share extension is by default added to Visual Studio 2019. We can check whether it is installed or not, using the following way.
Go to Tools >> NuGet Package Manager >> Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.
Go to Browse and search for “Live Share”. Here, we can find if the extensions are installed or not. Live Share extension is already installed and it looks like below.
Open Visual Studio Code and click extension and type “Live Share” and install the Live Share extension.
Step 3
Open a new project in Visual Studio 2019. Here, we are opening a console application in Visual Studio 2019 that looks like the below screenshot.
Our application is ready now. We can share the application screen using “Live Share”. Click the "Live Share" option on the top-right side of the Visual Studio 2019 panel.
We get the information window like below.
If you want to to know more about “Live Share”, click the "more info" link. The detailed information about Live Share looks like the below screenshot.
Step 4
Copy the “Live Share” link using “Copy again” and share to your team members for collaboration.
“https://prod.liveshare.vsengsaas.visualstudio.com/join?1B7E66EEFD7B78A1E27ED321D37424254335”
Open a new Visual Studio 2019 and go to the “File >> Join Live Share Session”.
Step 5
Copy the Live Share session link and paste into the “Enter Collaboration Session Invite Link” text box and click the "Join" button.
Sharing is started now and we can write, debug, and build the code from both sides. When we write the code or doing anything, we can watch each side. We have opened two Visual Studio 2019 on a single machine for demo purpose. The screen sharing looks like below.
We have a lot of options there. Click “Sharing” in the top of Visual Studio Code. We can see all the features that look like below. We can share “Live Share” with “Read-Only” and “Read/Write”. Click “End Live Share Session” to stop live sharing.
Join Collaboration Session Using Visual Studio Code
Open Visual Studio Code and go to Live Share. Here, click the “Join collaboration session” option.
Copy the Collaboration URL and paste into the Visual Studio Code and click the "Join" button.
After pasting the URL, hit Enter. Sharing will be started.
We can make collaboration from Visual Studio to Visual Studio or Visual Studio to Visual Studio Code.
Conclusion
This article explored the new feature of Visual Studio 2019, i.e., Live Share. I hope this is very useful for new learners and those who are learning about the new features of Visual Studio 2019.