OFFICIAL VISUAL STUDIO 15.4 RELEASE
The new release is a minor update, which fixes bugs, boosts performance and adds several new features. After several previews, the final IDEA update offers enhancements in installation and setup, editing extensibility, functionality and many more.
Visual Studio 15.4 is released, boosting Multiplatform support for more effective web design. The new release is the fourth update to VS 2017 and continues the commitment of the company to support .NET Standard 2.0 as well as Universal Windows Platform or UWP applications. The support is an integral part of the strategy of Microsoft to promote cross-platform app development and reuse of code. Moreover, the changes delivered in the VS 15.4 version closely adheres to the preview that Microsoft provided and for the most part represent evolutionary enhancements in websites design. Within the IDE, the mouse-keyboard operation Control-Click’s been changed so holding down the Control key and clicking over a highlighted code line would navigate to its definition. The new function is available for Visual Basic, C# and Python.
VISUAL STUDIO VERSION 15.4 FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS
The minor update has new features as well as performance enhancement and bug fixes.
PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENTS.
There are several new productivity features, which help a developer to be more effective and efficient when developing code. For VB, Python or C# developer, one could navigate the project faster since Ctrl+Click now would go to Definitiion. Performance and memory usage continues to be improved compared to the previous releases. The Live Unite Testing was refined, by making it easier to find and begin. Also, the LUT Integration with Task Center Notification is improved, with LUT background processing notification shown in the Task Status center so users could easily determine what is happening when LUT is enabled.
UWP DEVELOPMENT
The VS 15.4 update supports UWP development, which targets the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. In installing the Universal Windows Platform development workload, one would automatically have the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update software development kit.
ASP.NET Core support for Docker container registry. The new release enables publishing a Docker-enabled ASP.NET Core project to ACR or Azure Container Registry, Docker Hub or any other Docker container registry. In the release, the Docker publish scenarios are limited to ASP.NET Core, but future release would include support for standard ASP.NET projects.
Development of C++. One could now use CMake for Linux C++ development in Visual Studio. This allows using CMake based projects, which target Linux, Windows or both. It simply requires opening a folder with the CMake proje4ct, choose Linux as the target and upon connecting to the Linux machine the sources are synchronized.
WINDOWS APP PACKAGING PROJECT.
In Visual Studio 15.4 version, one gets a first peek of a new project template. The template enables Windows desktop applications build with .NET or C++ to be packaged within the .appx package for easier distribution through side-loading or to Microsoft store submission. The templates work for new Windows desktop projects and existing projects as well.
XAML Designer updates for UWP developers that target Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. Microsoft is investing heavily into enhancing performance, fidelity and reliability of the XAML design surface. For the initial release, updates are available only to developers who have the Fall Creators Update installed and targeting the Fall Creators Update in their projects.
SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS 10
As promised, the VS 15.4 release include support for .appx container with Windows 10. This provides a path for developers to take on the existing Win32 apps and package them to the .appx container for easier installation as well as management on Windows 10 based systems. It does make it easier to integrate the functionality over time if needed. The new type of project is available under the New Project dialog. Those who want to develop in .NET Core 2 would find it easier to do so as .NET Core 2’s available during installation and would be chosen through default when either Web development or .NET Core Workloads are selected.
AVAILABLE FOR INSTALLATION
The 15.4 version of Visual Studio is now available for installation and could be downloaded via the standard web installer or within Visual Studio itself. Besides the new features above, notable bugs were also corrected. Also, Visual Studio for Mac gets a minor update to version 7.2. The same as its Windows counterpart, the update also brings performance improvements and bug fixes.
There are new features to Visual Studio 2017 15.4 version Preview. The full power of Visual Studio could be used to connect to run on a remote computer, which runs on Linux or Windows. It supports running against on premise as well as cloud computers too.