A point upgrade to Microsoft’s signature Visual Studio IDE brings improvements to the built-in Git support and mobile development capabilities.
Preview 3 of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6, published on April 16, is available for dowload from the Visual Studio website. Improvements include:
- Improvements to Git version control functionality including automatic loading of a solution after a clone completes. In addition, the user interface for committing and stashing has been updated with an enhanced amend experience for commits. Microsoft also has added new commands in the top-level Git menu for easy keyboard access, including commands to clone a repository, open a repository in File Explorer or at a command prompt, view branch history, and access global repository settings. Remote branch management has been enhanced as well.
- For mobile development, XAML Hot Reload has been made faster. It also maintains more state on a page when a change is made. A XAML change no longer makes the full-page refresh, thanks to the Changes Only Reload setting. In Preview, this reload method can be turned off or on. Also, Xamarin.Android developers will see UI edits getting easier with updates to make Android Apply Changes faster.
- For the Visual Studio terminal, the ability to change the font face and size has been added via the Fonts and Colors dialog.
- Microsoft Fakes, a mocking framework for isolating tests, now supports .NET Core.
Previous previews of Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6, released March 26 and March 16, featured an improved Git experience pertaining to remote hosting services, improved snapshot debugging, C++ additions, and new XAML capabilities.