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Amazing Xamarin Updates in Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.5
A new update (15.5) for Visual Studio 2017 has arrived today.
There are some very exciting updates regarding Xamarin this time, so I would like to briefly introduce them.
While the specific details of the update can be found in the Xamarin Blog link below, I will summarize them here.
I just couldn't help myself, as there was some really great news.
The topics are as follows.
1. Remoted iOS Simulator available in all VS editions
As I wrote in a previous blog entry, the "Remoted iOS Simulator" is a feature that allows you to connect to a remote Mac from Visual Studio on Windows and display/operate the iOS Simulator on the Windows side.
https://hatenablog-parts.com/embed?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuits.jp%2Fentry%2F2016%2F04%2F28%2F233203
It is an extremely useful feature, and whether or not you can use it while developing with Xamarin on Windows makes a world of difference. However, after the official release, it was only available in the Enterprise edition. There were many requests to make this feature widely available.
Personally, I thought this was an important feature for Visual Studio to differentiate itself from JetBrains' Rider, so I am very happy to see this feature opened up to all editions.
2. Improvements to project templates
The project templates for creating new Xamarin projects have been improved.
You might be able to tell by looking at the screenshot, but the major improvements are as follows:
- You can now select the target platforms (so, removing WP from the start... oh, someone's at the door?)
- The shared code project has been changed from a Profile-based PCL to .NET Standard 2.0
- packages.config has been eliminated in favor of csproj PackageReference
- Project load times have been accelerated by 5 to 10 times (Seriously?)
The third point is a bit subtle: previously, when you registered a NuGet package, every package that the target package depended on was listed in packages.config. From now on, they will be listed as PackageReference in the csproj, and only the root packages will be listed, simplifying the process. Perhaps this is also contributing to the faster speeds? I'm not entirely sure, though.
3. Introduction of the Xamarin Live Player Preview
Was this only released for the Preview version of Visual Studio before?
It is a feature that allows you to check XAML modifications in real-time. I haven't used it myself.
Is it good? Someone please teach me.
Check out the video in the link to see what it's like.
https://blog.xamarin.com/whats-new-visual-studio-2017-version-15-5/
4. Improvements to Mac connection management
It seems that the progress during the connection process for the Xamarin Agent is now visualized, and reasons for errors are displayed.
I'm not sure how much information will be provided for root cause analysis, but it is simply a welcome feature.
Also, it is best to perform the VS update via the Visual Studio Installer. Please check this article as well if you'd like.
That's all for now. See you next time!
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