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2. Using Visual Studio On Mac

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Apps built using Xamarin look and feel native, because they are.

In this short article I'm going to give you an overview of Visual Studio Code, a free and open source IDE for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, from Microsoft.This IDE is highly configurable and extensible with plugins, including a very good one for Python.

Native User Interfaces

Apps built using Xamarin contain standard, native user interface controls. Apps not only look the way the end user expects, but they behave that way too.

Native API Access

Apps built using Xamarin have access to the full spectrum of functionality exposed by the underlying platform and device, including platform-specific capabilities like ARKit and Android Multi-Window mode.

Native Performance

Apps built using Xamarin leverage platform-specific hardware acceleration, and are compiled for native performance. This can’t be achieved with solutions that interpret code at runtime.

Share code everywhere. Use the same language, APIs and data structures for 75+% of app code across all mobile development platforms.

Use Visual Studio, a fully-featured and extensible IDE on Windows. Or, use Visual Studio for Mac, a rich IDE for macOS. Both offer UI designers, efficient code editing, debugging and publishing tools, and more.

With a Visual Studio Standard or Annual Cloud subscription, you get additional features in your Visual Studio IDE, as well as benefits such as access to on-demand content from the Xamarin University curriculum, free tools and special offers, and up to $150 Azure credit each month. Members of the free Visual Studio Dev Essentials program also enjoy select content from Xamarin University.

The Xamarin SDKs, Xamarin.Forms, and Mono runtime are open source on GitHub. We’re excited for your contributions!

Find a consulting partner to help you take your business mobile, ramp up with Visual Studio and Xamarin, and build higher quality mobile solutions. Long-term strategic partners are mobile experts who can guide you through any stage of the app lifecycle and will help you design, develop, and test high-performing cross-platform mobile apps.

“With Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin, we deliver a native app experience, so it is easy and fun to use.”

“With Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin, we can add a new feature across all devices in weeks or days. In the past, it would take us months to achieve feature parity.”

Free, fully-featured IDE for students, open-source and individual developers

Professional developer tools, services, and subscription benefits for small teams

End-to-end solution to meet demanding quality and scale needs of teams of all sizes

Free, fully-featured IDE for students, open-source and individual developers

Professional developer tools, services, and subscription benefits for small teams

End-to-end solution to meet demanding quality and scale needs of teams of all sizes

Installation

1. Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
2. Double-click on the downloaded archive to expand the contents.
3. Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the Launchpad.
4. Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.

Launching from the command line

You can also run VS Code from the terminal by typing 'code' after adding it to the path:

• Launch VS Code.
• Open the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)) and type 'shell command' to find the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.

• Restart the terminal for the new $PATH value to take effect. You'll be able to type 'code .' in any folder to start editing files in that folder.

Note: If you still have the old code alias in your .bash_profile (or equivalent) from an early VS Code version, remove it and replace it by executing the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.

To manually add VS Code to your path, you can run the following commands:

Start a new terminal to pick up your .bash_profile changes.

Note: The leading slash is required to prevent $PATH from expanding during the concatenation. Remove the leading slash if you want to run the export command directly in a terminal.

Touch Bar support

Out of the box VS Code adds actions to navigate in editor history as well as the full Debug tool bar to control the debugger on your Touch Bar:

Mojave privacy protections

After upgrading to macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave and is not specific to VS Code. The same dialogs may be displayed when running other applications as well. The dialog is shown once for each type of personal data and it is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders. You can read a more detailed explanation in this blog post.

Updates

VS Code ships monthly releases and supports auto-update when a new release is available. If you're prompted by VS Code, accept the newest update and it will get installed (you won't need to do anything else to get the latest bits).

Note: You can disable auto-update if you prefer to update VS Code on your own schedule.

Preferences menu

You can configure VS Code through settings, color themes, and custom keybindings and you will often see mention of the File > Preferences menu group. On a macOS, the Preferences menu group is under Code, not File.

Visual Code For Mac

Next steps

Once you have installed VS Code, these topics will help you learn more about VS Code:

• Additional Components - Learn how to install Git, Node.js, TypeScript, and tools like Yeoman.
• User Interface - A quick orientation around VS Code.
• User/Workspace Settings - Learn how to configure VS Code to your preferences settings.

Common questions

Why do I see 'Visual Studio Code would like access to your calendar.'

Using Visual Studio On Mac

If you are running macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave discussed above. It is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders.