A few weeks ago, Visual Studio 2022 17.7 was released. As usual, I want to quickly go through the changes in this release and highlight the changes that I believe have the biggest impact on .NET developers.
Let me know in the comments what feature is most helpful to you.
GitHub Copilot
There is a new version of the GitHub Copilot Visual Studio extension that provides an improved developer experience.
The integration into IntelliSense has further improved and uses more contextual information to provide better suggestions.
GitHub Actions Integration
In the Solution Explorer, we see a new node called GitHub Actions.
It shows all existing GitHub Actions and allows us to create new actions directly from inside Visual Studio.
Performance Improvements
Besides a few game development-related improvements for C++ and the Unreal Engine, we got performance improvements when searching in files and when previewing or applying code refactorings using the light bulb.
Find in files is about 50% faster in some cases, and the C# spell checker uses up to 90% less memory.
Copy and Trim Indentation
When copying source code into another program, we often have to fix indentation. With this new version, Visual Studio fixes this issue.
Comparing Files
This will be one of the features that has the biggest impact on my everyday work.
We can finally compare files directly within Visual Studio. You can find the command “Compare With…” and “Compare files” in the Solution Explorer’s context menu.
It was a highly upvoted community ticket that made it into this release.
Git Multi-branch Graph
I personally don’t use the integrated Git client, but with this version, we got a better multi-branch graph that helps perform and understand actions that affect multiple branches.
Parallel Stacks Filter
I have never worked with the Parallel Stacks Window before. However, with this release, we get new filtering options that should further improve the developer experience.
If that is something you regularly use, let me know in the comments.
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Solution Explorer: Collapse All Descendants
A new “Collapse All Descendants” command in the Solution Explorer allows us to recursively close all folders. It’s definitely a great new feature for developers working on large-scale solutions.
Autodecompilation for External .NET Code
Autodecompilation for external .NET code when debugging is a game-changer.
Whenever we step into external code, Visual Studio decompiles it and allows us to see the external code. We can even set breakpoints and debug the external code.
This even works when double-clicking on a stack trace.
New Auto Insights for the CPU Usage tool
A few new features for the CPU Usage tool and integration to ask the Copilot Chat extension for an explanation were added with this Visual Studio release.
npm Dependency Management in ASP.NET Projects
When using npm in an ASP.NET project, the Solution Explorer will now provide the option to install, update, and remove npm packages.
Power Platform connected service for ASP.NET
I don’t know anything about the Power platform. However, we get the option to connect ASP.NET Core WebAPI projects to the Power Platform.
Let me know if that is something helpful to you.
I will skip over the C++-specific features since I don’t use them, and most of you probably are .NET developers like me.
HTTP Editor Updates
The HTTP Editor, introduced in version 17.5, has a few improvements. They added a formatted response view capable of displaying JSON responses, and we can now choose to run or debug an HTTP request.
Supporting Vite for React and Vue (Project Creation)
When creating new React projects, we can now choose Vite as the tooling instead of creat-react-app. We can also choose Vite for Vue projects.
I have been transitioning from create-react-app to Vite, and I would never want to go back. It’s great to see that Microsoft provides this option out of the box.
Visual Studio Installer without Admin Privileges
The Visual Studio Installer can now be used with a regular Windows account instead of an admin account.
Developer Community Suggestions
As always, I want to point out that Microsoft listens to the developer community, and usually, 1-2 new features are rooted in community feedback. If you have anything that you’d love to see in Visual Studio, let them know.
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