Visual Studio 15.5 lands, while beta reveals new features

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(Image: Microsoft)

11 December 2017

The Version 15.6 beta update to Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2017 IDE, is now available, just as Visual Studio 15.5 lands with major improvements for of C++, and enhancements across F#, TypeScript, and Angular languages.

15.6 beta features

Microsoft on December 7 released a beta of Visual Studio 2017 15.6. Its features include:

The CPU Usage tool now shows source-line highlighting based on consumption of specific lines of code.
Using Intellisense capabilities for Python code no longer requires a completion database.
The Team Explorer collaboration tool has improved Git tags functionality, with the Tags tile available for viewing all tags in a repo. Developers also can delete and push tags and build a new branch from tags.
Access to the App Authentication Extension, for configuring a device to use protected settings when working with the Azure cloud, has been moved into the main setup.
Real-time test discovery, used for projects using the Roslyn compiler to find tests and populate the Test Explorer, is on by default. It had been available via a flag in the Version 15.5 release.
For Azure cloud development, Visual Studio supports configuring continuous delivery to Azure for Team Foundation Version Control, Git SSH remotes, and web apps for containers.
The WCF Web Service Reference connected service provider now supports an existing service reference, simplifying the process of regenerating client proxy code for an updated web service.

Beta download
Visual Studio Version 15.6 beta can be downloaded at the Visual Studio web site

Now available
Visual Studio 2017 15.5 was released on December 4, featuring faster load times for C# and Visual Basic. Version 15.5’s compiler and standard library gained the following new support for the C++ 17 standard:

The compiler supports about 75 percent of C++ 17 features, including structured bindings, constexpr lambdas, inline variables, and float expressions.
C++ code generation has been improved.
New C++ Core Guidelines checks should ensure the quality of C++ code.
Support for the Google Test Framework assists with writing Google Test C++ unit tests
The Linux C++ workload supports cross-compilation for ARM microcontrollers.

Also new in Visual Studio 15.5:

For Angular 2, the platform supports inline and .ngml template files, via the Angular 2 language service. This assists with TypeScript and JavaScript development.
For the TypeScript and JavaScript language service, an issue causing more memory to be used than intended has been fixed. This same issue also could have caused loading of the wrong version of TypeScript in multiproject efforts. To improve performance and reliability in large projects, the Only Analyze Projects Which Contain Files Opened in the Editor checkbox has been added in the JavaScript/TypeScript Text Editor Project Options page.
The IntelliTrace stepback debugging capability adds support for ASP.Net applications that are running in IIS (Internet Information Services) Express. Stepback debugging, introduced in the first beta, takes a snapshot of an application on each breakpoint and debugger step, helping with the development review process.
The remote tasks capability lets developers run a command on a remote system defined in the Visual Studio Connection Manager. Developers also can copy files to the remote system.
The F# Language Support checkbox in the .Net desktop development workload has been renamed to F# Desktop Support, reflecting that it includes just F# and .Net Framework templates.
F# language support is installed by default with a workload that requires .Net Core 2.0. F# .is included in the .Net Core 2.0 SDK.
It supports the beta version of the Language Server Protocol, which lets developers use languages for which Visual Studio does not provide native support. The Language Server Protocol beta is available as an extension on Visual Studio Marketplace.
Secrets management, for identifying secrets such as database connection streams and web service keys.
Xamarin Live Player, for continuously deploying and debugging mobile apps using Visual Studio and an iOS or Android device.
The ability to use .Net Core, the cross-platform version of .Net, with the Azure Functions serverless computing platform.
Support for Git submodules and work trees in Team Explorer.