Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7 Release Notes

09/21/2020

15 minutes to read

In this article

Developer Community | System Requirements | Compatibility | Distributable Code | Documentation | Blogs | Servicing

Click the button to download the latest version of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac. For information on the system requirements see the see Mac System Requirements and Mac Platform Targeting and Compatibility guides.

For instructions on installing and updating Visual Studio 2019 for Mac, see the Install Visual Studio for Mac guide.

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What's New in Visual Studio 2019 for Mac

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Releases

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Blog Posts

The Visual Studio Blog is the official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team. You can find in-depth information about the Visual Studio 2019 for Mac releases in the following posts:

Release Highlights

We added support for adding new Open API & gRPC service references to .NET Core projects.

We added support for right-clicking to run unit tests.

The Visual Studio Tools for Unity includes three new diagnostics and support for persistent solution folders when Unity is regenerating solution and projects.

We resolved a significant number of existing bugs and user-reported issues throughout the IDE. Please continue to share your feedback with us using the Developer Community portal.

Visual Studio for Mac 8.7 supports running on the macOS Big Sur developer preview. If you're already on Big Sur and can't use the updater, visit the Visual Studio for Mac website and download the installer.

Known Issues

Refer to the Known Issues section.

Feedback and Suggestions

We would love to hear from you! You can report a problem through the Report a Problem option in Visual Studio for Mac IDE. You can track your feedback, including suggestions, in the Developer Community portal.

Release Notes

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.8 (8.7.8.4)

released September 21, 2020

Xamarin

We added support for Xcode 12 and updated the Xamarin SDKs.

We added support for setting a Color set as Accent Color in the Info.plist editor.

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.7 (8.7.7.10)

released September 15, 2020

IDE Platform

We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac could not be launched and required a full reboot.

Project System

We fixed an issue with ProjectGuid being removed from project files.

Web and Azure

We fixed an issue where Scaffolding failed for ASP.NET Core 2.1 Web Applications.

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.6 (8.7.6.2)

released September 08, 2020

Web and Azure

We updated the .NET Core SDK (3.1.402 SDK and 2.1.22 runtime).

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.5 (8.7.5.19)

released September 08, 2020

Project System

We fixed an issue where an Uno solution could not be loaded.

We improved performance and reliability.

Web and Azure

We fixed an issue where initial templates were missing when creating a new Azure Functions project.

Xamarin

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.4 (8.7.4.38)

released August 25, 2020

We fixed an issue causing illogical focus order in the Report a Problem dialog.

We fixed an issue preventing VoiceOver and screen readers from being able to activate links in the Manage NuGet Packages dialog.

We fixed an issue where large solutions would fail to restore with older .NET Core SDKs installed.

We increased the color contrast of the selected account in the account dialog.

Web and Azure

We fixed an issue where a new launch profile added to launchSettings.json was not shown in the project options dialog.

We fixed an issue where cancelling changes in the project options dialog would not undo run configuration changes.

We fixed an issue where the OpenAPI / gRPC configuration dialogs were not modal.

We fixed an issue where the OpenAPI service reference dialog would re-open after the reference was added.

We fixed an issue preventing ASP.NET Core projects from running in the integrated terminal despite being set to do so in the run configuration settings.

We fixed an issue where the default run configuration shows the project name twice in main toolbar.

Xamarin

We improved overall stability

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.3 (8.7.3.13)

released August 18, 2020

We fixed an issue where the properties pad was not updated correctly after changing properties in the solution pad.

We fixed an issue where open with hex editor opens file with VS Code and not in the hex editor.

Xamarin

We improved overall stability

We fixed an issue with debugging an Android app with Xamarin.Android SDK 11.0.0.3

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.2 (8.7.2.4)

released August 13, 2020

Web and Azure

We updated the .NET Core SDK (3.1.401 SDK and 2.1.21 runtime).

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7.1 (8.7.1.15)

released August 11, 2020

Bug Fixes in 8.7.1

We fixed an issue with incorrect dependency folder information with .NET Core 3.1.400.

We fixed an issue where several UI elements in the properties dialog do not have names for VoiceOver users.

Unity

We fixed an issue where opening from Unity shows "Loading..." until quitting and reopening.

Version Control

We fixed an issue that could result in a doesn't point at a valid Git repository or workdir. error message when working with Git.

Xamarin

We fixed an issue preventing Xamarin developers on macOS Big Sur from compiling and running their projects.

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7 (8.7.0.2037)

released August 5, 2020

Note This release of Visual Studio for Mac now supports running on the macOS Big Sur developer beta builds. If you're already on Big Sur and can't use the updater, visit the Visual Studio for Mac website and download the installer.

New Features

Open API and gRPC Client Generation

Visual Studio for Mac now includes support for generating an API client from an OpenAPI or gRPC service. This includes the ability to generate the client from a local file or URL, manage service references, and regenerate the client code if the service changes.

To add add a new reference to an OpenAPI or gRPC service, right-click on the Connected Services node in the Solution pad and select Open Service Gallery.

Opening the Connected Service Gallery in Visual Studio for Mac

After opening the Connected Services Gallery, you have the option to add either an OpenAPI or gRPC reference.

The Connected Service Gallery in Visual Studio for Mac

Clicking on either of the options launches a prompt which allows you to enter the service reference, either by file path or URL.

When generating a gRPC client, you can also select whether to generate the following client class types:

Client

Server

Client and Server

Messages Only (used to generate strongly typed classes based on message properties, with no generated server or client code)

When generating an OpenAPI client, you can specify the namespace and additional options which are passed through to the code generator.

Code generation is based on the dotnet-grpc and dotnet-openapi command-line tools.

After generating a service reference, you can view and modify it in the Connected Services Gallery as shown below.

Viewing previously added services in the Connected Service Gallery in Visual Studio for Mac

For more information on using a generated OpenAPI client, see the Getting Started with NSwag tutorial.

For more information on using a generated gRPC client, see the Create a gRPC client and server in ASP.NET Core tutorial.

Right-Click to Run Unit Tests

When editing C# classes containing unit tests, developers can now right-click within the body of a test class or method to access options for running and debugging tests.

The new entries for Run and Debug Tests in the editor context menu

In addition to right-clicking in the editor, these new commands can be run using keboard shortcuts. If you're using the Visual Studio for Mac key bindings, the commands are as follows:

Run Test(s): ⌘T

Debug Tests(s): ⌘⌥T

See Default keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio for Mac for more information on changing your keyboard shortcuts and The Visual Studio Blog for more in-depth information on this new unit test feature.

We added support to persist solution folders when Unity is regenerating solution and projects.

We added the following diagnostics: UNT0015 : Detect incorrect method signature with InitializeOnLoadMethod or RuntimeInitializeOnLoadMethod attribute. UNT0016 : Using Invoke , InvokeRepeating , StartCoroutine or StopCoroutine with a first argument being a string literal is not type safe. UNT0017 : SetPixels invocation is slow.



Bug Fixes

Debugger

We fixed an issue where Debugger step operations cause Visual Studio to hang.

We introduced new logic for calculating width and placement of items in debugger pads.

We fixed an issue that prevented name/value cells from going into edit mode unless clicking exactly on text.

We increased the speed of expanding tooltips

We fixed an issue that created breakpoints in the breakpoint pad when users clicked an empty line in the editor margin.

We fixed an issue that prevented users from dismissing crash messages.

We fixed an issue where tooltip behaviour makes it difficult to work.

We fixed an issue that may have caused UI hang while stepping.

We fixed an issue where Exception page stays after debugging ends.

We fixed an issue where the breakpoint pad could become out of sync with line numbers in the text editor display when adding or removing lines of code.

We fixed an issue that may cause the debugger to break on the wrong statement.

We fixed an issue that sometimes caused tooltips to remain visible after finishing debugging.

We fixed an issue where the tooltip may display an array length for a non-array object.

We fixed an issue that caused a StackTracePad.UpdateAsync null reference error to be written to the logs.

We fixed an issue that caused erroneous newlines in tooltip values.

Project System

Testing

Source Code Editing

We fixed a bug where breakpoints would not be hit if they were set while already debugging.

We fixed an issue where checking equality of Enum values didn't return the correct result (Watches, Immediate, Conditonal Breakpoints).

We fixed USP0004 , USP0006 and USP0007 suppressors with the following rules: suppress IDE0044 (readonly), IDE0051 (unused), CS0649 (never assigned) for all fields decorated with SerializeField attribute. Suppress CS0649 (never assigned) for public fields of all types extending Unity.Object .

, and suppressors with the following rules: suppress (readonly), (unused), (never assigned) for all fields decorated with SerializeField attribute. Suppress (never assigned) for public fields of all types extending . We fixed generic type parameter checking for UNT0014 .

. We fixed an issue that caused selected Unity Messages to be unchecked after searching in the Add Unity Messages dialog.

Version Control

We fixed an issue with version control tabs not showing up.

We fixed an issue where cloning using SSH failed with an error.

We fixed an issue where the version control system breaks when the .git folder is deleted.

We fixed an issue where it was not possible to access remote repos over SSH in VS Comm.

We fixed an issue causing a hang when using version control.

We fixed an issue where pushing when remote contains changes that don't exist locally takes a long time eventually aborting with errors.

Web and Azure

Xamarin

Support for Xcode 11.5 and 11.6.

We updated the Xamarin.Forms templates to use 4.6.0 SR 5.

We fixed an issue that caused reliability issues in the remote build host.

We fixed an issue where a context menu action was not localized in the Android designer.

We fixed a handful of crashes reported by users.

We fixed a few instances where VoiceOver would read labels of elements on Wizard template pages twice.

We fixed an issue where storyboard resource tags are removed.

We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac was not generating view controller files for storyboards.

We fixed some Storyboard errors with Xamarin.mac.

We fixed an issue where color contrast was too low for the expand/collapse button in the Apple Developer account dialog.

Known Issues

The following is a list of all existing known issues in Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.7: