Microsoft releases Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 4

Microsoft has announced the availability of Visual Studio 2022 for Mac Preview 4. The firm said that this update continues the move to a fully native macOS UI, fixes a bunch of issues, offers new ways to layout your windows, and improves the search functionality. Below, you can see on-screen icons that show you where the window can be docked - this is just one of the new features in Preview 4.

The changelog for this update is as follows:

Git Tooling

• Ported the Manage Stashes dialog to native UI
• Fixed an issue where the git changes view is slow to update from external changes
• Fixed an issue where revision is not selectable and add new tag is not visible
• Fixed the column sizing in the Git Changes staging area

IDE Shell

• New tool window drag & drop docking experience
• Improved / fixed several small issues with the Attach to Process dialog
• New preferences screens moved to native UI: Source Code Policies/formatting, Editor Headers & Comments
• Ported the New Layout dialog to native UI
• Fixed an issue where the Properties window does not display control properties
• Fixed an issue where the build output window loses contents once build is complete
• Fixed an issue where tool windows showed themselves the first time they are created
• Fixed an issue where Ctrl+Click does not work in Solution Explorer
• Fixed an issues where the New Project Dialog does not have final button as "Create"
• Fixed an issue where the solution window disappeared due to a debugger exception
• Fixed a crash on IDE startup

.NET Productivity

• Fixed an issue where you cannot select dotnet file when configuring dotnet path in preferences
• Fixed a "Debugger operation failed" error when clicking the debug button after upgrading from 17.0 preview 2 to preview 3 on M1
• Fixed an issue where choosing to clone a project from repo and add scaffolding failed with error "Could not install 'dotnet-aspnet-codegenerator' tool'"

Search

• New grouping and "search within results" features added
• Re-added buttons from the 8.10 search results window
• Fixed a hang when showing search results
• Fixed an issue where Find in Files search results are scrambled when sorting column headers
• Fixed an issue where the first letter is not highlighted in search results

Check for Updates

• Removed unsupported .NET install on Arm64

Updating to Preview 4 is very simple, in the menu bar, click Visual Studio then press Check for Updates, at which point, the version will be downloaded and installed. If you do not have Visual Studio 2022 for Mac installed yet, you can download Preview 4 now.

As this is still in the preview stage, Microsoft said it wants people to share their thoughts. To do this from within the program, go to Help > Report a Problem or Help > Provide a Suggestion. You can also head over to the community website and vote for the items you’d like to see addressed most. Finally, Microsoft runs a Visual Studio for Mac Preview Newsletter which you can follow to keep up-to-date with what’s going on with the project.