Preface

Visual Studio 2022 is the best integrated development environment (IDE) for .NET developers. The powerful tools added release after release make it an annually renewed IDE for application development across various domains. This book is a comprehensive guide for .NET developers, both beginners and advanced, who wish to familiarize themselves with the basic, advanced, and new features of the IDE. The book is divided into three sections: an overview of Visual Studio, tools for productivity within the IDE, and finally, integration with GitHub and Visual Studio extensions.

In this second edition, we expand the use of Visual Studio to environments beyond web development, such as Azure, Desktop, .NET MAUI, and others. Moreover, updates to the IDE introduced since the release year of the first edition of the book in 2022 have been included, such as the use of GPT-based extensions such as GitHub Copilot and GitHub Copilot Chat, as well as profiling tools.

The book reviews breakpoint groups, a new way to configure breakpoints, as well as tools for web development, such as Browser Link, Dev Tunnels, and Web API Endpoints Explorer. For more advanced developers, the book addresses the topic of developing extensions through the use of the new Visual Studio SDK.

Who this book is for

This book is intended for .NET developers who want to learn how to use the latest features, tools, and extensions available in Visual Studio 2022. To get the most out of the book, it is recommended to have general knowledge of C#. Knowledge of web development, Azure, and .NET MAUI and a desktop with .NET, although not required, would be helpful.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Visual Studio 2022, reviews how to install Visual Studio, new features, customization, and accessibility options.

Chapter 2, Creating Projects and Templates, explains the templates included in Visual Studio and how to create your first projects using them.

Chapter 3, Debugging and Profiling Your Apps, discusses how to use Visual Studio to build applications, debug your projects, and profile your apps.

Chapter 4, Adding Code Snippets, explains how to use code snippets and create your own in Visual Studio.

Chapter 5, Coding Efficiently with AI and Code Views, reviews the AI tools and different code views that we can use in Visual Studio.

Chapter 6, Using Tools for Frontend and Backend Development, explains some of the tools included in Visual Studio for frontend and backend development.

Chapter 7, Styling and Cleanup Tools, discusses the code cleanup options included in Visual Studio.

Chapter 8, Publishing Projects, explores the different ways to publish different project types from Visual Studio.

Chapter 9, Implementing Git Integration, reviews the Visual Studio functionalities to work with GitHub-hosted projects.

Chapter 10, Sharing Code with Live Share, discusses what Live Share is and how to use it to work with teams in live coding sessions.

Chapter 11, Working with Extensions in Visual Studio, explains what extensions are in Visual Studio, the different ways to add them to the IDE, and how to create your own extensions.

Chapter 12, Using Popular Extensions, discusses what the most popular extensions for Visual Studio are and why.

Chapter 13, Learning Keyboard Shortcuts, explains how to perform quick actions in Visual Studio using the keyboard to optimize repetitive tasks.

To get the most out of this book

You need to have a laptop or desktop computer with Windows 10 or later installed. To install Visual Studio and complete the exercises, you will need an internet connection.

To obtain a Visual Studio Community license, you must have a Microsoft account, either belonging to the Hotmail domain or the Outlook domain.

Software/hardware covered in the book	Operating system requirements
ARM64 or x64 processor; quad-core or better recommended. ARM 32 processors are not supported. Minimum of 4 GB of RAM. Many factors impact the resources used; we recommend 16 GB RAM for typical professional solutions. Hard disk space: Minimum of 850 MB up to 210 GB of available space, depending on features installed; typical installations require 20-50 GB of free space. We recommend installing Windows and Visual Studio on a solid-state drive (SSD) to increase performance.	Windows 10 or later
Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition	Windows 10 or later

A version of Visual Studio Enterprise is required to generate code maps in Chapter 5, Coding Efficiently with AI and Code Views.

A GitHub Copilot license is required to perform the AI completion tests in Chapter 5, Coding Efficiently with AI and Code Views.

To perform the tests suggested in Chapter 9, Implementing Git Integration, a GitHub account is required.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

To complete and understand all the activities throughout this book, it’s important to have basic knowledge about software development with .NET.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Hands-On-Visual-Studio-2022-Second-Edition. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “In the custom.css file, you can write the columns property and see how VS suggests a code snippet for it.”

A block of code is set as follows:

if (OperatingSystem.IsLinux()){
    return new List<WeatherForecast>();

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

public float Calculate(int value){
   return (float)((value + 126) * (Math.PI / value));
}

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “Go to the Tools | Options menu.”

Tips or important notes

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