At this morning’s Connect(); 2016 keynote, Nat Friedman and James Montemagno introduced Visual Studio for Mac, the newest member of the Visual Studio family.Visual Studio for Mac is a developer environment optimized for building mobile and cloud apps with Xamarin and .NET. It is a one-stop shop for .NET development on the Mac, including Android, iOS, and .NET Core technologies. Sporting a native user interface, Visual Studio for Mac integrates all of the tools you need to create, debug, test, and publish mobile and server applications without compromise, including state of the art APIs and UI designers for Android and iOS.
Cross-Platform TFS Integration. TeamCity 10 features the cross-platform TFS integration, which works on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms.Without installing additional software, TeamCity servers and build agents can interact with Team Foundation Servers (from 2010 to 2017; 2018 is supported since TeamCity 2017.2) and Visual Studio Team Services. Integrate With Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Online Last update April 17, 2018 You can import and export user stories from Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) or Visual Studio Online. So Visual Studio for Mac being used for new code you create new Git repo(s) and still have everything in the same Team Project / backlog. – Sacha K May 18 '17 at 19:15 Yeah, been doing that for a while, but most of the code at my workplace is in a large TFVC mega repo, I've been pushing for git for new stuff.
Both C# and F# are supported out of the box and our project templates provide developers with a skeleton that embodies the best practices to share code across mobile front ends and your backend. Our new Connected Application template gives you both your Android and iOS front ends, as well as its complementary .NET Core-powered backend.
Once you’re up and running, you’ll find the same Roslyn-powered compiler, IntelliSense code completion, and refactoring experience you would expect from a Visual Studio IDE. And, since Visual Studio for Mac uses the same MSBuild solution and project format as Visual Studio, developers working on Mac and Windows can share projects across Mac and Windows transparently.
With multi-process debugging, you can use Visual Studio for Mac to debug both your front end application as well as your backend simultaneously.
Visual Studio for Mac provides an amazing experience for creating mobile apps, from integrated designers to the code editing experience to the packaging and publishing tools. It is complemented by:
- The full power of the beloved-by-millions C# 7 programming language
- Complete .NET APIs for Android, iOS, tvOS, watchOS, and macOS
- The Xamarin.Forms API abstraction to maximize code sharing
- Access to thousands of .NET libraries on NuGet.org to accelerate your mobile development
- Highly optimized native code backed by the LLVM optimizing compiler
But we know apps don’t stop at the client, which is why I am so excited about what Visual Studio for Mac brings to backend development, as well.
Check out the release notes for a complete list of what’s included in this product.
It is rare these days for mobile applications to run in isolation; most of them have a backend that does the heavy lifting and connects users.
You can use .NET Core to build your own backend services and deploy these to your Windows or Linux servers on Visual Studio for Mac, while the project templates will get you up and running with an end-to-end configuration.
Additionally developers can easily integrate Azure mobile services into their application for things like push notifications, data storage, and user accounts and authentication with Azure App Services. This is available in the new “Connected Services” project node.
Whether you are rolling out a custom backend with ASP.NET Core, or consuming pre-packaged Azure services, Visual Studio for Mac will be there for you.
Download Microsoft Visual Studio For Mac
Check out the release notes for a complete list of what’s included in this product.
Today we released the first preview of Visual Studio for Mac, a member of the Visual Studio family, and the story is just beginning. In the coming months we will be working with the Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code teams to bring more features that you love to the Mac, from advanced Web editing capabilities to support for more programming languages via the Server Language Protocol.
Visit the Visual Studio for Mac page and take it for a spin. We look forward to hearing your feedback!
| Miguel de Icaza, Distinguished Engineer, Mobile Developer Tools @migueldeicaza Miguel is a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, focused on the mobile platform and creating delightful developer tools. With Nat Friedman, he co-founded both Xamarin in 2011 and Ximian in 1999. Before that, Miguel co-founded the GNOME project in 1997 and has directed the Mono project since its creation in 2001, including multiple Mono releases at Novell. Miguel has received the Free Software Foundation 1999 Free Software Award, the MIT Technology Review Innovator of the Year Award in 1999, and was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 innovators for the new century in September 2000. |
Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018 | TFS 2017 | TFS 2015 | TFS 2013
In this article, learn about the tools and clients that connect to Azure DevOps.
Our platform of software development tools began more than 20 years ago. We released Visual Basic and Visual Studio as an integrated development environment (IDE). Visual Studio supports many plug-ins that extend its functionality. In particular, the Team Explorer plug-in allows the Visual Studio client to connect to Azure DevOps to support source control, work tracking, build, and test operations.
The available tools that communicate with Azure DevOps are included as follows:
- Desktop client developer tools
- Office integration tools
- Web-based tools
- Command-line tools
- Marketplace extensions
- REST APIs
Desktop client developer tools
Developers have access to many tools through these versions of Visual Studio and plug-ins. To download any version of Visual Studio, go to the Visual Studio Downloads page. To understand what features you get with the Visual Studio versions, see Compare Visual Studio offerings.
- Visual Studio Community: A fully featured and extensible IDE for creating modern applications for Android, iOS, and Windows, including web applications and cloud services. (Replaces Visual Studio Express.)
- Visual Studio Professional: Development tools and services to support individual developers or small teams.
- Visual Studio Enterprise: Integrated, end-to-end development tools and solutions for teams of any size, and with a need to scale. It supports designing, building, and managing complex enterprise applications.
- Visual Studio Test Professional: Provides access to Microsoft Test and development tools to support quality and collaboration throughout the development process.
- Visual Studio Team Explorer: Free solution for non-developers to interact with Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team Services.
- Eclipse/Team Explorer Everywhere: Free plug-in to support teams running Eclipse on Linux, macOS, or Windows that connects to Azure DevOps.
- Android Studio with the Azure DevOps Services Plug-in for Android Studio: Free plug-in to support Android developers and connect to Git repositories on Azure DevOps.
- IntelliJ with the Azure DevOps Services Plugin for IntelliJ: Free plug-in to support developers who use IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio to connect to Git repositories on Azure DevOps.
- Visual Studio Code: Free, open-source code editor with a free extension to support connecting to Git repositories on Azure DevOps.
To get started with client libraries, see Client library samples.
Team Explorer plug-in
Team Explorer, a plug-in to all Visual Studio versions, connects Visual Studio to projects defined in Azure DevOps. You can manage source code, work items, and builds. To learn more, see Work in Team Explorer.
Office integration tools
You can integrate the following Microsoft Office tools with Azure DevOps.
- Excel: Use Excel to add and bulk modify work items.
- Project: By using Project, you can plan projects, schedule tasks, assign resources, and track changes. You have access to additional features, such as a project calendar, Gantt charts, and resource views.
- Project Professional: With Project Professional, project managers and software development teams can use the tools that they prefer, work at the level of precision that supports their needs, and easily share information.
- Excel: Use Excel to add and bulk modify work items.
- Project: By using Project, you can plan projects, schedule tasks, assign resources, and track changes. You have access to additional features, such as a project calendar, Gantt charts, and resource views.
- Project Professional: With Project Professional, project managers and software development teams can use the tools that they prefer, work at the level of precision that supports their needs, and easily share information.
- PowerPoint Storyboarding: Illustrate user stories and requirements by using PowerPoint.
When you install any edition of Visual Studio or Team Foundation Server Standalone Office Integration 2015 (free), the Team Foundation plug-in integrates work item tracking with select Office clients. The Team Foundation plug-in installs to your existing Office client. The plug-in supports Office 2007, Office 2010, or Office 2013 versions.
- Excel: Use Excel to add and bulk modify work items.
- Project: By using Project, you can plan projects, schedule tasks, assign resources, and track changes. You have access to features that TFS doesn't support, such as a project calendar, Gantt charts, and resource views.
- PowerPoint Storyboarding: Illustrate user stories and requirements by using PowerPoint. The Team Foundation plug-in installs to your existing PowerPoint client.
- Project Professional: With Project Professional and the Team Foundation Server Extensions for Project Server, you can manage projects that synchronize data that exists in both TFS and Project Server. Project managers and software development teams can use the tools that they prefer, work at the level of precision that supports their needs, and easily share information.
Important
Support for integrating TFS with Project Server is deprecated for TFS 2017. However, synchronization support is provided by a Microsoft partner. See Synchronize TFS with Project Server for details.
Task-specific clients
The following clients support specific tasks, such as managing testing efforts, providing feedback, or modifying work items:
- Azure Test Plans: Manage your test efforts, create and run manual tests, and create and track bugs that are found during test efforts. Test Plans is installed with Visual Studio Test Professional and Visual Studio Enterprise.
- Test & Feedback extension (previously called the Exploratory Testing extension): This extension provides a lightweight plug-in to a web browser. Stakeholders can respond to feedback requests for user stories and features created in Azure DevOps. This extension is free to Stakeholders.
- Microsoft Feedback Client: Your Stakeholders can use this client to record feedback for your application as video, audio, or type-written comments. This client is installed with all versions of Visual Studio, or it can be installed from the free download. All feedback is stored in the work item data store and requires Stakeholders to have permissions.
Browser-based web tools
Web portal
The collaboration tools supported through the web portal are summarized under Essential services. New features are deployed every three weeks for Azure DevOps Services, and quarterly for Azure DevOps Server. For release notes, see Azure DevOps Services Features Timeline.
You can use the following browsers to access the web portal:
| Version | Microsoft Edge | Internet Explorer | Safari (Mac) | Firefox | Chrome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure DevOps Services | most recent | 11 and later | 9.1 and later | most recent | most recent |
| Azure DevOps Server 2019 | most recent | 11 and later | 9.1 and later | most recent | most recent |
| TFS 2018 | most recent | 11 and later | 9.1 and later | most recent | most recent |
| TFS 2015 | most recent | 9 and later | 5 and later | most recent | most recent |
| TFS 2013 | 9 and later | 5 and later | most recent | most recent |
Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and Chrome automatically update themselves, so Azure DevOps supports the most recent version.
To learn more, see Web portal navigation.
Browser-based extensions
The following extensions are available and are built and maintained by the Azure DevOps Services product team:
- Azure Test Plans: Run tests by using your browser with simple pass/fail of steps, add comments/attachments, take screenshots, and file bugs. You can accomplish it all with automatic end-to-end traceability.
- Azure Artifacts: Build packages of reusable code components and share them. The Azure Artifacts extension enables continuous delivery workflows by supporting multiple packaging protocols such as NuGet and npm. It makes packages available to your team, your builds, and your releases.
- Code search: Increase cross-team collaboration and code sharing. Enables developers to quickly locate relevant information within the code base of all projects that are hosted within an organization or collection. You can discover implementation examples, browsing definitions, and error text.
- Work item search: Quickly find relevant work items by searching across all work item fields over all projects in an organization. Do full-text searches across all fields to efficiently locate relevant work items. Use inline search filters, on any work item field, to quickly narrow down a list of work items.
Find additional extensions in Azure DevOps Organization settings > Extensions > Browse marketplace.
Application monitoring tools
To monitor your applications, you can use Azure Application Insights for web apps or HockeyApp for mobile apps.
Monitor web applications with Application Insights
Application Insights is an extensible application performance management (APM) service for web developers. Use it to monitor your live web application. Application Insights automatically detect performance anomalies. It includes powerful analytics tools to help you diagnose issues and to understand what users actually do with your app. Application Insights is designed to help you continuously improve performance and usability. It works for apps on a wide variety of platforms—including .NET, Node.js, and Java EE—hosted on-premises or in the cloud.
With Application Insights, you can do the following tasks:
- Gain actionable insights through application performance management and instant analytics
- Detect and diagnose exceptions and application performance issues
- Monitor Azure websites, which includes websites hosted in containers, on-premises, and with other cloud providers
- Seamlessly integrate with your pipeline by using Azure DevOps Services, GitHub, and our webhooks
- Get started from within Visual Studio, or monitor existing apps without redeploying
Visual Studio For Mac
To learn more, see Microsoft Azure - Application Insights.
Monitor mobile applications with HockeyApp
With HockeyApp, you can develop, distribute, and beta test your mobile apps. HockeyApp supports the following apps and functionality:
- Android, Cordova, iOS, macOS, Unity, Windows, and Xamarin apps
- Live, reliable crash reports
- Collection of in-app feedback from real users
- Open-source SDKs to let you know what code is running in your apps
- Integration with your existing build system and work item management solution
To learn more, see Microsoft Azure - HockeyApp.
Command-line tools
You can do many code development and administrative tasks by using the following command-line tools:
Marketplace extensions
Visual Studio and Azure DevOps provide a wealth of features and functionality. They also provide a means to extend and share that functionality.
Extensions are simple add-ons that you can use to customize and extend your DevOps and work tracking experiences. They're written with standard technologies—HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. You can develop your own extensions by using your preferred dev tools.
You build extensions by using our RESTful API library. Publish your extensions to the Azure DevOps Marketplace. You can privately maintain or share them with millions of developers who use Visual Studio and Azure DevOps.
To learn more, visit the Azure DevOps Marketplace and see Overview of extensions.
REST APIs
The Azure DevOps APIs are based on REST, OAuth, JSON, and service hooks—all standard web technologies broadly supported in the industry.
REST APIs are provided to support building extensions to Azure DevOps. To learn more, see REST API overview.