Visual Studio 2022 Preview 3 shines on JavaScript, TypeScript, Git

With the third preview of Microsoft’s planned 64-bit Visual Studio 2022 IDE, the company is emphasizing a new JavaScript/TypeScript experience as well as multi-repo support.

Unveiled August 10, Visual Studio 2022 Preview 3 also covers themes including personal and team productivity. For JavaScript and TypeScript, the preview offers tools to enhance the experience for single-page applications and front-end development. A new JavaScript/TypeScript project will enable developers to build standalone Angular, React, and Vue projects. Visual Studio will leverage each JavaScript framework’s native CLIs to front-end project templates. The IDE will discover the version of the CLI installed on the developer’s path to scaffold the project.

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The multi-repo capability in Preview 3 supports working with projects hosted in different Git repositories. Developers can work with a single solution that has projects in multiple repositories and contribute to them from a single instance of Visual Studio. This feature is still in a preview stage.

Developers can access the preview from the Visual Studio website. The preview can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2019.

Other improvements in Visual Studio 2022 Preview 3 include:

• A new project properties designer for .NET SDK projects is easier to use and browse, with a single column of options with clear descriptions. A built-in search capability in the designer makes it easy to find properties, Microsoft said.
• Attach-to-process improvements are offered including an improved attach-to-process dialog, which is now async. The dialog shows the command line for processes and has an optional tree mode for showing parent-child process relationships.
• Breakpoints are easier to use.
• The dark theme has been enhanced to improve the usability of Visual Studio.
• New capabilities are offered to run tests in Linux environments.
• Working with environments such as Linux containers and Windows Subsystem for Linux, remote testing provides feedback from cross-platform tests and allows them to be debugged from within Visual Studio.
• A diagnostic analyzer can be used on memory dumps to identify common problems seen in .NET applications.
• One-click publishing of code to Azure DevOps is offered.

Visual Studio 2022 Preview 3 follows previews published in July and June. In addition to 64-bit functionality, Visual Studio 2022 is intended to be faster, more user-friendly, and more lightweight.