Visual Studio v17.11 brings productivity improvements, GitHub Copilot enhancements

Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2022 v17.11, an update to the flagship IDE that brings enhancements to code reviews and to the GitHub Copilot AI coding assistant. The company also unveiled Visual Studio 2022 v17.12 Preview 1, the first preview of the planned next version of the IDE that features .NET 9 support.

Visual Studio 2022 v17.11 and the Visual Studio v17.12 preview were introduced August 13 and are downloadable from the Visual Studio website.

With the Visual Studio v17.11 release, improvements to code review workflows make it easier to spot potential issues and collaborate with teammates, Microsoft said. Users will find it easier to view GitHub and Azure DevOps pull request comments directly in their working file in Visual Studio, without switching contexts to the browser.

GitHub Copilot now automatically suggests breakpoints based on code, for more efficient debugging. In addition, GitHub Copilot is now integrated into the tooltip on hovers over symbols to provide an AI-generated summary of the selected symbol. GitHub Copilot also features more precise, context-aware code completions and introduces content exclusion capabilities to provide more security for GitHub Copilot Business and GitHub Copilot Enterprise customers, Microsoft said.

Visual Studio v17.11 also enhances code search capabilities and improves the pull request creation experience with target branch selection, commit counts, and other fixes. Microsoft has also made some changes to the default keyboard shortcuts. Users will find that some common keyboard shortcuts now match those in other popular IDEs.

Visual Studio 17.11 also features improvements to debugging and diagnostics, such as improved handling and diagnostics for asynchronous code and enhanced profiling tools for better performance analysis. A preview of an improved debugging experience for Blazor WebAssembly apps targeting the planned .NET 9 platform is featured as well. For C++, expanded support is offered for developers working in cross-platform environments.

Visual Studio 2022 v17.12 Preview 1 supports C# 13 and working with .NET 9 projects. For GitHub Copilot, more context is provided from the IDE, enabling more accurate suggestions via a more comprehensive knowledge of a solution. Developers can manage file renaming with Git. Enhanced WinUI component search also is featured. And HTTP files now support request variables. Also, developers can author test cases with the Vitest framework for JavaScript and TypeScript projects. Inlay hint support has been added for JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Razor.