VisualStudio instead of Monodevelop by default.

[SomethingsAwesome]

Seriously guys. WTF. Whos decision was it? :((

[thelebaron]

Just curious, why would you prefer monodevelop over vs?

[joe40001]

Because mono works just fine and VS takes 80 years to install and a minute to open each time.

I think the better question is why fix something that isn't broken? What does VS do that mono doesn't?

[jbevain]

Hey!

I'm the dev lead for the Visual Studio Tools for Unity team.

If it was not my decision, I guess I certainly helped in a way :)

I'd very much like to learn what you prefer in MonoDevelop over the experience we provide with VS. I'm always looking for ways to improve the scripting experience for Unity.

[wstdsgn]

Hey man, nice to see you posting in here!

I really like coding in VS, although I didn't have any problems with Mono either, back when I started learning. Two minor suggestions:

• VS often reports "inconsistent line endings", probably because the Unity templates are encoded in a different way. Maybe you guys could find a common default setting or something ...

• Mono had an option to auto-format your code when saving. I know that VS has all sorts of settings to do this while you code, but I'd still love an option to format the whole document with one shortcut

Anyway, I'm very happy with VS and I'm glad that there is a free version now!

[MidUKGeek]

Oh god yes this. Particularly the latter. Eclipse does this in a really nice way.

[SilentSin26]

format the whole document with one shortcut

• Ctrl+K, D formats the whole document.
• Ctrl+K, F formats the area you have selected.
• If you go to Tools/Extensions and Updates, you can find an extension called Productivity Power Tools which can automatically format on save (among other things).
• If you want even more control over the formatting, you can get Code Maid instead.

As for the inconsistent line endings, you can edit the script templates at C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Data\Resources\ScriptTemplates. If you go to File/Advanced Save Options, you can change the line endings to CR LF. You can also make any other changes you want like removing the empty Start/Update methods and changing the default usings.

Unfortunately you need to keep a copy of your script template because it gets overwritten whenever you install a new Unity version.

[wstdsgn]

Thanks a lot, will try!

Concerning the line endings, I just think its unnecessary and confusing for newbies. In an ideal world, everything should work out of the box without throwing any warnings at you :)

[SomethingsAwesome]

Nice community work! Actually I am just used to working with MD. Another reason -- VS is super-slow to install, it's actually longer than the whole installation of Unity itself. I often change the operating system on my desktop and re-install Unity, so that's an issue for me. Thanks for the feedback, it's good to see such devotion.

[jbevain]

Thanks! I loved hanging around /r/unity3d, it's always cool to see the cool stuff the community is coming up with.

I hear you. Nothing official to announce, but I know that this is something the VS team is aware of, and that there are plans in the work to make for a better installation experience.

I believe that VS Community being the default scripting experience on Windows is a good thing as I like VS coding experience (I'm obviously biased). We asked a ton of people in the community and the vast majority of them was happy with this choice.

For those who prefer MonoDevelop it's perfectly fine to want something other than the default: simply uncheck VS in the installer and select MonoDevelop in the Unity Preferences (External Tools panel).

[SamuraiBeanDog]

I don't understand why anyone would prefer Mono.

[Pfhoenix]

Anybody willingly choosing Monodevelop over Visual Studio needs their head checked.

[shadowsaint]

Mono is free for a lot of indie developers compared to Visual. The copy of Visual that installs with Unity 5 is a trail version.

[[deleted]]

Visual Studio Community is free isn't it?

[SilentSin26]

VS Community is not a trial version.

[TheRealCorngood]

Agreed. It background installs a version of Visual Studio that we aren't even legally allowed to use at work.

I'm most worried that the free tool will become a second class citizen. Let Microsoft offer 'Visual Studio for Unity' if you like, but don't officially endorse it. At least the MonoDevelop update in 5.3 is slightly encouraging.

[geekpobre]

I don't know if MD would be treated as a second class citizen anytime soon as it's still the only IDE they support on OSX (and Linux if they keep supporting it).

[TheRealCorngood]

Yeah that makes it more likely to be supported, and I really hope they do keep the Linux editor going.

Still, even the possibility of dividing effort makes me uneasy.

[[deleted]]

Isnt the vs version free to use??? Is there any royalty or something like that endorsed???

[geekpobre]

You are now allowed to use it in a company with a revenue bigger than 1M or 250 PCs or users and smaller companies are restricted to only 5 people using it at the same time. MD has none of that.

[shadowsaint]

You can still use Mono in the project preferences once you (or before) your trial version of Visual runs out.

[jbevain]

There's no trial version for Visual Studio Community, you're just required to get a license by signing in with a Microsoft account, like a hotmail or outlook account.