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Beta Channel (and VS 2017 Preview): 15.4 Feature Preview
BrendanZagaeski
USForum Administrator, Xamarin Team Xamurai
USForum Administrator, Xamarin Team Xamurai
This thread has now been closed to direct all further updates about this release onto the latest announcement:
https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/104657/current-release-15-4-feature-release/p1
Please see https://releases.xamarin.com/beta-release-15-3-preview-3/ on the Release Blog for the details about this release, including the steps to update or downgrade as needed.
Bug reports wanted!
Please file a quick bug report using the "15.4 Preview" new bug form if you see any suspicious behavior in these versions that you wish to report.
- If you get any errors when using the form to submit, please select the All Products option and choose the desired product.
Comment in this forum thread if your question is not related to a suspicious behavior after download, but instead one of the following:
- You notice an error in the Release Blog post.
- You have trouble downloading one of the installer packages.
EDIT September 26: Update link to Release Blog post for new versions.
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In Xamarin Releases, Beta Release: 15.4 Beta 1 is listed as Preview 3. According to https://github.com/dotnet/docs/pull/3100, should Android version be bumped to 8.0.x.x?
The information in that pull request is just slightly inaccurate. There is a plan to rename the 7.5 version to 8.0, but that change hasn't happened quite yet.
Are the release notes ever meant to be used? They never seem to be up to date.
As an example, under the 'Improved Fast Deployment' section in 7.5:
This new behavior is disabled by default. It will be enabled by default in the Xamarin.Android 7.1 series.
Lots of the text seems identical from release to release.
That's a good observation. It looks like the Xamarin.Android release notes have accumulated information across releases without a corresponding cleanup pass. I'll check with the team to make sure they are scheduling a cleanup pass in the future.
(For the specific example of the information about Improved Fast Deployment, the mention of the planned change for 7.1 would indeed need an edit to update it, but the more general question it raises about how best to carry forward information about experimental features in the release notes is also interesting. I'll discuss that with the team too.)
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The new Visual Studio 2017 Xamarin Updater Extension is a good idea, but how can I switch to the Alpha channel?
How long will the 15.4 Beta last for, or how long do the beta's last normally?
The Xamarin 15.4 Release follows the Visual Studio 2017 Release Rhythm. For reference, Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3.0 was released on August 14, so the normal 6-week schedule would place a rough estimate at the end September or beginning of October. Do note that Visual Studio 2017 version 15.2 was released on May 10, so the release timeline for Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 was longer than 6 weeks, but as I understand it Visual Studio 2017 version 15.4 is expected to fall closer to the 6-week schedule.
So far, when the Xamarin Updater extension has been used to provide Xamarin versions in Visual Studio 2017 Preview to match up with the Alpha updater channel in Visual Studio for Mac, the steps have been to install the Xamarin Updater extension in Visual Studio 2017 Preview and then check for updates in the "Xamarin Preview" section under the Extensions and Updates menu. (See also the example in the blog post about the updater.)
(Note that this approach involving a custom Xamarin Updater extension might be deprecated by the time of the Xamarin 15.5 release in favor of a different approach based on a built-in mechanism within Visual Studio 2017 itself that is available in version 15.3 and higher.)
When can be expect for the beta/alpha channels to also include support for iOS 11?
I need both 15.4 and iOS 11 support due to app breaking LLVM bugs in 15.3/stable.
If all goes according to plan, Xcode 9 compatibility will be included in the upcoming Visual Studio 2017 version 15.4.0 Preview 3 version and the corresponding updates in the updater channels in Visual Studio 2017 for Mac and Visual Studio 2015 Tools for Xamarin. Those versions might be available before the end of the week.
Since 15.4 with iOS 11 support is now out on the beta channel (yay!), any idea if or when we'll get wireless deployment support with VS/VS4Mac?
Ok, I understand. Currently I use the good old Xamarin Studio for testing Alpha versions and Visual Studio 2017 (no Preview) for production. I have to say, that the multidex.keep looks fine in the latest Alpha. Thank you.
This thread has now been closed to direct all further updates about this release onto the latest announcement:
https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/104657/current-release-15-4-feature-release/p1