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Eto.Forms Designer

A live preview, IntelliSense and syntax highlighting for building cross-platform desktop apps with Eto.Forms in VS Code.

Features

  • Live preview of your views beside the editor, whether they're written in XAML (.xeto), JSON (.jeto) or code (.eto.cs). It redraws as you type and after each build, and shows your own custom controls once the project is built. Drag the corner handle to try other sizes, and pick which platform and theme draw it from the drop downs.
  • IntelliSense in .xeto and .jeto files for controls, properties, events and values, including your own controls. Picking one of your controls in a .xeto file adds the xmlns it needs.
  • Hover documentation from the Eto.Forms API docs.
  • Syntax highlighting for .xeto and .jeto files.

Everything matches the Eto.Forms version your project uses, so you see the API you're building against.

To open the preview, click the preview button in the editor's title bar, or run Eto: Open Preview to the Side.

Requirements

  • The .NET 8 runtime or newer.
  • On Windows, the preview also needs the .NET Desktop Runtime 8 or newer.
  • On Linux, the preview needs GTK 3.

The preview runs your project's code in a separate process, so it can't affect VS Code. It can draw with WPF or Windows Forms on Windows, macOS or Mac64 on macOS, and GTK anywhere GTK 3 is installed (on macOS, from Homebrew or MacPorts). Auto picks the one your solution uses.

Settings

Setting Description
eto.dotnetPath Path to the dotnet executable. Uses dotnet from PATH when empty.
eto.languageServer.path Path to Eto.DevExtension.LanguageServer.dll. Uses the bundled copy when empty.
eto.previewHost.path Path to Eto.DevExtension.PreviewHost.dll. Uses the bundled copy when empty. Not used for Eto.macOS previews.
eto.etoAssemblyPath Folder containing the Eto.dll to complete against. Detected from the project when empty.
eto.trace.server Logs the traffic between VS Code and the language server.

Only one Eto.Forms version is loaded at a time. To pick up a different project's version, or after changing these settings, run Eto: Restart Language Server.

About Eto.Forms

Eto.Forms is a .NET UI framework that lets you write your user interface once and run it on Windows, macOS and Linux. Each platform uses its own native toolkit (WPF or Windows Forms on Windows, Cocoa on macOS and GTK on Linux), so your app looks and feels at home everywhere.

When you need more, you can use each platform's own features directly, or build your own controls with a separate implementation for each platform. Version 2.12 adds app-wide light and dark themes that can follow the system setting.

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