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MonoDevelop is a popular, open source integrated development environment for the Linux platform, primarily targeted for the development of software that uses both the Mono and Microsoft .NET framework. MonoDevelop integrates features similar to that of Microsoft's Visual Studio such as Intellisense, source control integration, and an integrated GUI and Web designer. MonoDevelop integrates a GTK# GUI designer called Stetic. It currently has language support for C#, Java, Boo, Nemerle, Visual Basic.NET, CIL, and C++.

Features[]

See MonoDevelop features

Selected features

  • Support for Microsoft Visual Studio project formats.
  • Support for several languages, with C#, VB.NET and C/C++ support included, and Boo and Java (IKVM) support available as separate add-ins.
  • Support for code completion and type information tooltips.
  • Integrated source code version control, with support for Subversion.
  • Integrated unit testing based on NUnit.
  • Easy to use GUI designer for GTK# applications
  • Note: Although the mono compiler supports C# 3.0, MD 1.0 does not (only C# 2.0).

Roadmap[]

The next release (1.1) will arrive in Fall 2008, roughly 6 months after MD 1.0.

MonoDevelop 1.1 will include long awaited new features, such as debugger integration, code folding, better ASP.NET support, and many other improvements.[1]

  • The gtkviewsource editor MonoDevelop currently uses will be replaced with a new managed code editor.[2]
  • There are steps being taken to move this to using MSBuild (what Visual Studio uses).[3][4] xbuild is Mono's implementation of MSBuild, though not 100% complete.
  • missing debugger - The debugger's a major priority for the next release. We've been waiting for a stable release of the Mono debugger library.[5]
  • C# 3.0 support in the editor
  • ASP.NET Visual designer using Webkit - in an upcoming version, probably after 1.1
However, the designer is on hold while I wait for the GTK WebKit to be stabilised. Also, I feel that most other areas of MD offer much better payoff for the time that I can put into them. For these reasons, it's likely to be a while until you see the designer in a fully usable state. [6]

History[]

The Early MonoDevelop History

In late 2003, a few developers were looking for an IDE to write C# code in Linux, not something too fancy, but something that would provide Intellisense features.

Windows developers were used to Visual Studio, and Mike Krueger and the developers at Alpha Sierra Papa had created the very successful SharpDevelop project, a .NET Windows.Forms-based application. At the time, Mono did not have a working Windows.Forms implementation (it would take another three years before our official 1.0 release of Windows.Forms) so this ruled.

Although there had been an attempt to make SharpDevelop portable by Mike (with a variation on the theme of Eclipse's toolkit) this effort had not been completed, and SharpDevelop continued to be a Windows.Forms application.

Pedro Abelleira first extracted the editor and intellisense engine from SharpDevelop into a standalone component that rendered using Gtk# instead of Windows.Forms. This was back late in 2003. Initially it was only going to be a text editor.

Development started mostly on irc and quickly contributors started to porting various other pieces from SharpDevelop or rewriting the GUI components with Glade and Gtk#. By late 2003 Todd Berman had taken over the maintenance duties of MonoDevelop and sent me a email on December 31st:

Oh, and we are shooting for eating our own MonoDevelop dog food by the end of this coming weekend, and it looks like we will be there even before then.

Addins[]

Custom controls[]

See also[]

External links[]

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