Visual Studio Code, C# support on Windows

Question

I want to try out a new editor from Microsoft - Visual Studio Code. I want to implement a simple app (like Hello, World) and be able to debug it. But after a lot of googling and trying, I didn't manage to do that. Is that possible? I have Windows 10 with Visual Studio 2015 installed.

What I've tried to do:

1) Uncomment the following in the tasks.json file:

{ "version": "0.1.0", "command": "msbuild", "args": [     // Ask msbuild to generate full paths for file names.     "/property:GenerateFullPaths=true" ], "taskSelector": "/t:", "showOutput": "silent", "tasks": [     {         "taskName": "build",         // Show the output window only if unrecognized errors occur.         "showOutput": "silent",         // Use the standard MS compiler pattern to detect errors, warnings         // and infos in the output.         "problemMatcher": "$msCompile"     } ] 

But compiling (ctrl-shift-b) fails with the error: "Failed to launch external program msbuild . spawn msbuild ENOENT"

2) Read this article: http://michaelcrump.net/creating-and-debugging-console-apps-with-vscode/, but I don't have any project.json file, also "dnx . run" fails with the error "System.InvalidOperationException: Unable to resolve project"

Is there a simple way to run simple C# app in VS Code? I'm wondering why it's so complicated. Probably, I'm missing something, any ideas are welcome.

Update 1: Adding msbuild to path helps

Answer 1

The C# support in VS Code is optimized for cross platform .NET development (DNX) (see working with ASP.NET 5 and VS Code for another relevant article. Our focus with VS Code is to be a great editor for cross platfrom C# development - for instance many Unity developers have been enjoying using VS Code in place of Mono Develop.

We support debugging of C# apps cross platfrom via Mono (see Mono Debugging).

Due to this focus many standard C# project types are not recognised by VS Code. An example of a non-supported project type is an ASP .NET MVC Application. In these cases if you simply want to have a lightweight tool to edit a file - VS Code has you covered. If you want the best possible experience for those projects, and development on Windows in general we recomend you use Visual Studio Community.

from: code.visualstudio.com/Docs/languages/csharp

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Update, June 2017:

C# is supported in Visual Studio Code using Microsoft's VS Code C# extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.csharp

This can be installed by searching for 'C#' in Extensions: Install Extension. Alternatively, opening a .cs file should prompt to install extension.

This extension supports debugging of C# applications running on .NET Core or Mono, however does not support debugging applications running on the Desktop .NET Framework - Visual Studio Community is still recommended for full .NET project support.

For more info regarding VS Code's C# support, see https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/csharp

For the marketplace page for the VS Code C# extension, see https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.csharp