JetBrains’s developer evangelist Marteen Balliauw recently published more details about the F# support in Rider. Features are explained into more details than the general EAP accouncement and also contains the plan for the next releases.
The support is in its early stage. Balliauw warns that glitches are to be expected. The following features are supported:
- syntax highlighting
- code completion
- navigation
IDE features that aren’t language specifc are also available. They include source control, issue tracker integration, Jetbrains NuGet client, database tooling, built-in terminal and REST client.
A major capability of JetBrains IDEs, including Rider, is extensive search options. Search everywhere, go to type and and go to file are a few examples of the search features.
Rider can build and run .NET Framework and Mono projects, and provides debugging support for them as well.The Debug window displays call stacks, variables, watches, etc.
For this version, only the full framework can be targeted. .Net Core support will come in a future release. Mixed-language solutions are supported, where F# and C# projects can be both in the same solution and reference one another. Cross-language support is still a work in progress. In term, it will fully support navigation and refactoring spanning multiple languages.
A long standing and recurring question about ReSharper is whether or not it will support F#. Balliauw, while explaining F# support is being added in ReSharper’s core, states that support in Visual Studio is not planned for a near-future:
We’re currently not planning on surfacing it in Visual Studio and ReSharper. We’re not saying never, but our priority and focus is on having full F# support in Rider first!
F# support in Rider is implemented using F# compiler service. The library is built on top of the F# compiler, providing additional APIs for third-party tools.