Jetbrains Rider

Rider from JetBrains only has a paid version, not a free one. This differs from Visual Studio, which also offers a community edition, of course, lacking several features of its enterprise counterpart. It’s features are listed on JetBrains site here. Rider originates from other JetBrains such as ReSharper and WebStorm but now turned into an. Rider 2021.2 Roadmap. The JetBrains Rider team is working hard on bringing you the next release of Rider. We will soon release the first Early Access Program (EAP) version of Rider, so now is a good time to look at what enhancements, bug fixes, and features you can expect. Note that these are features we’re working on and not exactly features.

What is dotnet watch?

dotnet watch is a way to immediately trigger a dotnet command when a file changes. The most common uses for this are using it to automatically re-run your application (using dotnet watch run) or automatically re-run your tests (using dotnet watch test) after a file change. This obviously speeds up your workflow so you don’t have to restart your server or your tests manually.

A new feature of dotnet watch run in .NET 5+ is that it will automatically launch a browser and auto-refresh the browser after it detects a change and finishes compiling (if your application has a UI).

What is JetBrains Rider?

JetBrains Rider is a cross-platform .NET IDE from the people at JetBrains (who make many developer productivity tools such as Resharper for Visual Studio, TeamCity, IntelliJ, and more). It is my go-to IDE now, due to all of its productivity enhancements over the base install of Visual Studio. I’ve been a user of Resharper for years, but Resharper and Visual Studio never seemed to play very nice together and ended up slowing down Visual Studio significantly. I put up with it due to all the extra functionality Resharper provided.

With Rider, I get all the benefits of Resharper and it’s fast. I can use Rider on Windows or macOS (which I bounce between for personal and professional work), and a lot of features are included for $150 that I would have to spend thousands to get in Visual Studio Enterprise (such as Continuous Testing).

How do I integrate dotnet watch and Rider?

Alright, now for the part you came here for. Obviously, you could run dotnet watch run directly using the terminal, but it’d be nice to have this as a launch configuration option right in Rider that is only a CTRL + F5 away. Here’s how to do that:

Open your solution in Rider
Select your Configuration and hit Edit Configurations

Jetbrains Rider Linux

Click the Plus in the top left to Add New Configuration

Choose Native Executable (Note: you CAN search)

Give it a Name, I called mine dotnet watch
For “Exe path” choose C:Program Filesdotnetdotnet.exe if you’re on Windows or /usr/local/share/dotnet/dotnet if you’re on macOS
For “Program arguments” type watch run
For “Working directory” choose the directory that your application’s csproj resides in.
For “Environment variables” You could add ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Development if it’s an ASP.NET Core app, but the environment variables defined in your launchSettings.json will take precedence (under the node that contains 'command name': 'project').
The final output should look like this:

Hit OK

Now start the app with your new configuration selected

That’s it! You’ll notice that your Run tab of Rider will now show your watch command running

That’s it!

I hope this helps someone else. An example of this in action is below:

Note: auto-attaching the debugger does not work with this option in Rider. The issue to track that is here if you want to give that a thumbs up to vote for JetBrains to work on that feature in an upcoming release.

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Incredible .NET IDE with the power of ReSharper! Rider is used across our entire dev team using Windows and macOS.

Derek Comartin
Director of Engineering, Full Circle TMS

What is Rider?

JetBrains Rider is a cross-platform .NET IDE based on the IntelliJ platform and ReSharper.

Supports many .NET project types

Rider supports .NET Framework, the new cross-platform .NET Core, and Mono based projects. This lets you develop a wide range of applications including .NET desktop applications, services and libraries, Unity games, Xamarin apps, ASP.NET, and ASP.NET Core web applications.

Feature-rich and fast

Rider provides 2200+ live code inspections, hundreds of context actions and refactorings brought by ReSharper, and combines them with the IntelliJ platform's solid IDE features. Despite a heavy feature set, Rider is designed to be fast and responsive.

Cross-platform

As well as running and debugging multiple runtimes, Rider itself runs on multiple platforms: Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Features

Code analysis

Rider boasts 2,200+ live code inspections, with automated quick-fixes to resolve detected issues individually or in bulk. Solution-wide error analysis will monitor code issues and let you know if anything goes wrong, even in files that are not currently open.

Code editing

Rider's rich editor features different kinds of code completion and code templates, auto-inserting matching braces and import directives, quick info tooltips and gutter icons for inheritance navigation, context actions, and much more.

Refactorings

Most of ReSharper's 60+ refactorings are already available in Rider, and its 450+ context actions are all there. Rename, extract methods, interfaces and classes, move and copy types, use alternative syntax, and a lot more!

Unit test runner

Rider helps you run and debug unit tests based on NUnit, xUnit.net, or MSTest. You can explore tests, group them in different ways, break them down into individual sessions, see test output and navigate to source code from stack traces.

Debugger and more tools

Rider includes a debugger that works with .NET Framework, Mono and .NET Core applications, letting you step, watch, evaluate, and run to cursor. Other tools include a stack trace explorer, NuGet browser, and VCS and database support.

Databases and SQL

Work with SQL and databases without leaving Rider. Connect to databases, edit schemas and table data, run queries, and even analyze schemas with UML diagrams.

Navigation and search

Jump to any file, type, or member in your code base instantly, as well as quickly find settings and actions. Find usages of any symbol, or navigate from a symbol to the base and derived symbols, extension methods, or implementations.

Front-end technologies

Rider comes with JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS and Sass support built in. Take advantage of the refactorings, debugging, and unit testing capabilities included from WebStorm.

Extensibility

True to its roots, Rider supports a wide array of plugins developed for ReSharper and IntelliJ Platform. In addition to the bundled plugins (such as those for VCS, F#, and Unity support), plugins that support Markdown, .gitignore files, and Python scripts are available.

The Many Sides of Rider

Rider provides the power to productively develop a wide range of applications, including .NET desktop applications, services and libraries, Unity and Unreal Engine games, Xamarin apps, ASP.NET, and ASP.NET Core web applications, and more.

What’s new in Rider

ASP.NET Core Endpoints

The new Endpoints tool window helps you explore and navigate to any ASP.NET Core endpoint

Source Generator

Generated files are now first-class citizens

Debugger

A new Preview tab and a 'Disable Evaluation of Selected Item' action

Blazor WebAssembly Debugging

Client-side debugging for Blazor WebAssembly has arrived to Rider

Game Development

New features for Unity and Unreal Engine developers

Cleanup Code

Run Reformat/Cleanup only on uncommitted changes in the current file

Nullable Reference Types

Search for NRT suppressions that are no longer needed

Import Settings from Other IDEs

From Visual Studio, VS for Mac, or Visual Studio Code

Version Control

Sign commits with a GPG signature, and search for text in Local History revisions

Drag and Drop

Organize tool windows by drag and drop

F# Support

Postfix templates in code completion and a new action for pattern deconstruction for F# tuples and union cases

dotUltimate: JetBrains Rider, ReSharper C++, and powerful .NET tools in one license

Want to enhance your .NET development experience in Rider with tools to detect performance bottlenecks and analyze unit test coverage? Learn more about dotUltimate, a single license that includes dotCover and dotTrace plugins integrated into Rider, along with other JetBrains products:

Customers

JetBrains Rider is the first tool I install after repaving my development machine.

I haven’t launched Visual Studio for months after I switched to JetBrains Rider.

Working with branches has never been so smooth since I started using JetBrains Rider.

Jetbrains Rider

Dennis Doomen,
Continuous Improver at Aviva Solutions and author of Fluent Assertions

JetBrains Rider is my C# development tool of choice these days on both OS X and Windows. If you’re a longstanding ReSharper user, you’ll find it to be an almost seamless transition. I highly recommend the developer-friendly keystroke navigation and fine grained debugger support.

Jeremy Miller

In Rider, I just focus on working with my code, as it should be, instead of fighting my IDE. Rider gave me back the joy in writing .NET code.

Frans Bouma,
lead developer, LLBLGen Pro

Switching to JetBrains Rider was a great decision. Our team has never experienced an IDE that can communicate with Unity in such a flawless and efficient manner. We would highly recommend JetBrains Rider to anyone who aims at improving the efficiency and accuracy of their workflows.

Thomas Weiss

An IDE can make or break a developer’s day. When JetBrains introduced Rider (C#) we jumped on board as fast as we could. Having been there at every step of the way in Unity’s evolution of IDE integrations; working with Rider has been nothing but an absolute joy. With the introduction of CLion (C++), we were so excited we created an integration plugin for Unreal. Both of these tools help our team on a daily basis, allowing developers to perform their tasks quickly and efficiently, all the while seamlessly integrating with numerous parts of our pipeline.

Matthew Davey

Really pleased with how well JetBrains Rider works on my MacBook. It’s blazingly fast and the debugging experience in C# is at least as good as Visual Studio. Also, it gives me all the benefits of ReSharper out of the box! Loving it. Thanks JetBrains for another great product!

Peter Kellner