Microsoft Visual Studio: Difference between revisions
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you won't need administrative permission to install or update Anaconda packages. | you won't need administrative permission to install or update Anaconda packages. | ||
'''If you install the Microsoft | '''If you install the Microsoft Anaconda workload, you will have to | ||
run to your administrator every time you need a new Python package.''' | run to your administrator every time you need a new Python package.''' | ||
Revision as of 18:39, 25 June 2018
I am using the 2017 Community edition.
2018-04-15 Updated to 15.6.4 (on Murre) and .Net Framework 4.7.1
I want to try to develop some ArcObjects tools and I want to access those tools from Python.
So, that gives me two tasks: set up C# and the ESRI SDKs and set up Python.
I have ESRI and Anaconda versions of Python. I originally installed the Anaconda versions to use Spyder. I like the conda package and environment management so I want (at least for now) to continue using them.
I used to be a Windows developer so I was in Visual Studio sessions all day, every day. So far it's working nearly as well with Python as it did with C#. Integration with ESRI/ArcPy has been seamless.
Installation
Go to https://www.visualstudio.com/
Workloads
When you install VS, you don't get tons of different languages installed, you have to pick what you want. The packages are called "workloads", see https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/visual-studio-workloads/.
For reasons I mention on the Anaconda page, do NOT install the versions of Python and Anaconda that are available in the Visual Studio installer. Install them separately. Install only the "Python development" workload and turn off Python 3x64; Visual Studio won't have any problem finding and using external ESRI and Anaconda packages that you install separately.
The reason (as mentioned in my Anaconda page) is you won't need administrative permission to install or update Anaconda packages.
If you install the Microsoft Anaconda workload, you will have to run to your administrator every time you need a new Python package.
Set up
Select the Python you want
- Tools->Python->Python Environment
- Select the one for ESRI Python 2.7.14 64-bit for modern ArcMap work or 32-bit if you need Personal Geodatabases
- Choose "Make this the default for new projects"
Tabs at 4, really?
Microsoft is still clinging to settings tabs in the text editor at 4. It should be tabs at 8 and insert spaces not "Keep tabs". Set it thus and avoid a world of pain*. "Insert spaces" means it will use spaces instead of mixing tabs and spaces.
Tools -> Options -> Python -> Tabs
- world of pain - you really are curious about this?
Since Python cares (a lot) about indentation, having the indents look consistent is not enough, eventually you will end up with a mixture of spaces and tabs in your .py file, and one line will have for example two tabs (2 X "tabs at 4" = 8) and it lines up with all the others which have 8 spaces. Then it will no longer compile, giving you the error about indentation being wrong even though everything looks just fine. (There will be a yellow line in the editor that you will ignore because everything looks okay.)
So the answer is to set it to "insert spaces", never put tabs anywhere, it's 2018 and saving a few hundred bytes by substituting tabs for spaces is no longer important.
Use Git for version control
Go to "Tools -> Options -> Source Control" and under "Plug-in Selection", switch to Git.
I set it this way, but so far I still use git from the command line.
I tried out the Github extension for VS and it works but I don't really see it as an advantage over using the commands. I use the git bash shell all day on Windows 7. I suppose if you never use bash it might be more difficult.
In Windows 10 there is the WSL "Windows Subsystem for Linux", comes from Microsoft, and gets you a variation on the same things: a bash command shell and git commands.
Use the experimental support for Intellisense
This is a checkbox under Tools->Options->Python->Experimental
ArcObjects 10.6 SDK
If you want to try to compile C# ArcObjects code, you need the SDK from ESRI and you will need the "workload" for C# and .Net.
https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/system-requirements/latest/arcobjects-sdk-system-requirements.htm
ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Engine, or ArcGIS Server is required to develop with ArcObjects SDK.
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or higher; I am using 4.7.1 Note you can download .Net Frameworks from inside Visual Studio.
Samples will be found in C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\DeveloperKit10.6
ArcGIS Add-ins
I am starting a separate page: ArcGIS Add-ins
