What’s New in Rider 2024.1

We have thoroughly reworked the New Project dialog to reduce cognitive load during the configuration of new projects. Here’s what you can expect from the updated dialog:

• Support for all .NET-specific project configuration options, e.g. a check-mark for progressive web apps when creating a Blazor WASM application.
• Support for parameters in custom project templates.
• The ability to install your solution’s target SDK right from the dialog.
• The ability to install the appropriate MAUI workload from the dialog.

Previously, it was possible to zoom in and out across the entire IDE, simultaneously resizing all UI elements. However, the original scaling was limited to a range of 100–200%. Now, we’ve added the ability to decrease the IDE’s scale down to 70%, giving you more flexibility when it comes to the size of everything.

This build brings an overhauled Terminal tool window that gains both visual and functional enhancements designed to elevate the convenience and simplicity of terminal-based tasks. This update both improves the tool visually and expands its feature set.

You can enable the new terminal in Settings/Preferences | Tools | Terminal | Enable New Terminal.

For more information on the revamped terminal, check out this blog post from IntelliJ IDEA.

More conversions to collection expressions

Now, you will get suggestions to convert more code constructions in your source code to collection expressions from C# 12, such as an empty array or the ImmutableArray declaration and initialization.

Collection was modified analysis

We’ve added the new Possible 'System.InvalidOperationException: Collection was modified’ inspection, which will warn you when a collection was modified while iterating inside foreach loops, since this modification might lead to an exception in runtime. This analysis is aware of cases when there is an exit from the loop after a collection's modification, and these cases won’t trigger the warning. The inspection comes with a corresponding quick-fix to help you solve this issue instantly.

Generate | Formatting Members update

Generate | Formatting Members allows you to generate boilerplate code to override the ToString() method and return a meaningful string for your types. Starting from the 2024.1 version, this feature supports more types, such as ISpanFormattable, IUtf8SpanFormattable, and IFormattable.

Enhanced support for disposable resources in async methods

• [MustDisposeResource] Annotation improvements: C# code analysis now ensures that resources returned by async methods, including those wrapped in Task<IDisposable> and ValueTask<IDisposable>, are disposed of correctly, helping you avoid unintended disposal of the task itself.
• Task-like return values: Correct analysis for task-like return values in the 2024.1 version ensures the awaited resource is checked for disposal and also includes resources retrieved via .ConfigureAwait(...), .AsTask(), or .Result.

Updates to the Change Signature refactoring

Here are some of the improvements we’ve made to the Change Signature refactoring:

• The refactoring now supports Deconstruct methods. You can add, remove, rearrange, and rename parameters, and these changes will be reflected in both the method declaration and its usages.
• Code completion is now available for type parameters. This means that when you need to specify a type for a List<>, for example, you can use code completion to easily select the desired type, such as int.
• Type namespaces are automatically shortened when adding or updating parameters. This helps keep the code clean and simplified after applying the refactoring. For example, if you specify the System.Collections.Generic.List<System.Int16> type in the Change Signature dialog, it will be automatically shortened to List<short> in the resulting code.
• The refactoring now supports more features from the last versions of C#, such as in and ref readonly modifiers and record types.

Updates to the Make Static refactoring

In this release, the Make Static refactoring supports primary constructor parameters. They appear in the Introduce parameters list and have a separate icon to help you distinguish them easily. This refactoring is also available for local functions.

We are actively refining high resource utilization mode for solution-wide analysis, which will significantly reduce analysis duration by using CPU parallelism more efficiently. We've improved the memory allocation profile of code analysis activities to minimize the time spent on garbage collection. While the refinement process is ongoing, we would appreciate it if you would enable this mode and provide feedback on your experience.

Generating overrides is now available in object expressions via new quick-fixes for missing members, code completion, and a Generate refactoring.

You can now also see union cases when searching for union usages. This makes it easier to see how the type instances are created and pattern-matched.

We’ve added a new postfix template that creates instances of record types and object expressions for classes and interfaces.

Sticky lines support is implemented for F#, so seeing the context is now easier when working with longer types and functions.

Smart spellchecker

Following the lead of ReSharper, Rider also receives an upgraded spelling and grammar checker. The new spellchecker supports over 20 languages and catches natural language errors within programming languages supported by Rider (C#, C++, VB.NET), markup languages (HTML, XML, XAML), and comments.

The collections visualizer in Rider 2024.1 provides graphical representations of collections (arrays, lists, dictionaries, and other enumerable types), allowing you to expand and collapse elements, view individual values, and easily navigate through the data structure. It’s helpful for understanding the state of your program's data during debugging and for diagnosing issues related to collection, manipulation, or data processing.

Being able to evaluate the time it takes for the debugger to execute the code between two breakpoints can be extremely valuable when debugging. If you find that the stepping time is excessively long, this might indicate performance issues in your code. When debugging an application with Rider, you will now see an inline hint displaying the time that elapsed between the last and current breakpoints.

Starting with this update, Rider will allow you to set up multiple breakpoints on a single line of code if several statements are present. You can set the breakpoints either by using the relevant inline hints or via a key shortcut (Ctrl + F8).

With the 2024.1 release, we’re bringing our Skip to cursor option in line with how it works in IntelliJ IDEA. The new Run to Cursor inlay offers a quick way to navigate to a specific line of code while debugging. Once your program is suspended, you can hover over the line of code to which you wish to continue execution. You can then utilize the Run to Cursor popup to execute your code until it reaches the line where your cursor is placed.

We’ve added a new Explain with AI button right next to an exception or error message thrown for a failed unit test, failed build, or during a debug session.

When renaming a local variable, you will get name suggestions powered by AI in the code completion popup.

Please note that in version 2024.1, AI Assistant has been unbundled and is now available as a separate plugin. This change is driven by the need to offer greater flexibility in decision-making regarding the use of AI-powered technologies, providing you with more control over your preferences and requirements in your working environments. AI Assistant still requires an active JetBrains AI subscription.

C++ support

Notable enhancements in C++ support include:

• Change Signature offers new features, including the ability to change a parameter type between a pointer, a reference, or a value type.
• Call Tracking now supports outgoing call chains.
• You can now easily customize the style of generated documentation comments. Additionally, grammar inspections are available inside documentation comments.
• The reworked implementation of C++20 modules improves performance and provides support for internal module partitions.

Rider’s C++ support is powered by ReSharper C++. Check out What’s New in ReSharper C++ 2024.1 for more details.

Blueprint debugger call stacks

We’re excited to add Blueprint support to the debugger call stack. Instead of seeing an anonymous memory address in the call stack, Rider will now show information about the Blueprint call, interleaved with your existing C++ code. Please make sure to update to the latest version of the RiderLink plugin !

Slate formatting and smart navigation

This release adds support for Unreal Engine’s Slate UI framework, teaching Rider how to use the Go to Definition and Find Usages commands, as well as the Rename refactoring to rename the symbols declared by the Slate macros.

Rider will now format Slate DSL code correctly, either when invoked directly as a reformat action, or as you type.

Smart Blueprint features

Rider’s smart integration with Blueprint functionality continues with support for adding core redirects when renaming a UENUM instance, as well as completion of asset paths for resource names in C++ code.

Odin Inspector support

We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve been working with our friends at Sirenix to provide support for the popular Odin Inspector Unity asset. Rider will recognize and highlight fields and properties serialized by Odin Inspector, provide completion and inspections for group names in layout attributes, and show previews of Odin’s GUIColor class. It will also recognize Odin’s range attributes and use those values in Rider’s own integer value analysis, warning you if a value goes out of range.

Learn more

Shader variant improvements

Rider 2024.1 builds on the support for shader keywords introduced in the 2023.3 version. You can enable or disable different keywords while editing your shader files, which in turn enables and disables highlighting and code analysis in different preprocessor branches. This release adds support for implicit shader keywords, stage-specific local keywords, and preprocessor directives with the _KEYWORD_DEFINED suffix.

Null analysis and object lifetime checks

This release updates how Rider highlights Unity’s possibly unexpected handling of null equality comparisons for checking the lifetime of the underlying game object. Instead of showing a warning if a modern C# null check bypasses the lifetime check, Rider will now highlight when a null comparison performs the check.

We’ll dive into this in more detail in a forthcoming blog post.

Debugging, asset indexing, and more

Debugging gets a boost thanks to Rider providing more DOTS-specific support, such as adding an Entity child node when examining an instance of IJobEntity in the Watches pane. Pausepoints have been updated to work with DOTS systems, too. The texture debug value visualizer has had a few bug fixes, and the new collections visualizer will help with collections of game objects.

There have also been some performance improvements to asset parsing, fixes to recognizing serialized fields, and plenty of other small fixes and updates. You can read more in the changelog.

We’re continuing our support of Godot with more updates to the optional plugin that you can install from the Plugins tab in the settings. The recent changes include:

• Syntax highlighting for more Godot file types, including .gd, .tscn, .tres, .godot, and improved highlighting for .gdshader.
• Rider will now automatically detect the correct .NET runtime for running or debugging Godot tests from launchSettings.json (JetBrains/godot-support#125).
• We’ve added a Start Godot Editor button to the main toolbar, similar to the action available for Unity (JetBrains/godot-support#119).

Rider now resolves references for assembly names specified within @addTagHelper and @removeTagHelper directives in your Razor views. As a result, you can now benefit from code completion, the ability to find usages, and the ease of code navigation.

Moreover, Rider highlights any unresolved assembly names as warnings, so you can easily recognize them in your Razor views.

You can now generate additional files like .razor.cs, .razor.css, .razor.js when generating a Blazor Component file template.

Rider 2024.1 introduces several new quick-fixes for React that let you create props and states on the fly. You can apply these quick-fixes using the shortcut Alt + Enter.

This release brings updates to VCS support in Rider, including:

• In-editor code reviews for GitLab and GitHub repos.
• CI status checks in the Git tool window.
• Prevention of large file commits to repositories.
• New Stash tab in the Commit tool window.
• Option to exclude folders and files from comparisons.
• And more!

Learn about all the changes here.

Some of the most notable improvements for working with databases using Rider 2024.1 are:

• Local filter in the data editor.
• Single record view.
• Ability to move columns in CSV files.
• More features for UUIDs.
• Aligned code style for multi-row INSERTS.
• Column completion for GROUP BY clauses.

For more information on the improvements for working with databases, please refer to this page.

The .NET 8 SDK introduced .NET Aspire – a new approach to tackling the complex issues around building distributed applications on the .NET stack. In response to this innovation, we’re offering new integrated tooling – the .NET Aspire plugin for Rider.

The plugin is available for Rider 2024.1 and can be downloaded directly from JetBrains Marketplace or via Settings/Preferences | Plugins.

Learn all about .NET Aspire and the new plugin from this blog post.

The built-in dotMemory profiling tool now offers support for Frozen Object Heap (FOH) – a feature first introduced with the .NET 6 SDK as part of the performance improvements for garbage collection.

FOH allocates a dedicated memory area for immutable objects. These objects are not changed after being allocated and are not subject to garbage collection. Support for this technology enables dotMemory to perform a more detailed analysis of memory used by immutable objects in the FOH, boosting the optimization of memory usage.

The type dependency diagrams introduced in the 2023.3 release are getting a functional upgrade with new ways of configuring the diagrams, namely:

• Option to add a node to a diagram using Search.
• Option to remove nodes from the view of the diagram.
• Ability to add related types for a specific type in a diagram.
• Option to drag and drop project files onto the Type dependency diagram.

To discover more ways to generate type dependency diagrams for your application, see this blog post.

The Assembly Explorer inside Rider now supports the WebCIL packaging format for WebAssemblies.

The support covers:

• Decompilation for WebCIL.
• The ability to view .wasm files in the Assembly Explorer.
• Metadata subtrees for WASM nodes in the Assembly Explorer, including WASM and WebCIL headers.