NetPad v0.8.0

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

What's New 🚀

New Database Connection Providers

You can now add MySQL and MariaDB connections in NetPad. Special thanks to @SimonNyvall!

A Native Shell (vNext Preview)

This update introduces a new native shell built using Tauri, a Rust-based framework, that greatly reduces memory usage, startup time, and app size!

The new shell substitutes the Electron.js shell NetPad has been using so far. You will find new installers available that use the new native shell with names starting with netpad_vnext. Electron shell installers are still available, and will continue being distributed until things are stable with vNext. Both versions of NetPad can be installed and run side-by-side. It would be really helpful if you could please provide your feedback in an issue (if you're having trouble), in this discussion or on Discord.

If you'd like to read more about this change, take a look at this issue. Here are some stats:

App Size

Metric	Electron (MB)	Tauri (MB)	% Reduction
Shell Size	251	13.6	94.58
.NET App Size	192	103	46.35
Installer Size (.deb)	125	43	65.60
Installed Size (.deb)	443	111	74.94

Memory Usage

Metric	Electron (MB)	Tauri (MB)	% Reduction
Shell	230	34	85.22
.NET App	110	110	--
OmniSharp	104	104	--
Total	444	248	44.14

Known Limitations with vNext

• If you have your NetPad settings configured to use the native titlebar instead of the integrated one, menu auto-hide does not work yet (not an issue on macOS).
• The main window does not currently remember its previous position and size when you close and restart NetPad.
• The Electron version of NetPad will show you a desktop notification when a script finishes execution and NetPad is in the background. vNext currently does not.
• Some Linux installers are not yet available for vNext, namely: pacman, flatpak and snap
• If you're on Linux and when you launch the app you get an empty window, try disabling DMABUF: export WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1. This is an upstream bug with NVIDIA proprietary drivers on some installations. If that doesn't work, try one of these instead:
  • WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1
  • __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1

Fixes for some or all of the above will be included in the next release.

Others

• Removed .NET 6 dependency: having a .NET 6 runtime or SDK installed is no longer required.
• If you want to use .NET 9 in your scripts you will need .NET 9 Preview 3 SDK or later installed.
• Improvements to data connection scaffolding.
• New scripts will use the latest stable .NET SDK. Previously the latest SDK was auto-selected regardless if it was stable or preview.
• New script names will use the next highest available number. Example: if you have "Script 1" and "Script 3" open, creating a new script will give it the name "Script 4". Before it was named "Script 2" which was confusing.
• Update OmniSharp Server to v1.39.12.
• More details are shown about errors that occur during scaffolding database connections.
• Minor styling changes:
  • The Production marker in the connections list is right aligned and is now just the letter P.
  • Fixed weird line at the top of the app logo.

Fixes 🐛

• Fixed Zoom menu items and their corresponding keyboard shortcuts
• Fixed an issue running scripts targeting SQLite connections on macOS
• Fixed writing char values to the console (#225)
• Fixed incorrect latest version label in NuGet search window (#227)
• Fixed namespace collisions when referencing some NuGet packages (#246)
• Fixed NuGet search not working when user has an unreachable feed configued in nuget.config (#261)

Coming Soon 🏁

We're currently working on fulfilling requests from the issue tracker as well as a few new features:

• A new CLI tool that you can use to run C# scripts from the command line.
• Faster database queries.

Support ❤️

If you're enjoying NetPad and would like to support open-source, please consider sponsoring the project, it really helps! Also don't forget to star the repo if you haven't already, thank you!

A special thanks to my current sponsors. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps keep this project growing!

          

Full Changelog: v0.7.2...v0.8.0

NetPad v0.7.2

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

What's New 🚀

Syntax Tree Visualizer

A new "Code" pane was added with a Syntax Tree visualizer that updates in real-time as you type.

• Hovering over a node in the syntax tree will highlight that text range in the editor.
• Single-click a node to bring that code into view (if it isn't already).
• Double-click a node to select that text range in the editor. Focus switches to the editor when you do this so you can start typing right away.
• The right side shows the code each node in the tree represents, making it easier to quickly locate the code want you want to inspect.
• You can show the line/char span numbers each node represents by clicking the corresponding button in the Code pane toolbar.

Others

• Icon buttons styling improved and unified
• You can hide any pane with Shift + ESC keybinding
• Output pane
  • Empty collections are rendered a bit differently and other minor formatting changes to output
  • Moved next/previous output nav controls to the toolbar in Results
  • Added next/previous nav controls and clear button to the SQL toolbar
  • You can switch to the Results and SQL tabs by using ALT + 1 and ALT + 2 respectively

Maintenance

The majority of the effort spent since the last release has been on restructuring the solution, simplifying and making it easier to maintain, review and contribute to. Another round is coming up soon, mainly on the client side, but the majority of it is completed. If you're interested in more info see #211.

I plan to add documentation soon that explains the high level concepts and structure of the solution to help facilitate review and contribution.

If anyone has any thoughts or discussion points I'd love to hear them. Feel free to open a discussion/issue on the topic or hit me up on Discord.

Fixes 🐛

• Fixed a bug causing intellisense and other OmniSharp features to stop working if .NET 7 is not installed (#208, #214, #220)
• Fixed incorrect max-length input validation when changing max collection length to serialize in settings (#209)
• Fixed an error during HTML serialization (#217)
• Fixed bugs in Console.ReadLine() functionality including #218
• Fixed script not running when run path contains spaces (#221)

Support ❤️

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it, it really helps! Also don't forget to start the repo if you haven't already, thank you!

A special thanks to my current sponsors. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps keep this project growing!

            

Full Changelog: v0.7.1...v0.7.2

NetPad v0.7.1

Preview 7.1

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

What's New 🚀

.NET 9 Preview

Added support for .NET 9 Preview and Entity Framework Core 9 Preview 3.

Data Connections

Create Similar Connection

A new option now exists in the data connection context-menu to duplicate a connection.

Preview

Entity Framework Compiled Models

Entity Framework takes time to initialize on first use. The larger the data model, the more time it needs. For large models (100s or 1000s of entities and relationships) script startup can be sped up using a compiled model. An option to use a compiled model for a data connection now exists in Connection: Properties > Scaffolding.

Note that using compiled models is not effective for smaller models, and comes with some limitations. It is recommended to only use this option if you need it.

Editor Styling

The editor has some pre-defined themes you can now pick from in Settings > Editor. These themes come from the monaco-themes project.

Example, the GitHub Dark theme:

You can also tweak the current editor theme using the themeCustomizations property in the Monaco options editor.

Example:

"themeCustomizations": {
    // General editor colors
    "colors": {
      "editor.background": "#282a36"
    },

    // Semantic highlighting token styles
    "rules": [
      {
        "token": "interface",
        "foreground": "50fa7b",
        "fontStyle": "underline"
      }
    ]
}

See IColors and ITokenThemeRule for the definition of the colors and rules properties respectively.

See wiki for more info.

App Styling

The new Settings > Styles was added as a way to define custom styles that apply to the whole application.

For example to increase the font size of output:

.dump-container {
    font-size: 1.25rem;
}

This feature also works great with the ability to specify CSS classes you want a dumped value to have, introduced in v0.7.0:

myObj.Dump(css: "important");

.important {
  background-color: salmon;
}

You can also override CSS variables on the built-in theme-netpad-dark and theme-netpad-light themes. Here's an example customizing the dark theme with the Dracula theme color palette:

.theme-netpad-dark {
    --drac-light: #343746;
    --drac-dark: #22222c;

    --text-color: #F8F8F2;
    --background-color: var(--drac-dark);
    --list-background: var(--drac-light);
    --form-control-background-color: #343746;
    --active-color: #dbb5fa;
    --script-toolbar-background: #242632;
    --pane-ribbon-background: var(--drac-light);
    --pane-background: var(--drac-dark);
    --pane-toolbar-background: var(--drac-dark);
    --dialog-background: var(--drac-dark);
    --tab-background: #333541;
    --tab-active-background: #242632;
    --tab-active-text-color: #fffff;
    --scrollbar-thumb-color: #777777;
    --splitter-color: #2b2d39;
}

See wiki for more info.

NuGet

NetPad will recognize additional NuGet sources added to your Nuget.Config file (#119). Thank you @jsamse for that contribution.

There is no UI to manage NuGet sources in NetPad so far so you'll have to add them manually. More info

Media File Sizing

Media files will now be rendered in their original size, but you can also specify size using the DisplayWidth and DisplayHeight properties:

new Image("/path/to/img.png")
{
    DisplayWidth = "128px",
    DisplayHeight = "128px"
}.Dump();

Or using extension methods:

// Individually
Image.FromPath("/path/to/img.png")
  .WithDisplayWidth("100%");
  .WithDisplayHeight("400px");

// Together
Image.FromPath(imageFile).WithDisplaySize("100%", "400px");

See the wiki for more info.

Others

• An Apply button was added to the Settings window to apply changes without closing the window. Particularly useful when testing new styles!
• When a connection error occurs, clicking the error in the connection sidebar copies it to your clipboard (#171)
• Better Settings > General > Appearance layout
• Upgraded OmniSharp server to v1.39.11
• Connections are now ordered alphabetically in the Explorer pane

Fixes 🐛

• Fixed OmniSharp doc text showing up garbled for some non-English locales (#129).
• Fixed NetPad becoming unusable when clicking external links (#192).
• Fixed Select All (CTRL+A) in output pane selecting text outside its container (#178).
• Fixed ASP.NET output not showing on Windows (#188).
• Fixed an issue when removing a NuGet package from a script.
• Fixed duplicate keyboard shortcuts showing up in Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts.
• Fixed issue where CTRL+F in output pane would also open Find Text box in editor.

Full Changelog: v0.7.0...v0.7.1

NetPad v0.7.0

Preview 7

This release brings support for ASP.NET, scaffolding control, new Dump() capabilities and more!

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

What's New 🚀

ASP.NET Support

Open script properties (F4) and check Reference ASP.NET on the bottom left to Add ASP.NET to your script and get a web app running in seconds!

Preview

A new webapp snippet is now avaialble to make it super easy to get started.

Compiler Optimizations

Select to enable or disable compiler optimizations.

Preview

Preprocessor Directives

A few C# preprocessor directives are now available.

Preview

Database Connections

Connection String

You can now manually edit the connection string.

‼️ BREAKING CHANGE: For your MS SQL Server connections, you will need to edit them and check "Trust Server Certificate". This was implicitly added previously.

Preview

Scaffolding Options

New options were added to give you more control over the scaffolding process.

Preview

Entity Framework Logs

The SQL tab now shows all Entity Framework logs, with colors, and provides a dropdown to filter them by category.

Preview

Override OnConfiguring

NetPad overrides the OnConfiguring method on the base DbContext to forward Entity Framework logs to the SQL tab. This means you can't override it yourself. To get around that, a new OnConfiguringPartial method is introduced and can be used like so:

partial void OnConfiguringPartial(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
{
    // Your code
}

Its not as pretty 😅 but a better solution is available and will be implemented in a future release.

Dump()

Enhancements

This update adds the ability to dump the following objects types:

• Dumping media files (using the new Image, Audio and Video classes in the NetPad.Media namespace) will render them as media content the output pane.
• Dumping JsonDocument, JsonElement and JsonNode will output their JSON representation.
• Dumping XmlNode, XNode and other related types in System.Xml and System.Xml.Linq namespaces respectively will output their XML representation.

Additional Parameters

These new optional parameters were added to the Dump() method:

• css: (string) css classes to add to output. You can use any Bootstrap v5 classes. Support for defining your own classes that you can use with this parameter is coming soon.
• clear: (int) will clear dumped result after specified milliseconds.
• code: (string) dump a code string with syntax highlighting.

See wiki for more details.

HTML Rendering (experimental)

Added basic support for HTML rendering. You can now Dump() HTML (and JavaScript!) and see it rendered in the output pane.

See wiki for examples. More documentation and examples are being added to better demonstrate usage.

Others

• Compiled script assemblies now have the fixed name "NetPadScript" which allows you to make the internals of your own assemblies visible to your NetPad scripts like: [InternalsVisibleTo("NetPadScript")] (#157)
• New flatpak and snap packages [untested]
• Slightly reduced bundle size.

Fixes 🐛

• When you switch to a tab that is in the tab bar overflow, it is brought into view.
• Fixed an issue with running some SQL scripts when there is a " in the query.
• Fixed failure installing NuGet packages on non-English locales (#148).
• NetPad will now fallback to AppData folder as the "Scripts folder" if USERPROFILE/Documents is not writeable (#134).
• Fixed NetPad not launching properly when user has the DOTNET_ENVIRONMENT or ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT global variable set to Development.

Sponsors ❤️

Thank you to my sponsors. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps keep this project growing!

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it with a cup of coffee ($5) a month, every bit helps me maintain this project and deliver more features. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.6.1...v0.7.0

NetPad v0.6.1

Preview 6.1

This update brings a number of fixes and adds a few QoL improvements. Exciting new features are coming soon in v0.7.0!

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

What's New 🚀

• Restore Last Active Script on Launch: When NetPad is launched, it will open to the last active script from the previous session.
• Restore Window Size & Position: NetPad will try to restore the previous size and position of its window at launch (#122).
• NuGet Package Manager is cleaner with a number of UX improvements and package loading/searching is much faster now. Also:
  • The latest version of a package appears next to outdated packages in local cache.
  • The version picker is now sensitive to the Include Pre-releases checkbox.
  • Dependencies shown in the details pane (far right column) are now easier to visually inspect.

• Reduced the prominence of the orange PRODUCTION banner that appears on the left side of the editor when targeting a production database connection. Its now more subtle and less distracting.

Fixes 🐛

• Better modal window sizing and placement.
• Fixed output font not switching to monospace when selected in Settings.
• Fixed #118: incorrect newline formatting
• Fixed #125: Main menu becoming empty when opening a dialog window
• Fixed bug when running script in .NET 6
• Fixed not auto-adding using statement to Namespaces in some cases
• Fixed C# language features not updating properly when a namespace is added in some cases
• Fixed Browse File input control not showing when adding/managing SQLite connections
• Fixed code completion suggestion menu getting cut off by Output pane
• Fixed bad NuGet search results when changing the number of items to show per search result page.

❤️ If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.5.1...v0.6.0

NetPad v0.6.0

Preview 6

This release brings support for .NET 8 and C# 12, Native windows decorations and other new features!

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

What New 🚀

• .NET 8 & C# 12 Support
• Edit Keyboard Shortcuts: You can edit (some) keyboard shortcuts in Settings.
• Native Windows: Its now possible to switch to use Native window decorations (frame, titlebar..etc) (see #82). You can choose between the following settings:
  • Integrated: Frameless window, and the titlebar NetPad has had so far. It merges the main menu and the titlebar (default for Windows/Linux).
  • Native: Uses the OS-native window frame and titlebar (default for macOS).
• Window Controls Position: (When using the Integrated titlebar only) You can chose to position the minimize, maximize, and close window controls to the right side of the titlebar, or the left.
  • Right (default)
  • Left
• Main Menu Auto-Hide: (Has no effect on macOS when using the Native titlebar)
  • Always Show (default)
  • Auto-Hide
• Allow unsafe Code: The unsafe keyword is now allowed in C# scripts. There is no setting to turn this off. If this is something you guys would like to see become configurable, be sure to open a discussion or issue!
• Optimizations to script output rendering which also solves an issue with output buffer not allowing a script to stop (#98). These optimizations include limiting the maximum items (individual Dump() or Console.Write calls) one can output to 10,000 items in a single run.
• Other Changes:
  • Scripts that are using a data connection will display a database icon (will be orange for production connections) in their tabs for more visibility when editing other scripts.
  • Dump() will now exclude base properties that are hidden by properties in derived types.
  • Line numbers shown in compilation errors or in uncaught exception stack traces will now show the correct line numbers.
  • Updates OmniSharp Roslyn to v1.39.10

Fixes 🐛

• Fixed completions not showing when trigger char (.) is typed. Thank you DoodleBop over on Discord for the help on this.
• Disabled the auto show/hide of nav controls in the Output pane. It was buggy and resulted in sometimes hiding and not showing the nav controls until all output is rendered, disabled until it is properly fixed.
• Disallow selecting a database file from disk except on SQLite connections

Sponsors ❤️

Thank you to my sponsors. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps keep this project growing!

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it with a cup of coffee ($5) a month, every bit helps me maintain this project and deliver more features. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.5.1...v0.6.0

NetPad v0.5.1

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

Preview 5.1

This is a hotfix for v0.5.0. New features are coming soon!

Fixes 🐛

• Fixes OmniSharp features (ex. Auto-Complete, Syntax Highlighting...etc) not starting on new installs (#92)
• Fixes possible issue with names of newly created scripts

Support

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it with a cup of coffee ($5) a month, every bit helps me maintain this project and deliver more features. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.5.0...v0.5.1

NetPad v0.5.0

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

Preview 5

This release adds a number of great new features, checking off some more items from our roadmap!

What New 🚀

• SQLite support: You can now add connections to SQLite databases!
• Connection Schema Caching: NetPad will now cache the generated DbContext for a database and reuse it the next time you fire it up. Changes to the schema will be detected automatically and the cache will be refreshed.
  • Schema change detection happens the first time you use a connection after starting NetPad.
  • You can still choose to refresh the connection manually.
  • More information about how this works can be found here.
• Drag & Drop a Connection to the editor to assign that connection to the active script.
• Editor Enhancements:
  • Go-to Symbol (shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + O, and is accessible in right-click menu)
  • Rename Symbol (shortcut: F2, and is accessible in right-click menu)
  • Format Selection (shortcut: Ctrl + K Ctrl + F, and is accessible in right-click menu)
  • Auto Format while Typing
  • Contextual Code Folding: Code folding is now much smarter and aware of code context.
• Rename a script by right-clicking a script tab. Thank you @jwallet for this contribution.
• Duplicate a script by right-clicking a script tab. Thank you @jwallet for this contribution.
• Full Screen Support: You can now switch to full-screen view (shortcut: F11). This can also be activated in the main menu View > Full Screen.
• A new Wiki: NetPad has a wiki now, check it out! It still needs more love, but it already has some useful info.

Fixes 🐛

• Fixed (#78) an issue on some macOS setups where the EF Core tool would fail to run.

Sponsors ❤️

A LOUD shout out to my new and existing contributors! Your support is so very greatly appreciated! Your contributions go directly towards adding new features, enhancing existing ones and have a direct impact on advancing this project forward. You are superstars, thank you!

⭐ Hamed Imbasher

⭐ Luke Preiner

⭐ Matt J Cowan

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it with a cup of coffee ($5) a month, every bit helps me maintain this project and deliver more features. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.4.2...v0.5.0

NetPad v0.4.2

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

Preview 4.2

This is a hotfix release that makes the following changes:

• Fixes (#69) where using Microsoft SQL Server connections would fail on macOS
• Fixes (#70) where DbContext compilation would fail if scaffolded DbSet type is the same as its property name. Thank you @jwallet for contributing the fix
• Hides overflow in statusbar that would appear in some cases
• Adds a blackground color to a data connection when right-clicked to make it easier to identify

A new release will be coming soon with new features!

Contributors ❤️

A LOUD shout out to my new and existing contributors! Your support is so very greatly appreciated! Your contributions go directly to adding new features, enhancing existing ones and have a direct impact on advancing this project forward. You are superstars, thank you!

⭐ Hamed Imbasher

⭐ Francesco Bonizzi

⭐ Luke Preiner

⭐ Matt J Cowan

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it with a cup of coffee ($5) a month, every bit helps me maintain this project and deliver more features. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.4.1...v0.4.2

NetPad v0.4.1

If you like NetPad, please star the repo 🌟!

Preview 4.1

This release adds a few new features and improvements, and fixes reported issues.

What New 🚀

• New Icon Color Theme 🖌️: A new "Colorful" icon color theme was added. You can switch to it in Settings > General.
• Scroll on Output: Adds a new icon to the Output pane that when enabled will scroll output view as new output is rendered. This is useful when you want to follow the latest output without having to continuously scroll.
• Output Pane Shortcut: You can now use Ctrl + R to toggle open the Output pane. Window reload shortcut moved to Ctrl + Shift + R
• New Main Menu Items:
  • Edit > Settings: Opens the settings window (shortcut: F12).
  • Edit > Transform to Upper/Lower Case: Transforms selected text to upper or lower case (shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + Y).
  • View > Output: Toggles the Output pane (shortcut: Ctrl + R)
  • View > Explorer: Toggles the Explorer pane (shortcut: Alt + E)
  • View > Namespaces: Toggles the Namespaces pane (shortcut: Alt + N)
• Dump():
  • Better support for dumping FileInfo and DirectoryInfo objects
  • Support dumping Memory<T> and ReadOnlyMemory<T> objects
  • Support dumping Span<T> and ReadOnlySpan<T> values. However this only works if directly dumping a Span. If Span is not the root object being dumped, only basic info about the Span is rendered.
  • Adds a MaxDepth to serialization. Defaults to 64, has a min value of 1 and max value of 1000. A new user setting was added and can be configured in Settings > Results.
  • A new user setting was added to configure MaxCollectionSerializeLength which defines how many items of a collection should be serialized. This was previously hard-coded to 1000. Defaults to 1000, has a min value of 1 and max value of 10,000.
    • Warning: Increasing this setting too high might cause performance issues in rendering results.
• Other changes:
  • Reduced SPA bundle size by 33%.
  • New Output pane icon!
  • Removed the word "Output" from the Output pane header
  • A more subtle border for Output navigation arrows.
  • Add just a bit more height and padding to the Compact style.

Fixes 🐛

• Check that the version of EF Tool is supported (v5 or higher) and not just that it is installed.
• Stops a running script if it is closed while it is still executing.
• Fix output of unhandled exceptions so that it is formatted correctly, shows new lines correctly, and renders Stack Trace lines in order.
• Fix bug that would occur occasionally complaining about a dictionary key already existing when generating script output.
• Fix cyclic reference detection in output for C# records; was using default (value) comparison, now uses reference comparison.
• Fix disabled textbox in Settings > OmniSharp > Custom executable path.
• Fix app crashing when large amounts of error output is generated very quickly (ex: stack overflow in a script).

Contributors ❤️

A LOUD shout out to my new contributors! Your support is so very greatly appreciated! Your contributions go directly to adding new features, enhancing existing ones and have a direct impact on advancing this project forward. You are superstars, thank you!

⭐ Hamed Imbasher

⭐ Francesco Bonizzi

If you're enjoying NetPad, please consider sponsoring it with a cup of coffee ($5) a month, every bit helps me maintain this project and deliver more features. Thank you 🙏

Full Changelog: v0.4.0...v0.4.1