ArcGIS Pro SDK and Visual Studio

[TimWitt2]

Hey everybody,

I am trying to learn how to build ArcGIS Pro add-Ins and before I can get started I read that I need Visual Studio. If I don't want to sell any of those add-ins and only want to learn how to build them, is there a free version of Visual Studio? If I need to purchase Visual Studio, what is the cheapest version that would work for ArcGIS Pro SDK?

Thanks,

Tim

[UmaHarano · Accepted solution]

Hi Tim

You can use the Visual Studio Community Edition. It is a fully-featured, free IDE.

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

Pro SDK is fully supported with the Visual Studio Community edition.

Thanks

Uma

[TimWitt2]

Uma Harano‌ I was able to install Visual Studio 2019, but it seems that the SDK only works with 2015 & 2017? How am I able to get the 2017 version with 2019 installled?

[UmaHarano]

Hi Tim

ArcGIS Pro 2.3 supports Visual Studio 2015 and 2017.  These versions also have the free Community editions.

ArcGIS Pro 2.4 will be released soon in a few weeks - This will support Visual Studio 2019.

[StefanDieters1]

Aside from waiting for ArcGIS Pro 2.4 you can install another edition of Visual Studio like VS2017 along side VS 2019.

The 2 (or more) versions will happily co-exist. They will reference the ESRI SDK that is installed at the time you installed the Visual Studio.

From VS 2017 (probably 2015) you need to install the SDK from the Mricrosoft store via Visual Studio. see ProGuide Installation and Upgrade · Esri/arcgis-pro-sdk Wiki · GitHub 

Watch out that you use Open With and select the VS you want rather than Window's automatic selection, it can point to the wring Visual Studio