Setting up your development environment for Rider

A step-by-step guide for setting up your development IDE for Rider

This is a guide on setting up your development environment for creating games with MonoGame using Rider by JetBrains. By following this guide, you will learn how to install the tools for developing C# applications and configure Rider with recommended extensions for C# development.

By the end, you will be fully equipped to start creating games with MonoGame using Rider.

Install Rider

You can download and install Rider from: https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/download

Note

Rider has a 30 day free trial license, but after that you will need to purchase one to continue using it. It is worth trying to see how it compares it VSCode.

*Hint - or visit a nearby .NET user group, who often have JetBrains licenses available as giveaways, as they are very a generous and supportive company.

Setting up Rider for development with MonoGame

1. Open up terminal (or Powershell on Windows)

2. Run the following command to install templates:

   dotnet new install MonoGame.Templates.CSharp
   

Creating a new MonoGame project

To get you started with Rider, here are the steps for setting up a new Rider MonoGame project.

1. Open up Rider

2. Click on the "New Solution" button

   

3. Select "MonoGame Cross-Platform Desktop Application" on the list on the left

   

4. Press "Create"

5. You can now press F5 to compile and debug you game, happy coding :)

Next Steps

Next, get to know MonoGame's code structure and project layout:

• Understanding the code