A cross-platform C# editor and playground.

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We love LINQPad, but we also miss its tremendous utility when not working on Windows. This is an effort to develop an open-source, web-enabled, cross-platform alternative.

The goal isn't to reach 100% feature parity with LinqPad, but to offer an acceptable alternative that covers the features developers most commonly need, and if we're lucky, a few new useful ones!

The following must be be installed to use NetPad:

• .NET SDK (v6 or v7)
• EF Core tools (.NET 6 or higher): (optional) needed to create and use database connections.

Download the latest version or an older version from the Releases page.

NetPad checks for updates on startup and will let you know when a new version is available. While it cannot yet install the latest update automatically, that feature is in the works!

The latest version can be downloaded from the Releases page.

This is a work in progress and still in preview. All contributions are welcome!

Join our new Discord server to collaborate with the community.

• The basics:
  • Write, save and run your own scripts
  • Manage namespaces
  • Standard code editor features powered by Monaco editor
• Dump complex objects to the results console and export results to Excel or HTML
• Choose the .NET SDK version you want to use per script
• Add and use database connections (currently only supports Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL, more coming soon!)
• Run SQL queries
• Auto-save: When you close NetPad, it will auto-save your changes and restore them the next time you fire it up
• Add NuGet packages
• Reference assemblies from disk
• Monaco Editor & OmniSharp offer an editor experience similar to Visual Studio Code:
  • Code completion (Intellisense)
  • CodeLens
  • Semantic highlighting
  • Inlay hits
  • Hover for documentation
  • Format document
  • Go-to implementation
  • Find references
  • Action suggestions
  • Diagnostics
  • Document highlighting

• Debugging
• Support for more database providers
• Hyperlink driven Lazy-loading of results, and a DataGrid view
• Benchmark your code
• Referencing other scripts
• View your code's Syntax Tree
• View your code as IL
• Export a script as a "ready to run" .NET app
• Ability to run a script from the command-line
• Git tracking of script changes
• Quality of Life:
  • Support for even more complex objects in the results console, ex: Dumping images
  • User-defined results styling
  • Ability to change the max result set length when dumping collections (default is 1000 items)
  • Workspaces/Sessions
• More OmniSharp integrations:
  • Code fix suggestions
  • Format selection
  • Format as you type
  • Go-to definition
  • Go-to symbol
  • Rename symbol
  • ...and more
• Plugins & Theming

• .NET Core
• Electron.NET (github)
• Aurelia 2 (docs)

NetPad runs an ASP.NET web app that hosts a web-based user interface. It can be packaged as an Electron desktop app or served and accessed on any browser.

Communication between the user interface and the ASP.NET backend occurs via HTTP calls and SignalR.

This section describes how to build and run NetPad from source. NetPad can be run as an Electron desktop app or as a web application accessed with a web browser.

• Node v16+ (npm v8+)
• .NET SDK 6.x
• EF Core tools 6.x (or higher)

# Install dependencies
cd Apps/NetPad.Apps.App/App
npm install

# Start the development web server
npm start

Install the Electron.NET CLI tool:

dotnet tool install ElectronNET.CLI -g

Start the app:

cd Apps/NetPad.Apps.App

# Start in watch mode (remove '/watch' to run without watch mode)
electronize start /watch /manifest electron.manifest.dev.js

# For macOS ARM, append the following to the 'electronize start' command
/target custom "osx-arm64;mac" /electron-arch arm64

Only the very first electronize start is slow. Later runs are much faster.

# Install dependencies
cd Apps/NetPad.Apps.App/App
npm install

# Start the development web server
npm run start-web

cd Apps/NetPad.Apps.App
dotnet watch run --environment Development

and access the app via your web browser, ex: http://localhost:57930

The Electron app is built and packaged using electron-builder. Configuration is in the electron.manifest.js file.

Build the app for the desired platform from the root directory of the NetPad.Apps.App project:

# For x64:
electronize build /target win /manifest electron.manifest.js /PublishSingleFile false
electronize build /target osx /manifest electron.manifest.js /PublishSingleFile false
electronize build /target linux /manifest electron.manifest.js /PublishSingleFile false

# For macOS ARM:
electronize build /target custom "osx-arm64;mac" /electron-arch arm64 /manifest electron.manifest.js /PublishSingleFile false

Packaged files can be found in the bin/Desktop folder.

Alternatively, on Linux, the /scripts/package-electron.sh script can be used to package the Electron app, in which case packaged files can be found in the /dist/ folder.

See the Electron.NET docs for additional CLI options when packaging the app, and electron-builder for additional configuration options.

• Docs: Go
• More on SPA app startup and running tests: Go