Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is out and has a slick new UI. Also, this Beta has most of the features that would ship with the final version compared to the earlier Beta. Note that while new features might be added, there are chances that some of the features demonstrated here may also not be a part of the final release. But, for now, lets examine the current Beta 2. The first thing you would notice and probably like, is the UI enhancements. Herebelow, is the launch screen.
Also, the start page has been modified to accommodate more useful things. The good thing is that you can completely customize the Start Page since it is a XAML based UI. You can find the start page itself as a Project at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\StartPages once you install the Beta. You can change it to reflect your organization specific templates, document repositories etc., Optionally you can even turn it off permanently, or, upon opening a project, using the checkbox options in the bottom left.
Now, with respect to web development, there are tons of enhancements. In fact many of the actual web enhancements are figuring in this Beta release and exploring them would require individual blog posts that I would be writing in future. For a complete list of feature walkthroughs, please visit the MSDN website http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd441784.aspx (and by the way you would realize that the MSDN Website has been re-launched as well with the new UI for easier navigation)
The first thing I did was to explore the “File – New – Project – ASP.NET Web Application” template and create a new web project. This provides a web template with a default Home Page and About Us page that you can use as-is / customize and get started with a skeleton layout immediately. The default UI without any work, when run, looks as below:-
Other thing to notice is that, by default jQuery 1.3.2 library is included in the Scripts folder, not to mention, the intellisense support for jQuery that has been there right from VS 2008 SP1. There you had to manually install the docs as well as the jQuery library. Now, it all comes automatically.
Web.Config file Simplified
Over the years, with ASP.NET AJAX, Data Source provider, IIS 7 configuration, the Web.Config grew extremely unmanageable and working with that would require real patience. In this release, the Web.Config file has been minified or simplified that it just contains 4 – 5 lines of configuration. Note that, this is when you select “Empty ASP.NET Web Application” template. The default “ASP.NET Web Application” template still has entries corresponding to Membership, Roles, Authentication etc., since this is basically a fully functional website with users, roles as well as membership database with default entries (remember “Website Administration” screen in the ASP.NET 2.0 days)
There are much more web related features that I will be covering in the future posts, but for a high level overview, check http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee532866(VS.100).aspx and http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet40/
You can download Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 from http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx or if you are an MSDN Subscriber from the MSDN Download Center.
Cheers !!!