Enjoyable Blog of Possibilities

VS2008 and.NET Framework 3.5 propose a ton of customer value from Linq to Ajax and much more.  The service pack we have been acting on to round out out this release adds together still more newfangled value in addition to paying off a 100s of customer covered bugs!  All of it is driven by customer requires and I am agitated nigh how we have started to sweep up a model of leaving slap-up customer value on a very veritable cadence. 

Omar Khan and I latterly registered a DotNetRocks episode where we discussed all these corking things.  I guessed it would be fun to number simply a few of my personal favored newfangled features in this SP…

What is your preferent one? 

For Web Developers:

- ASP.NET Active Data reachs working up data labored web applications astonishingly comfortable!   At present but does this work smashing with LinqToSql and LinqToEntities, but we can at present sustain any OR mapping technologies.  The nifty folks acting on LLBLGen have fared the work to electrify it into active data.  We are as well working with all the third party control vendors and they have controls on the way to work with Active data. 

Learn out the videos, podcast and reference material.

 

- Url Routing is at present built into ASP.NET!  So you can at present custom-make your URLs in any ASP.NET application!

http://products/details/123   alternatively of http://products/details.aspx?id=123  
See Phil’s blog for more information.

- Source code formatting for JavaScript – You can at present arrange your javascript code in the same way you do with C# or VB.NET today.  No more spaghetti javascript!

- Speaking of JavaScript, we importantly amended the javascript interpreter that runs behind scenes in VS and it at present sustains most other JavaScript frameworks presenting you bang-up intellisence. 

- Speaking of Ajax, we at present hold up Ajax History server side via ScriptManager.AddHistoryPoint() as good as client side via the Microsoft Ajax Library.  This permits you to programmatically manage the “back button” and to sum up permalink and deeplinking support to your living ASP.NET applications. 
Take more, check the videos, etc.

- Too, on the subject of Ajax, we at present, out of the box to the full sustain script compounding.  This support enables server side combining and so compression of multiple littler JavaScript files.  This greatly deoxidises page load time because compression ratios are better on one bigger file and one request is nimble than multiple littler requests.  For example, read a reasonably complex Ajax application and take how many calls are being made via FireBug

At present, rouse ScriptCombining in ScriptManager  and presto!

Take more hither, fancy my blog from my mix talk. 

Likewise, we but relinquished a very coolheaded script profiling tool that can picture you merely what is loaded up and, in just the format you need for ScriptManager…

<cc2:ScriptReferenceProfiler ID=”ScriptReferenceProfiler1″ runat=”server” />

 

Ocular Web Developer Express (that is the loose version of VS) at present holds Web Application Projects (WAP) and Class Library Projects.  This enables both ASP.NET MVC as good as Silverlight 2 development from Express!  I am alleviated that I can at present plump backward to geting along all my demos in Express! 

Classical ASP development is backward!  This was a very irritating cut from VS2008 and I am happy it is backward as many of our customers have to sustain sr. web applications.

For Client Developers

- .NET Framework Client Profile – Littler.NET Framework Redist optimized for client scenarios

1. Straightaway Responsiveness – Bootstrapper is midget (200K) to enable the trueheartedest potential response to app setup URL.   No more waiting around questioning if the click recorded.  No “unpackaging” UI.  After the security inspires, the user right away is presented with the EULA.
2. 3 Clicks from 0 to 60 – We’ve set out it down to the fewest potential number of clicks (1 for scating exe, 1 for cert, 1 for eula) that are absolutely required for installing both the framework and the application.   For ClickOnce apps, the user clicks accept on the EULA and when setup fills in the application and the framework is mechanically set in motion. 
3. Desegregated, Custom-made/Branded UI – The framework and app as good as extra components can be boxed unitedly so that there is a unlined install experience.  We at present have a single progress bar argues status overall.
4. Honest – We have poured through the error logs to debug and come up root causes for setup failures… We suppose we are a LOT better at present.  We are installing less stuff and geting along it in a more self-coloured way.
5. Install Speed – We’re at 26.5 mb.  On a unobjectionable XP machine with a distinctive consumer broadband connection, the setup will read around 6 minutes.  On truehearted connections, setup will begin even faster (4.5 minutes). 
6. App first run – The app for the first time escape experience is quite squeamish.  Because we are ngening full during the install, nothing is competing with the app at startup, no JITing, and bits are strong.   The user projects the setup window go away and 3 seconds later, the app splash screen bed promptly by the app itself.  Nice.

Remark: some of the to a higher place will be most detectable in the RTM of SP1….

- Important stale start performance advances… You will perfectly acknowledge this with bigger client applications.  

- Lots of WPF performance improvements with text, graphics, animations, etc

- WPF Effects API  which enables custom-made hardware sped up effects on any control or shape in WPF.  Ascertain out System.Windows.Effects.

- WPF Designer Event Tab Support

- Sort properties alphabetically

- Margin Snap Lines progresss to is way well-heeled to do dandy form layout in the WPF designer

- Better XAML debugging.  You can at present well navigation to the going against line in your XAML file

- Newfangled WebBroswer Control in System.Windows.Controls 

<WebBrowser Source=”http://blogs.msdn.com/brada” > </WebBrowser>

- A newfangled BindingGroup in System.Windows.Data (extra databinding support)

A ton of worthful ClickOnce update

• ClickOnce application publishers can at present determine to choose out of subscribing and hashing the ClickOnce manifests as they envision appropriate for their scenarios.

• ClickOnce error dialog boxes at present sustain links to application specific support sites on the Web
  
• ClickOnce applications can at present be programmatically installed through a ‘Setup.exe’ while exposing a custom-maked, brandmarked install UX
• Best Support for rendering MSI + ClickOnce application packages
• FireFox browser extension to hold Clickonce installations utilising FireFox browsers
• Design time support for arranging file associations

 

- Windows Forms start out Line and Shape controls for all languages.  A newfangled set of controls in the toolbox enable some coolheaded shape controls for WinForms developers. 

- Break away off a network share with local permissions – You have voted and we have taken heed !  We have conveyed cared executables in line with aboriginal code executables in how they act when run away off a network share.  Yea! 

For VB Developers

You can now tot up “XML to Schema” items to Visual Canonical projects.

 

and start the swell VB XML intellisense against it

 

For C# Developers

VB developers have long rolled in the hay the feature of being capable to set about information about any sort of possible compiler error as they type.  C# developers on the other hand frequently have to relay on the lack of a feature (intellisence) to see out if they are plumping to have a problem.  Now C# developers start unobjectionable, unnoticeable information about possible issues as they type.  A couple of examples:

If you hover over the i in the above example it will assure you i is applyed before it is arranged.

if you hover over the Foo in the above example it will assure you no such method survives. 

Acknowledge, these errors depict up in the error list and are brought in mechanically as you pay off your code. 

All veridical time, as you type!  The error analysis happens at the expression level. This implies that not every potential errors are taken in (for example many errors alfresco of the method body). 

For Data Developers

Most notably we have to the full plumbed SQL Server 2008 support throughout VS 2008 and.NET Framework 3.5… all the novel datatypes are defended, etc.  

ADO.NET Entity Framework

The ADO.NET Entity Framework is the next evolution of ADO.NET, elevating the level of abstraction at which programmers work with data, and tolerating the database structure or data source to evolve without important impact to the application code.

Instead than coding against rows and columns, the ADO.NET Entity Framework permits the definition of a higher-level Entity Data Model over your relational data, and permits developers to then program in terms of this model. Developers make to deal with the data in the shapes that create sense for the application, and those shapes are expressed in a racy vocabulary that admit concepts like inheritance, complex types, and expressed relationships.

Practice LINQ to Entities with the Entity Framework for queries that serve make well-situated to keep code that finds and works with powerfully typewritten data objects or business entities.

There is a new asp:EntityFrameworkDataSource control which can be easy configured..

Control more information on ADO.NET Entity Framework on MSDN

ADO.NET Data Services:

The Microsoft ADO.NET Data Services framework allows a first-class infrastructure for preparing the next wave of active Internet applications by enabling data to be displayed as REST-founded data services that can be consumed by client applications (Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.NET, AJAX, Silverlight, etc.) in collective networks and across the Internet. Well establish applications utilizing a comprehensive set of.NET libraries and client components, geting at data through unvarying URI syntax and utilizing standard HTTP verbs to operate on the resource.  Employ the Data Services client support and LINQ to program to your service through powerfully typewritten.NET classes.

ADO.NET Data Services brings home the bacon a framework to establish data services for relational data sources, such as Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, DB2, and Oracle, utilising the built-in support for the ADO.NET Entity Framework, or for non-relational data sources utilising the pluggable provider model. 

You can download the Ajax client library for Data Services hither

ADO.NET 3.5 Provider Support

The list of provider writers is uncommitted on MSDN.  All up, there are 8 unlike companies droping a line 22 unlike providers against 14 dissimilar back end databases charged to have public availability within 3 months of RTM.    Hither is a sampling:

IBM DB2 data server and Informix Active Server (IDS) databases
MySQL databases
Oracle databases
PostgreSQL database versions 7.3+ and 8.x
SQLite databases
Sybase
VistaDB databases

For Service Developers:

Improvements in the areas of performance and scalability, such as:

• Scalability increases of 5X – 10X for Web-hosted applications  in IIS7
• Substantial performance improvements in Work Flow Designer  for projects with a big number of activities.

Improvements in the area of user experience, such as:

• Raised TestClient support to target a ample and extensive set of WCF services, while catering the option to operate the TestClient in a standalone fashion.
• Fresh Hosting Wizard for WCF Service projects
  

Improvements in the area of productivity, such as:

• Amended Usability of DataContract Serializer, via the automatonlike serialization of types without the need to footnote the types with [DataContract] and [DataMember] attributes.
• Bettered Debugging in Fond Trust by adding together support for accessing Event Logs when operating Fond Trust
• Improvements in REST capabilities of WCF by geting to it leisurely to utilise the UriTemplate feature, adding together support to condition defaults and supplying greater control over the UriTemplate.  The addition of the ServiceDocuments object model nowadays tolerates easygoing publishing of APP metadata and easygoing consumption of service document for REST clients

Improvements in the area of data platform, such as:

• Support Entity Fx entities in WCF contracts

Support for renaming Services in VS – if you appeal Rename on a WCF Service VS will rename all of the artifacts associated with that service (config,.svc file, etc.). 

 <service behaviorConfiguration=“WebApplication7.Service1Behavior” name=“WebApplication7.CoolNewService“> 

In Closing down

I trust you are as agitated as I am most SP1 and you plump download the beta and permit us cognise what you cerebrate !  The window is really nasty for feedback, so anything you can start out us shortly would facilitate.  I am peculiarly interested in compat issues… as this is an SP, we are solving difficult to assure it works with all apps.     As this is an SP, it does update core parts of the tools and runtime stack, so I would NOT urge installing on your production machine until the last RTM later this year.  Quite apply a VPC our test machine (that is what I am making today).   Related to this, there is a cognised issue that the Silverlight 2 tooling around will not work with SP1 beta… we are gearing up that for SP1 RTM of course, but it is a inadequate term issues. 

Download links:

• Ocular Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Beta)
• .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (Beta)
• Ocular Introductory 2008 Express Edition SP1 (Beta)
• Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server 2008 SP1 (Beta)

Update (5-14): Ocular Studio 2008 SP1 Beta Readjusts Settings to Defaults

We lately came up a bug with the VS2008 SP1 instal… when puting in Ocular Studio 2008 SP1 Beta on top of Ocular Studio 2008, VS user settings are reset to default VS settings.  This bug is caused by code in the first place instaled place to reset settings when elevating nonaged version of VS, for example from VS Beta1 to VS Beta2 then that VS would have the modishest default profile settings.  VS does transmigrate settings from VS 2005 to VS 2008.  VS surely should maintain user settings when upgrading to a service pack, which will be fixed for SP1.

Please backup your VS settings before advancing to VS 2008 SP1 Beta.

Before seting up SP1 Beta1, employ the “Export Settings” wizard (“Tools” menu, “Import and Export Settings…”) to make unnecessary your current settings, so instal SP1 Beta1, and and then utilise the wizard to spell your settings backward into VS.

This issue will be resolved for the last release of Ocular Studio 2008 SP1 where settings will be kept when advancing.

We truly apologize for the troubles this has made

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