Visual Studio

In one of my projects I needed configuration transforms similar to web applications. But I needed transforms for command line and Windows service applications to make sure that with release builds some settings are different (by example, web service URL-s and some other settings). I found some materials from web and got everything work well. Here is how to enable web.config transforms for App.config files too.

With Visual Studio 2013 Microsoft also announced online version of Visual Studio for Windows Azure Web Sites. When I first saw SharePoint Napa tools and “powered by Vsiual Studio” slogan then I knew that soon Visual Studio is on cloud. Now Microsoft made their next step. Let’s see what Visual Studio Online with codename “Monaco” is and what you can do with it.

I’m building a web based hybrid system that can run on-premises and on cloud. On development machine I want NLog to write logs on disk. When system is deployed to cloud I want NLog to write logs to Windows Azure Table storage. In this posting I will show you how to use web.config transforms with NLog configuration.

Visual Studio 2013 has good surprise for web developers who need to test their applications on different browsers. The new feature called Browser Link helps developers to refresh application in all opened browsers using just one icon click on Visual Studio toolbar.

Visual Studio 2013 and .NET Framework 4.5.1 Preview introduce new feature that has been asked by community for long time – edit and go when debugging 64bit applications. Support for 64bit applications is finally here. Let’s see how it works.

Visual Studio 2013 introduces new code editor enhancement called Code Information Indicators (CII). CII is set of code editor extensions that make it easier to get information about code structure and changes. Also tests and test results can be easily accessible from code editor. In this posting I will introduce you most important new code indicators.

Yesterday Visual Studio 2013 CTP was released and now it’s time to play with it. First thing I noticed was the new way how to create web applications. For all web applications there is generic dialog where you can set all important options for your new web application before it is created. Let’s see how it works. Also let’s take a look at new blue theme of Visual Studio 2013.

One new feature that is coming with Team Foundation Server 2013 and this is already available on Team Foundation Service is called Team Rooms. Team Rooms are virtual rooms where team members can communicate with each other. Logs are saved by date and this way all important direct communication is there also for later dates.

Today at TechEd Brian Harry announced Visual Studio 2013, Team Foundation Server 2013 and new ALM features. Some new features are also available on Team Foundation Service. Preview versions of VS2013 and TFS2013 will be available during Build conference later this month.

Visual Studio database projects support database post-deployment scripts you can use to make additional modifications to database or to insert some test data. In my work I use database projects and post-deployment scripts very often. In this posting I will introduce you how to use post-deployment scripts to make dealing with database and data easier for developers.