Visual Studio Toolbox (HD) - Channel 9

In this episode, Cameron Skinner joins us to talk about the enhanced dependency graphs in Visual Studio 11. Dependency graphs represent your application structures as nodes and the relationships in your application as links. Cameron shows us how these graphs help you better understand your software so you can most efficiently enhance and maintain it.

In this episode, we kick off our Visual Studio 11 coverage. Jason Zander joins us to celebrate the availability of Visual Studio 11 Beta. Jason shows off and discusses some of his favorite features, including: New IDE ([04:15]) Blend support for HTML ([10:15]) Improved XAML Designer ([13:45]) Unit Test Explorer and automatic running of unit tests ([18:45]) Hosted TFS ([24:00]) Metro app development ([29:00])  

In this episode, Mads Kristensen returns to show extensions he wrote to make Web development easier. Mads shows us what's new in the Image Optimizer and how the Web Essentials extension provides a number of features that help you write Web apps faster. He also previews a new extension: CSSCop, which is FXCop for stylesheets. Demos: Image Optimizer starts around 5:00 Web Essentials starts around 9:00 CSSCop starts around 33:45 If you missed Mads first appearance on this show, check out Episode 10 and watch Mads show the Web Standards Update for Visual Studio 2010 SP1.

In this episode, Rowan Miller and Diego Vega return for Part 2 of our deep dive into the Entity Framework. In Part 1, they showed the following workflows available in Entity Framework 4.2: Code First, Model First, Database First, and Code First with an existing database. In this episode, they show a new feature coming very soon in version 4.3: Code First Migrations. And then they talk about what's coming in Entity Framework 5.0. Code First Migrations starts around 3:40 Entity Framework futures starts around 25:20

In this episode, Karsten Januszewski introduces us to Visual Studio Achievements. Once you install this extension, you can unlock achievements based on things you do in Visual Studio such as loading custom settings, organizing usings, or having three startup projects in a solution. Some of the achievements are things you do regularly and some are things you may have to learn about. Have more fun coding—compete with your friends and colleagues and show off your Visual Studio prowess.

In this episode, Robert is joined by Rowan Miller and Diego Vega of the Entity Framework team. They discuss and demo code first, database first, and model first—the three primary Entity Framework workflows—and give some tips on when to use each. They also clarify the update strategy for the Entity Framework and how to obtain newer bits. Demos: Code First, starting at about 26:00 Model First, starting at about 29:20 Database First, starting at about 44:50 Code First with an existing database, starting at about 47:45

In this episode, Brian Keller shows how manual testers can use Microsoft Test Manager 2010 to manage their test cases. They can document all of the steps they will use to test a particular feature or requirement and then record whether each step passes or fails. Additionally, they can record their actions and specify that the next time they run a test, some of the steps will run automatically. Bugs created with Test Manager are stored in TFS and include a wealth of information developers can use to understand what happened. Brian recommends the following resources for those who want to learn more about manual testing with Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio 2010 RTM Virtual Machine with Sample Data and Hands-on-Labs Visual Studio 11 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts Brian's TechEd Europe 2010 presentations on software testing Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010, co-authored by Brian Supported Configurations and Platforms for Coded UI Tests and Action Recordings  

In this episode, Robert highlights the Online Training Courses and Offline Training Kits he and his colleagues produce. He focuses on two that he owns—one for Visual Studio 2010 and one for Visual Studio 11—and shows that you can review the training course material online at MSDN as well as download the training kits for offline use.

In this episode, Robert shows how to use the profiling tools in Visual Studio Premium and Ultimate to identify performance issues in your applications. He demonstrates two profiling methods: Sampling and Instrumentation. Sampling collects data on the CPU methods are using. Instrumentation collects data on how much time each method takes to run. Once you know which areas of your code are most impacting performance, you know where to start looking for ways you can improve that performance.

Backward compatibility of projects and solutions has always been a tricky issue for developers. Previously, if you built a solution in Visual Studio 2008 and opened it in Visual Studio 2010, you were presented with the Visual Studio Conversion Wizard. After running the Wizard, you could open your project in Visual Studio 2010, but you could no longer open it in Visual Studio 2008. Visual Studio 11 changes this. You can now open Visual Studio 2010 solutions in Visual Studio 11, work on them and then open them again in Visual Studio 2010. In this episode, Robert talks with two members of the Project Compatibility virtual team, Lisa Feigenbaum and Karl Burtram. Lisa and Karl discuss project compatibility in Visual Studio 11 and provide insights into how it works.

There are a number of third-party vendors providing tools you can use to enhance your productivity when developing with Visual Studio. Recently, Robert sat down with three of them: DevExpress (makers of CodeRush), JetBrains (makers of ReSharper), and Telerik (makers of JustCode). Each had 20 minutes to show how their product can help you write better code faster. In this final episode of the series, Deyan Varchev of Telerik shows us JustCode.