|
Since the last few months it feels like web standards are moving at pace that we would really like them to move. Every browser is pushing the envelope ahead including our very own IE9. For the first time it feels like web is getting the extra freedom of expression that it deserves and we want to contribute to that. ASP.NET developers have been asking for HTML5 & CSS3 support all the time and today we are super excited to announce the public availability of Visual Studio Web Standards Update which brings a ton of HTML5 & CSS3 support to Visual Studio 2010 SP1. VS Web Standards Update is a free extension available for anyone who is using Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and it provides HTML5 & CSS3 support based on current W3C specifications. | ||||||
| HTML5 VS Web Standards Update provides you intellisense and validation for most common HTML 5 features like:
Browser APIs · Geo-Location - Having location aware websites is growing trend and now you will have full intellisense and validation within Visual Studio for creating websites which are location aware. For sample view the source for the IE9 test drive demo. · Local Storage – IE has been supporting local storage from IE8 onwards, now Visual Studio will provide you with full fidelity intellisense to create sites which can save state within browser. For sample of try view source on HTML5 Demo Site
CSS3 This update supports intellisense and validation for most of the CSS3 modules including:
Additionally, if you are trying to make websites which work on a variety of platforms and browsers you will love the fact that Web Standards Update not only supports IE specific prefixes like –ms; but also other vendor prefixes like –webkit and –moz. With all of the above goodness we hope you all will enjoy this update as much as we did creating it and hope you will share the good news with our larger developer community. Sharable Links · Download URL - http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a15c3ce9-f58f-42b7-8668-53f6cdc2cd83 · VWD Team Announcement post by Mads - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdevtools/archive/2011/06/15/web-standards-update-for-visual-studio-2010-sp1.aspx · Walkthrough post by Hanselman - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingTheWebStandardsUpdateHTML5SupportForTheVisualStudio2010Editor.aspx Finally, I want to call out that this update is made feasible due to heroic efforts by a lot our team members working on their personal spare time, so please give a huge shout out to our team including Mads Kristensen, Peter Spada, Van Kichline, Aliaksei Baturytski, Damian Edwards, Barry Tang, Bala Chirtsabesan, Alex Gavrilov, Xinyang Qiu, Jon Jung, Scott Hanselman, Teri Schroeppel & Yong Lee. Thanks again!! Vishal R. Joshi | http://vishalrjoshi.com | @vishalrjoshi
PS: The Web Standards Update works on both VS 2010 SP1 and VWD Express 2010 SP1. Being a VS Extension, it does not support certain CSS3 selector syntax & Browser API intellisense which would require servicing the shipping bits. |
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Announcing HTML5 & CSS3 support for Visual Studio 2010 SP1
Monday, March 07, 2011
ASP.NET Team Sessions at TechEd Dubai
The TechEd, Middle East web site does not have deep-linking for the sessions so I thought I would quickly blog it out so that it can be shared easily. Here are the sessions Scott & I are doing at TechEd Dubai (sorted by date & time)if you are around please stop by:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
09 March 2011 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Deep Dive into Razor
Track: Web Platforms (WEB303)
Speakers: Scott Hunter
Razor is the new syntax for building web applications in both ASP.NET Web Pages and ASP.NET MVC. It has a very concise syntax that blurs the transition between code and markup. We will start with a deep dive showing how to program the web using Razor which will include building reusable components called helpers that can share both markup and code in a very natural way. Next we will demonstrate how Razor’s extensibility can be used to use it outside of typical web scenario’s by writing some code using the Razor syntax to send rich emails that contain both text, markup and code. You should walk away knowing how to program that web with Razor and how Razor can be used outside the web to increase your productivity as a rich templating engine.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New Cool Kid on the Block: ASP.NET MVC 3
09 March 2011 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM
Track: Web Platforms (WEB304)
Speaker: Vishal Joshi
ASP.NET MVC 3 with its friends Razor and NuGet are here to make your web development much easier and jazzier. If you are a web developer intending to build standards based, maintainable and extensible apps in a productive fashion, you are not allowed to leave Tech·Ed without learning about ASP.NET MVC 3. It doesn’t matter even if you haven’t played with ASP.NET MVC before, come join us and we will introduce you to it. If you have been working with ASP.NET MVC already, join us and you can hear about all the new toys you now have.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 March 2011 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM
What’s New in ASP.NET & Visual Studio for Web Developers
Track: Web Platforms (WEB305)
Speaker: Scott Hunter
ASP.NET 4 gives you more control than ever over markup as well as adding exciting new features making both client and server side data based applications easier and faster to develop than ever before. With Visual Studio 2010 adding improved support for JavaScript, HTML markup and CSS editing and powerful new web application deployment technology, together, ASP.NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 make it easier and quicker than ever to develop standards based, CSS styled web applications. We will also cover some of the latest improvements in Visual Studio such as support for Razor Syntax, NuGet and IIS Express.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 March 2011 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Introduction to Microsoft ASP.NET MVC
Track: Web Platforms (WEB05L)
Speakers: Scott Hunter, Vishal Joshi
This lab introduces you to developing Web applications with ASP.NET MVC, and teaches you the basic conventions and features contained within it. It also shows you how to unit test your custom controllers and your application's route definitions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 March 2011 01:45 PM - 02:45 PM
Meet the Visual Studio Team
Track: Developer Tools, Languages, and Frameworks (IAT209)
Speakers: Lisa Feigenbaum, Shy Cohen, Brian Keller, Vishal Joshi, Scott Hunter
Session Type: Interactive Discussion
Audience: Developer
This is an opportunity to interact with key members of the Visual Studio team. They discuss their areas of expertise and answer any questions you might have.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 March 2011 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Web Deployment That Can Impress your Boss
Track: Web Platforms (WEB306)
Speaker: Vishal Joshi
If you typically deploy your web applications using Windows Explorer or have a deployment document longer than your resume, please stop. Come see a practical session on how the new deployment goodness in Visual Studio 2010 can help. We dig into Web Deploy (a.k.a. MSDeploy) and deployment from within Visual Studio 2010. Learn how to package up web apps in .zip files, deploy them using UI, or command file, move their settings and databases easily and much more. We start with the basics and ramp it up quickly, exploring team build deployment and advanced techniques.
-Vishal
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Web Developers can feel like Kids in a Candy Store
On Jan 13th 2011, our team released a bunch of goodness for web developers. So much so that I as a web developer feel like a kid in Web Development Candy Store. As a web developer using Microsoft web stack, you might be wondering what technologies are applicable to you and when. This post is intended to give you a view of the Web Development Candy Store in a Q&A format, so let’s begin.
Q1. I just heard that there were tons of new goodies released, what is all the noise about?
A. Microsoft’s web team released a bunch of related technologies for web developers as a new year present. The key releases included ASP.NET MVC 3, IIS Express 7.5, SQL Compact 4, Web Deploy v2, Web Farm Framework, Orchard, Web PI 3 and WebMatrix. Depending on what your focus is many or all of these might be applicable to you.
Q2. I use ASP.NET Web Forms what is in for me?
A. We love WebForms and there are many things which are directly applicable to you. As an ASP.NET Web Forms developers IIS Express 7.5, SQL Compact 4, Web Deploy v2, Web PI 3 as well as Web Farm Framework might be very relevant.
Q3. What is IIS Express 7.5?
A. IIS Express 7.5 is a lightweight standalone web server built from the same code base of full IIS 7.5 (ships in Windows Server 2008 R2) but specifically tailored for local development purposes.
Q4. Did we not have Visual Studio Development Server (aka “Cassini”)? Yes. Then, why IIS Express 7.5?
A. We always use to get feature requests to support things like SSL, URL Rewrite, new mime types, IIS server configuration and other IIS 7 modules. Cassini’s code base is completely different and it cannot realistically mimic web server IIS. Web developers needed something which is more similar to real IIS during local web development within VS. Lot of the differences between development and production web server causes grief during actual deployments, hence IIS Express 7.5.
Q5. But wait, why could web devs not simply use full IIS instead of asking all these features for Cassini?
A. On flip side, we use to get request to have full IIS Web Sites run without admin privileges, people having different versions of IIS due to their local dev operating systems being different than web server operating system etc. IIS on web server needs to run as Admin, any IT guy will ascertain that and other hand some firms are against allowing full IIS on developer machines (which I hope changes over a period of time as the security issues which led people to take these steps in pre IIS 6 time frame are long gone). Anyways, IIS Express helps solves all these things plus works on all OS starting Windows XP and above. It is free and will have full integration with Visual Studio 2010 SP1. I anticipate it becoming best practice way of doing local web development pretty soon.
Q6. OK cool, is IIS Express 7.5 just for Web Forms?
A. No, we always try to invest in things which help Web Forms as well as MVC. This is one such investment which will help all Web projects within Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and above.
Q7. Why do you need Visual Studio 2010 “SP1” to support IIS Express 7.5?
A. Although IIS Express 7.5 is a standalone download, there was a lot of code written to integrate it within Visual Studio 2010 so that you can use it as seamlessly as you use “Cassini” today. As this work was done after Visual Studio 2010 was already released we had to put it as part of “Visual Studio 2010 SP1”.
Q8. I am using VS 2010 today; tell me how do I get IIS Express 7.5 working on my box.
A. Visual Studio 2010 SP1 is available as BETA release on MS Download Center. It is a relatively long install (will take around 30-40 mins) but once you have it IIS Express 7.5 integration bits will be installed with it. After you have VS 2010 SP1 then you can download standalone IIS Express 7.5 available in Web PI 3 (Web PI now supports a Search box so just search for IIS 7.5 Express) and you should be all set.
Q9. IIS Express 7.5 indeed sounds interesting, where do I learn more about it?
A. There is overwhelming amount of content on IIS Express 7.5 on web already but I can certainly simplify your search.
· IIS Express Article by ScottGu
· IIS Express Article by Sayed
Q10. Is there a good comparison between full IIS and IIS Express?
A. Sure, you can find it on IIS.NET site.
Q11. What if I want the direct IIS Express MSI/EXE to auto install on all of web developer’s boxes across the organization?
A. Ideally you should use Web PI 3 pointing to the local feed but if you are automating the process then here is the link directly to MS Download Center.
Q12. I do not know much about Web PI 3 that you are referring to, what is it?
A. Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple unified way to install everything you need related to Microsoft’s Web Platform. As a web developer this is a simple 2-3MB small tool which looks like below:
This can help you install framework, tools, servers, DBs, web applications etc etc without running around everywhere searching for links to download stuff. Trust me it is goodness.
Q13. Won’t it be a good idea to just have Web PI available within VS so that I don’t need to hunt around for it!
A. We thought so too, with VS 2010 SP1 you will have Web PI toolbar within VS. It is enabled when you are within any Web project or you can enable it by going to Views à Toolbars à Web Platfomr Installer. When enabled it looks like 
Q14. Tell me more about SQL Compact 4?
A. SQL Compact or SQL CE is a embedded, free and light weight DB from Microsoft. It always use to ship but was never designed to work with Web. SQL Compact 4 is the first release where this DB was engineered to work with Web as well (along with other embedded scenarios).
Q15. What does it mean it was engineered to work with Web, what’s so different about Web?
A. Well, as you know in case of Web multiple requests can hit the server, there are multi-threaded environments and many shared web servers run in partial trust on hosted environments etc. This is quite different from early SQL Compact scenarios which had much more contrainst environment.
Q16. Did we not have SQL Express, why do I need SQL Compact?
A. If you are using SQL Express perhaps you do not need SQL Compact. For that matter if you are using SQL Server Developer edition or any other full edition you may not need SQL Compact 4 either. Both of SQL Express as well as SQL Server Developer edition and above have *almost* superset functionality of SQL Compact. SQL Compact is more meant for light weight usage, even lighter than SQL Express.
Q17. Can you elaborate what light weight scenarios SQL Compact 4 helps me with?
A. SQL Compact 4 requires no database installation, literally you do not need to install SQL Compact on your web servers, in case of SQL Express or full SQL Server you do. SQL Compact’s entire DB engine can simply go inside your web site’s “/bin” folder and the Database itself is a .SDF file which can go inside your “App_Data” folder. At runtime the SQL Compact will run in memory with your ASP.NET Application instead of a separate service which SQL Express & full SQL Server do. This means that you do not need to even purchase a database plan on your web hosting provider if you do not want to J
Q18. You said, I can deploy both SQL Compact 4 DB engine & DB with my web site. How exactly do I do this?
A. Deploying DB with your site is easy. Your App_Data folder can contain the .SDF file. Your web.config file contains the connectionString to that SDF file and when you copy your web site to the server your SDF file simply goes with it. The interesting part is the SQL Compact 4 DB Engine which has to go to your Bin Folder. VS 2010 SP1 has a feature which makes deploying DB engine with your site only a click away. Simply right click on your project and click “Add Deployable Dependencies”. This will bring up the below dialog:
Click “OK” and the right binaries, managed as well as native (x86 & x64) will go in your /bin folder. If you know whether your web server is going to be x86 or x64 then you can delete the redundant folder from your /bin saving you probably 1-2MB J
Q19. Do I need to learn new APIs to talk to SQL Compact 4?
A. No. SQL Compact 4 is “SQL Server” afterall, it uses the same ADO.Net and you can also use same ORMs like Entity Framework, EF Code First, NHiberate etc with SQL Compact 4. Just the connectionString in your web.config file changes and you are all set to use SQL Compact 4.
Q20. Free DB on client as well as server, easy to deploy, super light weight, same APIs as full SQL Server etc etc is all too good to be true, what is the catch with SQL Compact 4?
A. There are no catches as such, or maybe I want to rather call it as “a ceiling” up to which SQL Compact can stretch. For most small sites all of the advantages are good enough so they can use SQL Compact easily. Infact for few of my projects I have already started using SQL Compact 4 but I do not use SQL Compact for sites which actively cause DB size to increase. SQL Compact 4 does not support Stored procedures and the file limit for SQL Compact is 4GB. I personally use ORMs so the stored procedures don’t bother me much but the size limit to 4GB is what I use to choose between full SQL Server vs SQL Compact.
Q21. Once I deploy my DB on the server as SDF file, then ofcourse my app will modify it then how do I update it for my app’s V2?
A. Currently you have to update the Database manually, i.e. download it from the server and then edit it using Visual Studio 2010 Database tools or SQL Server Management Studio then re-deploy it to the server. This will mean that you will need to have some downtime on the server when you are making this update. Unfortunately, I do not have a better answer for you now L
Q22. Do all of the Visual Studio Database tools work with SQL Compact 4?
A. In Visual Studio 2010 SP1 we did all the work to enable Visual Studio tools like creating new SQL Compact SDF files, editing DBs, creating tables, editing table data, keys/index management, Entity Framework designer, Server/Database Explorer etc for all of Web Projects and Visual Studio SKUs (i.e. VWD Express also contains support for SQL Compact 4). This means you will need Visual Studio 2010 SP1 to take advantage of this all.
Q23. How do I get SQL Compact 4 working on my machine if I have VS 2010?
A. First get VS 2010 SP1 BETA from MS Download Center. As I mentioned earlier, it is a long install (will take around 30-40 mins) but once you have it SQL Compact integration bits with Web Projects be installed with it. After you have VS 2010 SP1 then you can download Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for SQL Server Compact 4 from Web PI 3 (click on Databases on the left).
Q24. Is it possible for me to start with SQL Compact and then decide to go to full SQL Server if I hit the ceiling?
A. Yes very much so. As the programming model is the same you can use SQL Compact 4 to begin with, and when your site grows in traffic/DB Size then you can move to full SQL Server. In fact that is the very feature which Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and Web Deploy v2 have. They help you to migrate from SQL Compact to SQL Express/full SQL Server.
Q25. Where do I learn more about SQL Compact 4?
A. There are several places to learn about SQL Compact 4. Start with:
· Rob Tiffany’s post on SQL Compact 4
· ScottGu’s walkthrough on how to use SQL Compact 4 with ASP.NET Web Forms & MVC
Q26. What is Web Deploy?
A. Web Deploy is Microsoft’s web deployment backbone. If you are looking for Web Deployment solutions for your ASP.NET Webs and not thinking about Web Deploy then you are missing out the action. You can learn a lot more about Web Deployment with Web deploy at:
· Overview Post of Web Deployment
· IIS.NET
Q27. What’s new in Web Deploy v2 as opposed to v1?
A. From a existing VS user standpoint the big things that v2 of Web Deploy contains is:
· The ability to move SQL Compact 4 databases to full SQL Server.
· Tons of bug fixes around reliability and stability.
· Integration with IIS Express making it possible to deploy (package, publish etc) IIS Express based web sites seamlessly.
· Side by Side setup with Web Deploy v1.
· Backward compatibility of Web Deploy v2 to deploy to web servers which still are running on Web Deploy v1.
· Updated gacAssemly provider which allows deploying an assembly to GAC even if it is not in GAC on the source
Apart from this, there are bunch of enhancements which makes seamless deployments with hosting partners even easier. It also contains capabilities to deploy a SQL Lite Database. v2 also contains new features which will allow you to not only publish sites to remote locations but also bring them back to local box from hosting environments. In the process of bringing back the site from remote hosting location Web Deploy has to make sure that connectionStrings are modified, physical paths are modified and then when you publish again then they all that is restored on the server. We refer to this as Continuous Publishing and first visible use of the new APIs is in WebMatrix. Web Deploy v2 has bunch of other WebMatrix related integration work too. Bilal, PM for Web Deploy on our team is working on putting up formal documentation around all of the above plus more over next week or so.
Q28. You mentioned WebMatrix, what is it? Do I need it?
A. WebMatrix is a free web development tool which is elegantly designed and very inspiring to create website rapidly. It enables you to start with existing popular web sites like DotNetNuke, Gallery, Umbraco, Orchard in addition to PHP based sites like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and others. It is based on website development workflow of acquiring ready made apps (as mentioned above) to tweaking them, modifying their databases, search engine optimizing them and then seamlessly deploying them to a hosting provider.
If you are already a Visual Studio user then you perhaps don’t need WebMatrix. If you have not tried Web Development before then WebMatrix is really a great way to start web development. You can try out WebMatrix and learn a tons about it at http://microsoft.com/web
Q29. How do I find great web hosting providers?
A. I worked on a web site over past few months which recently released for this very purpose, it is called Web Hosting Gallery. On this site we display all of our hosting partners and the best hosting offers available on Microsoft Web platform. If you are looking for shared, virual or dedicated hosting offers then for sure check out Microsoft Web Hosting Gallery.
Q30. I deploy my Web Applications to my local web servers and have web farms of servers. Is there anything for me?
A. Yes, with this release we also released Web Farm Framework. Web Farm Framework also uses Web Deploy behind the scenes. Learn more about it at:
· Web Farm Framework post by ScottGu
Q31. You also mentioned Orchard earlier. What is Orchard?
A. Orchard is a free open source CMS web site which also released as v1 on Jan 13th 2011. You can use it as a starting point to create your web site. It essentially has a ton of prewritten code for many standard things that you might want on your web site. You can learn more about Orchard at the Orchard Project website. There are great walkthroughs on using it in the documentation section too.
What is cool about Orchard is that it’s development happens completely in open on codeplex and you easily influence where you want it to go. You can start using Orchard or even contributing to it at http://orchard.codeplex.com/. Orchard has a gallery of community contributed extensions that you can add to your Orchard site to further enhance it for your personal needs. Check out the Orchard Gallery.
Finally Orchard is also written using ASP.NET MVC 3 which was also released along with all of the above we talked about.
Q32. What is new about ASP.NET MVC 3?
A. As you might be aware ASP.NET MVC is a programming model which focuses on clear seperation of concerns, helping you write web sites with full control over your HTML markup and using industry leading pattern of Model View Controller. You can learn about ASP.NET MVC at http://asp.net/mvc.
ASP.NET MVC 3 builds on top of the earlier two releases and is purely additive, which means that everything that you might have learnt about previous releases of ASP.NET MVC still applies and you can now take advantages of several new features of MVC 3. The top features of ASP.NET MVC 3 are:
- The Razor View Engine
- Support for Multiple View Engines
- Controller Improvements
- JavaScript and Ajax
- Model Validation Improvements
- Dependency Injection Improvements
- Other New Features
The complete MSDN content map for ASP.NET MVC 3 is available at MVC Content map.
Q33. What is the best way to get started with ASP.NET MVC 3?
A. I would say the best place would be:
· Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC3 section on ASP.NET site
· ASP.NET Music Store Site Tutorial by Jon Galloway
Q34. What is important to know about Razor View Engine?
A. Razor View Engine is focused around the new Razor syntax whose goal is to make it very natural for programmers to write server side code within HTML markup. Razor pages come with extension .CSHTML (C#) or .VBHTML (VB). The design aspiration for Razor syntax was to minimize the number of keystrokes required to express yourself and I feel it stands very true to that aspiration. It is difficult to explain this in a small Q&A format but here is a sample with traditional ASP.NET nuggets:
When you write the same in razor it becomes:
For lot of cases Razor syntax accomplishes this by automatically detecting the transition between markup and code for most part and for explicit transitioning all you have to do is simply start your C#/VB code with “@” character.
You should most certainly try to learn about Razor syntax at:
OR read ScottGu’s blog series at:
- Introducing Razor
- New @model keyword in Razor
- Layouts with Razor
- Server-Side Comments with Razor
- Razor’s @: and <text> syntax
- Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor
- Layouts and Sections with Razor
Finally, Razor comes with a reasonable number of helpers to automate common web tasks like image manipulation, videos, email etc etc. Community is creating a bunch of helpers to. Checkout some of the out of the box Web Helpers here.
Q34. Is Razor syntax supported in Visual Studio 2010?
A. Yes you should get full colorization, formatting and intellisense on Razor syntax on Visual Studio 2010. All the required bits to make this happen are included as part of ASP.NET MVC 3 installer.
Q35. Can I use Resharper with Razor syntax?
A. Yes you can. Many thanks to Resharper team for releasing Resharper 5.1.2 to make sure that you can continue to use Resharper goodness without letting go of colorization, formatting and intellisense within Razor pages.
If you have Resharper versions prior to 5.1.2 then you might have to choose between inbuilt Razor editor features or Resharper which obviously is not ideal, so please upgrade to Resharper 5.1.2 at JetBrians Download Center.
Resharper team is currently working on version 6 which will provide enhanced Resharper intellisense features for Razor syntax as well. If you want to try out early builds of Resharper v6 then check out JetBrian’s Early Access Program.
Q35. Can I use Razor syntax outside of ASP.NET MVC 3?
A. Yes, you can directly create ASP.NET Web Pages with Razor syntax without having to using the MVC 3. Simply create a Web Site and Add CSHTML or VBHTML files to it and it should work. There should also be able to create a new Web Site which is based on Razor syntax as shown below:
Q36. Tell me how to get ASP.NET MVC 3 with Razor Syntax?
A. As anthing else mentioned above Web PI 3 is an easy way to do so. But alternatively you can get ASP.NET MVC 3 from here. If you would like to get ASP.NET Web Pages with Razor Sytax they can be downloaded from here. Btw the second link also contains a book of Razor sytax which I highly recommend.
Q37. Where can I continue learning about ASP.NET MVC?
A. Good places to keep checking out in the future are:
Q38. I also heard about NuGet, what is it?
A. NuGet, awared as #5 OSS project of 2010 by Black Duck Software, is a Visual Studio Package Manager solution to easily get free open source extensions for your projects. It not only works in VS Web projects but actually work in most of the projects within VS. The idea is that if you are creating something which is reusable then why not share it with the broader community. There are many open source libraries which have created NuGet packages which can be installed and used in your projects today. These NuGet packages do a bunch of things for you e.g. add files to your /bin folder, add project references, add web pages to your project, add to your web.config, etc; in-nutshell they make a new feature e.g. error logging with Elmah completely set up within your project by running a single command.
NuGet v1 also released with the rest of the things mentioned here and already has several hundreds of reusable packages in its gallery. Check out NuGet at http://nuget.org/, which NuGet install links as well as the package gallery. If you want to contribute to NugGet then check out Phil’s post on how to Upload to the NuGet gallery. If you want to check out NuGet source then go to it’s Codeplex page.
Q39. Is there anything for JavaScript developers?
A. Yes. We recently released JavaScript Editor extensions for VS 2010. These are few highly demanded features by developers and we couldn’t wait for long to have them out there. The Key features that these extensions contain are:
- Brace Matching – Matches {}, (), [] in your code to easily navigate through files
- Outlining/Code-Folding - Adds support for automatically creating outlining regions for JavaScript blocks.
- Current Word Highlighting – Like C#/VB editors now JavaScript Editor now will also highlights usage of the current word (based on cursor position) throughout the document for improved readability
- IntelliSense Doc-Comment <para> support – In earlier versions you might have seen tremendously long never breaking lines of comments pop up as tool tips when you typed. This was because we did not have any way to determine line breaks for xml comments. With support of <para> elements in XML doc comments this becomes immensely more usable.
You can get all these extensions from VS Extensions Gallery
After you have installed the extensions you can also get the updated vsdoc files for jQuery with <para> tags which are available at jQuery 1.4.3 and 1.4.4
Q40. Is there a place where I can just go to learn about everything here at greater depth?
A. Yes. Our man Scott Hanselman has put together the best collection of all the official documentation for all of Microsoft Web Platform & Tools releases. Check out his Rollup Documentation.
Q401 I still have more questions about this release, where do I ask?
A. You can leave comments here, send me an email at Vishal.Joshi@Microsoft.com but if you would like to have tons of people look and chime in on your questions then ASP.NET Forums is a great place, so is Stackoverflow.
-Vishal
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Web Server Startup Vs. Starting a project for debugging
We recently had an interesting thread within our Web Platform & Tools team on a blog comment which I thought I would share verbatim so that it would resolve similar confusion that might exist in the community… :
To gain more context please read the following tiny blog post otherwise it is quite likely that you will not follow anything discussed on the email thread here J
The below email thread is to shed light on behind the scene activities that happen within MSFT on many comments that are posted on many blogs. It is demonstrate that many of the responses on my blog are only feasible due to team effort across the board… J.
The thread is displayed in FIFO model (unlike standard outlook view) to help easy blog readability…
From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 2:54 PM
To: Vishal Joshi
Subject: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A...":
I really wish this default were "false". I have never had a case where I want all 10 web projects in our solution to start at once ... and every time I have to do a new checkout I have to go turn all of these settings off. Sadly, VS2010 did not fix this ... we are still saddled with this unfortunate behavior.
From: Vishal Joshi
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 2:55 PM
To: ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: FW: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
Fyi…
Vishal R. Joshi | http://vishalrjoshi.com | @vishalrjoshi
From: MSFT Web Guy 1
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 3:14 PM
To: Vishal Joshi; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
I don’t think that we are using those settings. For instance I just created a solution with 2 WAP, when I F5 both startup, which I think is good because many times people have a services that are consumed by other projects, and that UI is little known.
The issue that I’m seeing here is that if I explicitly go in and configure the startup projects in the UI the settings are not used. I would say this is a bug.
Thanks,
From: MSFT Web Guy 2
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 3:51 PM
To: MSFT Web Guy 1; Vishal Joshi; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
Huh?
From: MSFT Web Guy 1
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 4:46 PM
To: MSFT Web Guy 2; Vishal Joshi; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
The settings in this dialog are not respected, both WAPs are started.
From: MSFT Web Guy 2
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 8:27 AM
To: Vishal Joshi; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
No. This is by design. This dialog indicates which projects are going to be debugged. The web property in WAP governs whether to start the web server on F5 for projects which are NOT being debugged, is independent of the settings on this dialog. So with this configuration, WebApplication5 will attach a debugger to cassini, WebApplication6 will start its cassini but a debugger will not be attached to it.
The customer is complaining that the web property should be initialized to false so that only the startup project will launch its web server.
From: MSFT Web Guy 1
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 9:22 AM
To: MSFT Web Guy 2; Vishal Joshi; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
So can you explain the meanings of the three settings for action:
· None
· Start
· Start without debugging
![clip_image002[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxqDTpi1nDoKbINt5H1Ug27uOnQ6b7qL_RjGOu0x0TOkvHWPTSSjXSqJTn98Y73Aqj5p76XORNQf2a0a1VqVre3GCSKBL-tMztSBPOtpiOXQd7fgMS4LgUx2ujoHvk4_DtAo/s1600-h/clip_image006%5B3%5D.jpg "clip_image002[4]")
From: MSFT Web Guy 2
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 9:29 AM
To: MSFT Web Guy 1; Vishal Joshi; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
When user presses F5 do:
None - don’t start this project
Start – debug this project
Start w/o debugging – do the equivalent of Ctrl-F5 for this project
Note that start w/o debugging is NOT equivalent to the web project flag of starting the web server. Do a ctrl-F5 and you will see why…
From: Vishal Joshi
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 10:24 AM
To: MSFT Web Guy 2; MSFT Web Guy 1; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
I see thanks for the clarification… Based on the discussion it seems the customer is expecting the below property
to be false for all projects but Startup project… Would you agree?
Vishal R. Joshi | http://vishalrjoshi.com | @vishalrjoshi
From: MSFT Web Guy 2
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 10:30 AM
To: Vishal Joshi; MSFT Web Guy 1; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
That is what he is asking for, but I don’t necessarily agree. Assuming a typical solution only has a couple of webs in it, it probably makes sense that all the web servers are started on Debug\Ctrl-F5. Sounds like your blog post is misleading.
From: MSFT Web Guy 2
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 10:46 AM
To: Vishal Joshi; MSFT Web Guy 1; ASP.NET Web Projects Team
Subject: RE: [Vishal Joshi's Tangent] New comment on Tips & Tricks: Start-Up Options and Instances of A....
As a side note, you can multi-select all the waps (or web sites) in the solution, and change the property for all them in one go:
![clip_image004[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigoShxbNwafIyrPLGQRxVJlCczABKw5LoZCZObA7cKXtQSCb_F-5AfYuqUUYDriipJUGKdlGhD6NuQL5gV04gFKeVeJG4Z_tmy6wIOHYQOg60topa6mxjz_RqEfK263Wp1AJk/s1600-h/clip_image002%5B3%5D.jpg "clip_image004[4]")
---------------------------
END OF THREAD…:-)
Hope this was useful
-Vishal
Friday, November 05, 2010
Team Build + Web Deployment + Web Deploy + VS 2010 = Goodness
I have to confess this is one of the most requested blog post in Web Deployment via either direct emails, comments on the blogs, twitter, in conferences etc and it has been completely my bad to have prolonged this as long as I have. As it is said - better late than never, so without any delay let us get started.
In this blog post I am hoping to cover the topics of setting up your web deployment using Web Deploy (MsDeploy) and Team Build. When we talk about automated web deployment with Web Deploy (I love our naming J) there are multiple aspects that come into mind, let us clear few of the concepts before we proceed with the walkthrough:
· Web Packaging – Web Packaging is the process of creating a .zip file which can contain your web content (pages, images, CSS, JavaScript files etc), databases, IIS Settings, Application creation, ACLs etc. From your Team Build you can easily create Web Packages which you can ask your server admin or Test team to pick up and install on you web servers for testing. With Web Packages (.zip files) you will also get a .cmd file created by VS 2010 which can be run to install the package. There is not a direct automation to run this command file from team build but you can easily hook up post build step to execute the .cmd file if you would like to automate the installation of the package as well.
· Web Publishing – Web Publishing is the process of directly taking the source application (in Team Build case the sources are hopefully in your TFS source repository) and directly pushing it to the destination web server. In this case a .zip file is not created but if you would like that for archival then that is possible as well. If you want your web servers to have your latest web application installed in Continuous Integration (CI) fashion then Web Publishing is the direction I would recommend.
Note - Web Publishing can only work when you have your Web Servers configured to accept Web Deploy request. There is an earlier blog post about Setting up your Web Servers for Web Deploy, without having your Web Servers setup the below walkthrough (Publish Section) will not succeed so please make sure that you have your Web Servers configured correctly before proceeding.
Step 1: Get your TFS Build Server and Source Code Control Set up
I am going to assume that you have a license for VS 2010 TFS environment setup. Below are the simple steps to have TFS setup using basic configuration (i.e. everything installed as shown belowJ)
Once the product has installed and you get a successful “Setup is complete” dialog, finish the installation and you will see a TFS configuration wizard. First let us configure Team Foundation Application Server and then configure the Team Build service as shown below:
The TFS Basic install is sufficient as it is the simplest setup option and honestly it does most of the stuff that I need. Honestly in my opinion it is so many times better than TFS 2008 which was much more complicated to set up. For nearly all of the screens just simply keep clicking next and eventually the set up wizard will finish and hopefully you will agree with me that this setup is indeed a breeze.
Once the server configuration is complete, start the wizard for to Configure Team Foundation Build Service and it will come up with a Welcome Screen below:
Again, click Next for each page and accept the defaults, before even you know you will have a functional TFS server ready to go. I know that the above explanation will sound like a joke but really TFS 2010 setup is as simple as that and it is difficult to complicate it unless you really require all the bells and whistles. I did have a loaded Microsoft software box but if you don’t then there might be some minor pre-requisites required but I am sure the setup wizard will let you know that J
Glitch: Now there is one glitch in this entire set up still which I need to call out for you. When you build your web projects, you need the Team Build service to have all the .targets files your projects needs. The TFS installation I showed above does not include all the targets files that comes with Visual Studio 2010. To get the necessary files on your machines, install Visual Studio on the same machine as your TFS server so your projects can build successfully. Now that certainly does not sound very nice so the alternate back door option is to go to %Program Files (x86)%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0 on your Visual Studio IDE box and copy the target files on your Team Build Server at the similar path. For Web deployment you will most likely only need “Web” and “WebApplications” folder but there is nothing wrong with having all the tasks and targets there just in case you need them later.
Step 2: Connecting to your TFS server from Visual Studio and getting your project into source control
On the home screen of VS 2010 you now have an option to Connect to Team Foundation Server or alternatively you can do so from the “Team” menu within VS too as shown below:
You will then see the “Connect to Team Project” dialog where you point to your TFS Server. If your server isn’t already populated in the server list drop down, you can add it clicking the “Servers…” button:
Once you are connected, you need to create a new Team Project from the File menu:
Give your team project a name and click through the wizard to create your Team Project and finish the wizard. Once your team project is created, you are ready to get your app into the source code control.
If you need further help in setting up your source code control and build server then check out the links below:
· Using Version Control with TFS 2010
· Understanding basic Build with TFS 2010
Step 3: Get your app running and checked into TFS Source Code Control
Well you know how to get your app up and running so I will not dive into that J but just for reference of this walkthrough below the is app I am using. I created this Web App for TechEd US 2010 in New Orleans using MVC Music store sample on CodePlex. (You can watch the TechEd US 2010 video here) As you can see in the sample below it is working on my localhost.
The site is also checked into my TFS source code control as shown below:
To check your application to Source Code Control you simply need to right click it and the menu options will guide you from there.
Step 4: Connect to TFS using Team Explorer
On VS 2010 Team Explorer you will find a button on the top right which will allow you to connect to a team project. When you click the button and select your Team project your Team should similar to what I have below:
Step 5: Create a new Build Definition
A build definition instructs TFS on how to trigger the build. In this case we want deployment to accompany the Build too so we will create a new Build Definition and configure it accordingly. For that right click on the “Builds” node of the Team Project and click “New Build Definition”
At this point you will see the below dialog where you can name your build definition appropriately.
Step 6: Configure your Trigger in TFS 2010 Build Definition
Trigger configuration informs Team Build on when to fire a build there are several options as shown below and I will explain them at high level for you to be able to make the right call
· Manual – As the name suggests this mode allows the Build to be triggered manually as you desire, for demo purposes I am going to use this but ideally you want to explore other options also to determine what works best for you.
· Continuous Integration – This is classic celebrated CI model where every check in into the source code control will cause a build and hence resultant deployment that we would configure.
· Rolling Builds - Sometimes when working in massive teams CI can be disruptive as there are several check ins happening every other hour. In that case you can inform your dev team that there will be a build happening every X minutes and they should plan for that. During end game period of the project this configuration may help to have routine quick builds coming out.
· Gated Check-Ins - This was one of the highly requested features for teams who did not want any broken builds due to bad check-ins. This will ensure that only check-ins which merge & build successfully.
· Scheduled Builds – As name suggests you can also have builds coming out during regular times every day. This is the model which is used by larger VS and .NET teams in general, we too get our builds created on a nightly basis. The funny part is that I do not think that VS & .NET build configuration is as easy as TFS 2010 makes it for everyone else J
Step 7: Configure your Workspace which needs to be built
This is where you specify what you want to build. As shown below I have configured my Project folder as the build target.
Step 8: Provide Drop Location where you want your builds to be dropped
This is relatively a simple step for creating a UNC folder with correct folder permissions so that your TFS build (which typically runs under NETWORK SERVICE) has correct permissions to write to build output path. My setting looks as below:
Step 9: Setup the Retention Policy
Retention Policy simply informs how to save the builds in the drop folder mentioned above. I did not modify mine so it looks as below, although you might want to change these settings based on the disk space that you available:
Step 10: Configuring the Deployment Process
For this you have to go to the “Process” tab which looks as below:
Most of the items in these are self explanatory but I want to spend some time explaining a few which matter in our case:
· Automated Tests – TFS allows you to run the tests in Tests.dll automatically during each build so if you would like to have some unit tests run during build and deployment then this is a great place to mention that. There is also a flag to stop running the tests in the grid which you can set if you do not want to disturb your configuration of this property.
· MSBuild Arguments - This is the location where you need to specific the hooks to mention that you want to trigger deployment as part of the build.
o Web Packaging – For Web Packaging the argument you want to specify is simply:
/p:DeployOnBuild=True;
The above property is going to tell the Web Publishing Pipeline (WPP) to engage after the build is successful. At the default target which executes is Packaging you should not need to provide any other properties.
o Web Publishing – For Web Publishing the arguments you want to specify are:
/p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish /p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=InProc /p:MSDeployServiceUrl=localhost /p:DeployIisAppPath="Default Web Site/NewOrleansJazz" /p:UserName=domain\user /p:Password=myPassword
In this case because we want publishing with Web Deploy to happen we provide /p:DeployTarget value to be MsDeployPublish.
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish allows you to create a package before publishing, it will help you keep an archive of what you published on your local drops folder. Although do note that It will certainly slow down the deployment and eat your disk space so choose it as you see fit.
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl tells the WPP where the project needs to be published to. In the beginning of this post I had mentioned that you need to set up the remote Web Server for Publish, this is the place where it finally gets used. The URL format is typically https://ServerName:8172/MsDeploy.axd. As I am using localhost as my build as well as test server I do not need to provide the full URL (i.e. VS 2010 will complete it as needed) but since your test server is going to be different than build server in real world you will have to provide full URL.
[UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that I had missed a detail in this post which is certainly worth clarifying. If you are using the Service URL by setting up the server as explained above then you will have to change MSDeployPublishMethod from InProc to WMSVC so the property should become /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=InProc to /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC Note that if you are publishing to localhost VS can use Web Deploy APIs directly within the same process of VS hence I was using InProc as my option. If you are publishing to a different server then InProc will not work and give you errors so please make the above change. Apologies for missing this detail earlier.]
/p:DeployIisAppPath tells the publishing system the IIS Site Name/App Name that you want to publish to. E.g. Default Web Site/MVCMusicStore
/p:UserName=domain\user is the actual User Name which has access to the remote Web Server on which you set up the Web Deploy Publishing
/p:Password=myPassword is the actual Password for the User Name above
NOTE: Do note that the sample here can only publish to IIS 7 (Win2k8 and above), if you are running IIS6 or lower (i.e. Win2k3/ Win2k) then you need to follow slightly different process. Please drop a comment here and I will write a follow up post on that.
o File Copying – This will allow you to simply to a xCopy deployment without needing to setup any remote service
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:DeployTarget=PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder /p:_PackageTempRootDir=\\BuildServer\BuildDrops\MVCMusicStore /p:AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false
/p:_PackageTempRootDir allows you to specify the remote server location on which you want xCopy to happen. Again the remote location will need permission to be writable by Team Build Agent which is running the deployment
/p:AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false essentially tells WPP to not parameterize the Web.Config file since doing so will introduce replicable tokens within Web.Config which are used during Packaging & Publishing.
NOTE: File Copying was honestly never designed out of the box to be used from Team Build in such fashion but some people have been interested in using Web.Config Transformation during xCopy and hence I thought it was worthwhile mentioning this in the blog.
PS: Using properties which begin with underscore “_” is not typically recommended as they are considered private MSBuild variables by convention but in this case it is relatively easy way to accomplish the xCopy solution. Even in future versions of VS if this property changes I am hopeful there will be alternate/easier way to do this. In general if you can set up the Publishing on your web server using Web Deploy I think it will yield you longer term advantages and I think it is a worthwhile endeavor to take.
· Projects To Build - When you have only one web application and class libraries then it is easier to just have the Project (CSProj or VBProj) to build as shown in my example above, but if you have bunch of projects which all need to built then you might have to go with Solution Build option (.SLN).
Deployment for Web Apps is feasible at both Solution as well as Project build level although when it comes to Solution Build then you might want to make sure that the properties you are passing at Solution level will apply to all the projects in the solution which might not always the outcome you desire. In that situation all these properties can be set within the .csproj or .vbproj files too. You can do that by unloading your project file and in the top <PropertyGroup> section just add above properties as you like:
For e.g /p:DeployOnBuild=True can be added as <DeployOnBuild>True</DeployOnBuild>
Step 11: Trigger your Build Definition
Now that you have everything configured you can right click on the Build Definition and hit “Queue New Build”.. That will show you a dialog which you can simply hit OK on and you should soon get your Build ready and the site deployed as shown in my case below:
After a while when you check into the Completed section of the build you should see your new build lined up.
On inspecting the IIS and SQL Server you can see my sites & DBs are also deployed.
Finally on running the application it runs great too:
This was actually a combination of setting up my DB deployment settings too, to learn more about configuring your deployment in the right way check out TOC on Web deployment.
PS: If you get an error on TFS like below:
TF215097: An error occurred while initializing a build for build definition \TechEd-US-2010\MvcMusicStore: There was no endpoint listening at http://MyServer:9191/Build/v3.0/Services/Controller/1 that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.
Then most likely you do not have your Build Service running, you can enable it by going to Start à All Programs à Team Foundation Administration Console à Build Configuration.
Conclusion
Hopefully this will get you going with your automated web deployments. Please write back if you feel anything is missing or if you have any other questions. If you have questions like how would you configure what gets deployed, how to set up DB deployment, how to change web.config etc etc we have tons of articles on how to customize your deployment. You can look at a whole list of them at Overview of Web Deployment
Hope this helps
Vishal
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Setting up my new Web Development Machine
For more immediate and tiny updates on web development and photography follow me on Twitter @VishalRJoshi
I just recently got a new laptop, it looks awesome, is blazing fast and from now on I will spend at least few hours every evening with it. I have always wanted to upgrade but Microsoft keeps getting me powerful work laptops I hardly ever came out of the spell. But recently stars aligned and that provoked me to get a personal laptop:
1. I hate the looks of Lenovo W500 which is what I have at work
2. I have software licenses for photography and other software which feel weird to register from work machine
3. The screen resolution on Lenovo’s is not as good as I would like
4. Work laptop makes me work more and play less, I really do need a clean separation J
Well anyways I got my laptop this weekend. As I would primarily use this for Web Development and Photography I thought I would write down a post which would be a nice walk down the memory lane for me in the future and perhaps help someone now.
Hardware
Intel Core i5 ~ 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB with 7200 RPM HD and 1680 x 1050 high quality screen.
I was hoping to get i7 processor but most reviews and friends said that it heats up on a laptop and does not provide as much value. I was also going to go with 8GB RAM but a friend of mine got his 8GB RAM cheaper online than with the laptop. Finally I was going to buy SSD Hard Disk but could not justify the cost to myself in the mirror.
OS & Office
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Paid)
I think Win 7 Professional would do just fine as I am not intending to use bit locker or 35 languages which seems to be the only difference between Professional and Ultimate. Anyways, I think I am spoilt, it just feels good when Windows starts and the screen says Ultimate J
Office Professional 2010 (Paid)
Again Office Home & Business would do just fine but I had got a copy of Office Pro 2010 which was waiting for my new laptop to arrive J
Outlook
I configured Outlook with my Live.com, Gmail.com and Hotmal.com email ids. The Hotmail connector for Outlook actually comes down automatically during the configuration and the thing sets up like a charm.
Web Development (Free)
As any other developer I am inclined to download a bunch of stuff just in case I need it but this time I have decided to keep the list of installed software to bare essentials and going with the minimalistic attitude. Also in support of high productivity I got Web PI from Microsoft.com/Web and customized as following:
Tools (Free)
![clip_image002[18]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyV6OFTyKSyjcM61eC_foPihA8y2Y0cLqc418BB4pexc5I3rp-o-LggGb11SNpE1lBfxNKFsUeimoeZzXFRu9R1P9PZy1wEKUYryecS2JeVu4eM35zP2WGnJBGtOTNHtClrgg/s1600-h/clip_image002%5B18%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "clip_image002[18]")
Framework (Free)
![clip_image004[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXQG_hRSCKWbiJbpWEQnxsELGht-dUYsfKyPXMEOzlMa8WvshBmhN0A5P31JxIeVzlycLtDqB7EReiTA1GmFagbvgcnqFGaG_3NWGQjl4zxHQGZJ7e2H5GLmqKP1SNISkLY50/s1600-h/clip_image004%5B4%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "clip_image004[4]")
Database (Free)
![clip_image006[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0l2Zx_4Q9sObTEeiXhODy88_M0uDyDh1rkJvSjFxLFVKyWxJVk6W1Z8rM2lE8h5DrTBzaSINsbDoExkaHfJY1uWy_W1PUfUN24FyXHIlmh9EviQiumF1VQ-Xot1429omJIY/s1600-h/clip_image006%5B4%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "clip_image006[4]")
Server (Free)
![clip_image008[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieD4RXFx9rfZDXywgOBagX07Chy4JPo5kUO_Ti9hk0GA1VdP2pOV3t-4V-CYxhrVL6yHDuULKM8vvdEHLSJkTJugtslW0_ghtJde9jV3H6g9YpCn6Rtoofa8j7VFftCfHS5aI/s1600-h/clip_image008%5B4%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "clip_image008[4]")
Apart from the above listed I also took IIS6 Metabase compatibility for Visual Studio à IIS interactions (yeah I know we need to remove the dependency on it J), some basic logging features, IIS Management Console, Remote Management for my hosted sites, Windows & Basic Authentication.
I was inclined to enable a bunch of modules but I thought I will enable them when I need them and try to stay as bare minimum as possible.
Honestly, after I kicked off Web PI, there was one restart for .NET 4 framework install and everything went super smooth. Unfortunately my SQL Server Express installation failed and I had to go and install it manually from MSDN.
In anycase, I do not mind installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Express manually as it allows me to configure mixed mode authentication and provide sa password, which I sometimes like to use with my connectionStrings.
I do not exactly remember but I do think that the SQL Server 2008 Management studio also required a restart of the machine but other than that it did go pretty smooth.
Honestly, getting a fully functional Web Development box was never that easy before Web PI so I am really happy that our team was able to pull together this highly impactful product and the more I see it in use on day to day basis within Microsoft, it makes me feel even better about the impact it can have. Most certainly there are pros and cons but overall I think it is a good thing J
Visual Studio Themes (Free)
First thing is to get VS customized to get a darker and a nicer theme. I like Selenitic by Tim Thomas but you can find several others at http://studiostyl.es/ to suit your needs.
If you are using VWD Express 2010 which I use on my machine then to set the Theme you have to go to following location on Tools à Options (make sure you set the settings file by using the “Use team settings file” check box.
![clip_image010[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-aa8lzR-MeoJOtvBkL7pJQ0SCJj1w3Mc5g4QCoB3_QlishCaKD3VpUUfNGB8TdsC4HzZDFyQ_q3yw1tb8thmDKGeWC8zqPePWsplYZvK4DE1Xbo3ZinmFT4ePRUa-4xv0vcE/s1600-h/clip_image010%5B4%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "clip_image010[4]")
Typically I would go to the “Extensions Manager” in “Tools” menu and get few power tools but since VWD Express does not have all extensibility hooks not many of the power tools are really available.
NuPack (Free)
Next I was super inclined to get NuPack from Codeplex as I know the packages in there are growing like crazy but I prevented myself from going there just yet as there were bunch of other things to get in place and again, using the policy of getting something only if I need it.
7Zip (Free)
Several times during conversation at work 7Zip comes up as the possible direction we want to take to save download times across many of Microsoft technologies. In general I think it is an innovative community project which is worth your attention. It also has easy file extensions associations in Tools à Options within 7 Zip File Manager and you can download it from http://www.7-zip.org/
Reflector (Free)
They say it for a reason that every .NET developer should have reflector, you can get that for free at http://reflector.red-gate.com/download.aspx. Unfortunately, if you are using any Express versions of Visual Studio like VWD Express 2010 then you won’t be able to use the Reflector Add In for debugging but even without that Reflector is pretty useful in itself.
Resharper (Free)
Again there is a reason why they make banners “Can’t Code without Resharper” but oh well I am using VWD Express and the Add-Ins are not allowed with it so unfortunately no Resharper for me. Btw you can download it from http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/download/ for Free if you are working on an OSS project or for $199 if you are getting it for personal use.
I am eagerly looking forward to use these and I am sure most people do as well.
Windows Live Writer (Free)
Well this blog would not have happened as easily as it has without Live Writer. If you plan to write you have to try this software for sure. Download it from Windows Live Essentials download center.
TweetDeck (Free)
Next was to get into the Social community and install TweetDeck and connect all of my Linked In, Facebook, Four Square as well Twitter accounts on it. This will provide some reasonable entertainment for me.
EverNote (Free)
I use Evernote all the time to sync up all types of my work items, To Dos from home, shopping list etc etc and it keeps it all synced up. This is one of the best tools ever if you have not used it yet. Get it from http://www.evernote.com/
LightRoom (Paid)
Finally, it comes down to having a great machine and a great photo management tool. My cousin just got me a copy of Light room and I got it all installed and ready on the machine. You can get Lightroom 3 for 30 day trial for Free if you have never used it from Adobe site.
With all that said even with keeping stuff simple and minimal I landed up installing quite a bit of software on my machine. Interesting piece is that other than the Hardware, OS, Office & Lightroom everything else on my machine is Free software. I intend not to add a lot more to my machine but if I do I will most likely update this post too. In the meantime I hope you find this at least minimally useful/interesting.
-Vishal