WPF, Silverlight, and Web 2.0

VS08 supports Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) with a split-pane WPF designer, debugger support, and WPF project templates for C# and Visual Basic. WPF "supports UI, media, documents, hardware acceleration, vector graphics, scalability to different form factors, interactive data visualization, and superior content readability," according to Microsoft. WPF graphics are defined by XAML, an extension of XML. The split-pane WPF designer uses a GUI in one pane and XAML in the other, and synchronizes the two bidirectionally as long as you don't introduce errors into the XAML.

VS08 supports Silverlight, a rich Internet application technology that includes a subset of WPF, once you install the Silverlight SDK and the Silverlight Tools for VS08. I had good experiences developing Silverlight applications with a beta version of VS08.

With the exception of the dropped support for VBScript and Classic ASP, the Web page design surface in VS08 is better than that of VS05; it's very similar to Expression Web, and supports CSS nicely. Design surfaces and projects for ASP.Net AJAX, Windows Communications Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation, which were free add-ons to VS05, have moved to the base VS08 product.

Office and Smart Device targets

Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) has been merged into the VS08 Professional Edition and above; it was previously a separate $799 product. VSTO now supports all the components of both Office 2007 and Office 2003 in both C# and Visual Basic.

VS08 can create managed Smart Device project for four target platforms and two versions of the .Net Compact Framework in C# and Visual Basic. In C++, VS08 can create unmanaged Smart Device projects using Win32, ATL (Active Template Library), and MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class) libraries; that capability used to be in a separate Windows CE toolkit.

Odds and ends

ClickOnce deployment has been enhanced to cover WPF Web Browser applications. It has also been enhanced to allow ISVs to re-sign the application manifest, and to generate manifests under UAC. ClickOnce is a lighter-weight alternative to Microsoft Installer that lets self-updating desktop applications deploy from a Web site.

Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 is a new local database that is small enough to deploy on smart devices. Developers can use it both in stand-alone and occasionally connected scenarios. When SQL Server Compact is used for local database caching, Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.Net takes care of periodic synchronization between the local Compact database and the remote database.

If a Team Foundation Server installation is detected, Visual Studio can integrate with it. This allows a programmer to receive work items and do check-ins, and a manager to produce reports.

Team System has a number of improvements. One big item in TFS is a new Team Build system; another is Web access. Architects have a new top-down system designer and an architectural role system. Developers have the new code metrics system I discussed earlier, as well as better code analysis and performance tools. DBAs have T-SQL code analysis, a data generator, and refactoring tools. Testers have better tools and validation rules, including a Test Load Agent.

Visual Studio has an active ecosystem of independent software vendors. Most of these vendors produce plug-ins and controls that enhance Visual Studio. A new Visual Studio Shell lets these vendors ship stand-alone versions of their products that do not require the customer to buy Visual Studio proper. I applaud this move by Microsoft: I think it makes the ecosystem healthier because it allows the ISVs to be more competitive at a relatively small cost to Microsoft.