Visual Studio 2008 Hot Fix Recommended
Short on the heels of the Visual Studio 2008 release in November 2007, Microsoft released in early February a hot fix that contains several fixes. I took a bit of time before jumping on the Hot fix for production projects, but there are several IDE editing and build improvements for those using ASP.NET.
Based on the list of fixes surrounding HTML source view / HTML editing, JavaScript editing, and web site build performance, it looks very compelling to apply this fix . I've updated today and see no adverse side effects yet. The hot fix installation instructions state it can be uninstalled in the future if needed.
The information on the hot fix details and the download can be found in Scott Guthrie's post VS 2008 Web Development Hot-Fix Roll-Up Available.
Help Generation Tools
Help authoring tools like RoboHelp and Doc To Help provide the ability to generate PDF, Word .DOC, and compiled html help (.CHM) from a single HTML source.
Some time ago, I needed the ability to generate other forms of documentation for help files other than HTML. The original content was authored as a standalone simple HTML (h1, h2, ul, ol, dd, dt, p, etc.) with images and used a common style sheet. I needed the ability to generate other forms of documentation that could be printed and transmitted over the Internet to clients (Word documents, PDF, etc.). More...
How to Remove Projects in the Visual Studio Project MRU List
Visual Studio.Net (2003, 2005 and 2008) keeps a list of recent projects shown on the Start Page in the IDE. Sometimes when moving projects around on the disk, one can end up with duplicate names and this can be confusing. To resolve this, the list in the registry must be updated.
ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP Preview Released
On Dec 9, Microsoft released the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP Preview for Visual Studio 2008. Scott Guthrie outlines some ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP Preview key features this preview release provides.
These include:
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ASP.NET Ajax Improvements
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ASP.NET MVC
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ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support
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ASP.NET Silverlight Support
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ADO.NET Data Services
Visual Studio 2008 Released
On November 19, 2007, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2008. Scott Guthrie outlines some of the Visual Studio 2008 key features.
Some reasons on why you may want to upgrade.
Key VS 2008 Features
- Full tool support in VS 2008 for WF, WCF, and WPF
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Target builds for .Net 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5
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Java Script intellisense and richer Java Script debugging
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Nested ASP.Net master pages
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Continued support for web site and web application project models
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ASP.NET AJAX support
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ASP.NET 3.5 ListView control
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LINQ (language integrated query) support
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Intellisense code editing improvements
Key .Net 3.5 Features
- LINQ support
- ASP.NET AJAX
- New WCF Protocols (including AJAX, JSON, REST, POX, RSS, ATOM, and several new WS-* standards)
- New base class library features
Visual Studio 2008 Express Free
Microsoft announced on Nov 19, 2007 the availability of Visual Studio 2008. It also made available to the public a free version of the developer tools. Check out the following links to obtain your free copy of these tools.
The Visual Web Developer version includes a significantly improved HTML web designer also used in Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression Web.
How To Install a Web Application for a Site with a Specific Port
MSI installation projects created in Visual Studio 2003 allowed the setting of a PORT value. This port value would be used to search the IIS sites and install the web application by default on the first site that corresponded to the specific port.
Users migrating from Visual Studio 2003 to Visual Studio 2005 have found that support for the PORT property has been removed and there are few technical options available to solve this problem.
This article outlines how using Visual Studio 2005 SP1 and a command line and MSI custom actions to install a web application on a site configured for a specific port.
After an update to VS 2008, I see no options that resolves this in VS 2008 either.