Whats new in Visual Studio'NET 2005

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Whats new in Visual Studio.NET 2005
Michael V. Ekedahl University of Nevada, Reno
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Session Overview

• Changes to the Integrated Development Environment
• Improvements to Windows Forms
• Changes to the .NET Framework
• Visual Basic language enhancements
• Enhancements and changes to controls
• An improved Help system
• Changes to Data Management

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Whats new with the IDE (1)

• Edit and Continue support has been added
• A return from VB 6
• Exception assistant
• Gives help to solve exceptions when they are
  thrown
• A better Immediate window
• Design-time expression evaluation
• Task list and Error list are factored into two
  windows
• IDE is more configurable
• Project organization has changed

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Whats new with the IDE (2)
In-place property editing
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Whats new with the IDE (3)
Code snippets create templates for common tasks
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Whats new with the IDE (4)
Autocorrect typographical errors
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Whats new with the IDE (5)
Docking tips
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Whats new With Forms (1)

• Property selection
• The Visual Basic 6.0 Forms collection is back (in
  a way)
• My.Forms supplies a reference to each declared
  form
• A default form instance is also created
• A bit of history from VB 6
• A few new events

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Whats new With Forms (2)
Snap lines make control alignment a snap
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Whats new with the .NET Framework (General)

• 64-bit platform support
• IO has been enhanced to read and write data using
  GZIP compression
• The new GZipStream class
• The SerialPort class allows us to access serial
  ports and communicate with serial devices

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Whats new with the .NET Framework (Networking 1)

• There is SMTP support to send and receive e-mail
  messages
• Attachments and carbon copies are supported
• SmtpClient class has methods to send messages
  (Send, SendAsync)
• Messages themselves are managed as MailAddress,
  Message, MailAttachment

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Whats new with the .NET Framework (Networking 2)

• FTP support has been added through
• Methods of System.Net.FtpMethods
• And My.Computer.Network
• Ping is supported through System.Net.NetworkInform
  ation.Ping and My.Computer.Net.Ping

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Whats new with Visual Basic (1)

• Unsigned whole number types are supported as in
• lblSByte.Text System.SByte.MaxValue
• lblUShort.Text System.UInt16.MaxValue
• lblUInteger.Text _
• System.UInt32.MaxValue
• lblULong.Text System.UInt64.MaxValue
• Partial classes allow a class to be split between
  multiple physical files
• Designer generated code and developer created
  appears in separate files

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Whats new with Visual Basic (2)
Several new templates have been added
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Whats new with Visual Basic (3)

• Generics provide the means to create strongly
  typed lists such as an ArrayList
• Generics for List, Dictionary, SortedDictionary,
  Queue and Stack are supported
• Performance of generics is better because objects
  are strongly typed
• Dim PersonList As New List(Of Person)
• PersonList.Add(New Person("Joe", 23))

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Whats new with Visual Basic (4)

• Visual Basic now supports operator overloading
• Existing operators are overloaded as in
• Dim p1 As New Point(10, 10)
• Dim s1 As New Size(20, 20)
• Dim pResult As Point p1 s1
• Its also possible to create overloaded operators
  for custom classes

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Whats new with Visual Basic (5)

• The Using statement eliminates the need to
  finalize objects
• Create a class instance in the Using statement
• Scope of class instance is the Using block
• Using f As New Font("Arial", 12)
• ' Statements that use f
• End Using

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Whats new with Visual Basic (6)

• The Continue statement skips to the next
  iteration of a loop
• The IsNot operator is simplifies syntax Thus,
• Dim t As TextBox Nothing
• If Not (t Is Nothing) Then
• becomes
• If t IsNot Nothing Then

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Whats new with Visual Basic (7)

• In Visual Studio 2003, CType and DirectCast were
  used to convert types
• Exceptions would be thrown if the type could not
  be converted
• TryCast attempts a cast and returns Nothing if
  the type cannot be converted
• Dim p As Person
• p TryCast(SomeObject, Person)
• If p IsNot Nothing Then
• ' Statements
• End If

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Whats new with Visual Basic (8)

• The following application-level events are
  supported in the partial class named
  MyApplication
• Shutdown fires after all forms are closed
• Startup fires just before the startup form is
  created
• StartupNextInstance fires when a single instance
  application is started that is already running
• NetworkAvailabilityChanged fires when the network
  becomes available or unavailable
• UnhandledException fires in case of any exception
  that has not active handler

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Whats new with the .NET Framework (My)

• The My keyword references objects to
• Get to resource files with My.Resources
• Get information about the local computer with
  My.Computer
• My.Computer.Info gets configuration information
• My.Computer.Registry gets to the registry
• Communicate with the network using
  My.Computer.Network
• Interact with the current application using
  My.Application
• Print easily with My.Computer.DefaultPrinter

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Whats New with the .NET Framework (My)

• Factory methods get a reference to a form as in
  My.Forms.Form1
• A reference to the WebService proxy can be
  obtained through My.WebServices making it easy to
  find the supported members
• Multimonitor support is included as in
• Dim s As Screen()
• Dim r As Rectangle
• s System.Windows.Forms.Screen.AllScreens
• r s(0).WorkingArea

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Whats new in Controls (1)

• MenuStrip control replaces the MainMenu control
• The functionality is similar
• The implementation differs significantly
• Images are now supported on menu items
• Images are stored in resource files
• Pascal case menu naming is automatic
• DataGridView control displays data in a tabular
  format
• The control works in a bound or unbound mode
• Custom cell and column types are supported

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Whats new in Controls (2)

• SplitContainer control is made up of two panels
  separated by a movable bar
• SplitContainers can be nested
• Great for drill-down interfaces
• Replaces the Splitter control
• MaskedTextBox provides simple to use input
  validation

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Whats new in Controls (3)

• FlowLayoutPanel and TableLayoutPanel give us Java
  layout capabilities
• FlowLayoutPanel contents can be adjusted
  horizontally or vertically
• Contents may be clipped
• TableLayoutPanel
• A grid composed of rows and columns
• Controls can be nested
• The grid is dynamic

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Whats new in Controls (4)

• FolderBrowserDialog allows simple folder
  selection
• SelectedPath property contains the folder
  selected by the user

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Whats new in Controls (5)

• WebBrowser control provides simple browser
  capabilities
• WebBrowser1.Navigate("file//c/foo.htm")

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Whats new in Help (1)

• The Help system has been overhauled
• Topic pages can be expanded or collapsed
• How to help is task based instead of feature
  based
• More code examples are included
• Its easy to copy sample code

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Whats new in Help (2)

• JavaDoc like documentation is supported
• We refer to them as XML comments
• XML comments appear in tooltips

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Whats new with Data Management (Introduction)

• ADO.NET 2.0 supersedes ADO.NET 1.0
• Seamless integration with SQL Server
• Creating bound controls is much easier
• The DataSet and DataTable classes are similar to
  those found in Visual Studio 2003
• The DataGridView control replaces the DataGrid
  control

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Data Sources Window
Data Sources Windowshows data sourcesavailable
to the project
Server data, local data, Web services, and
custom business objects can be data sources
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Dataset Designer
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The DataNavigator Class

• Supplies a data navigation and data manipulation
  user interface for bound controls
• Supports navigation and editing methods
• Custom logic must be implemented to perform
  editing actions
• Binds to a DataConnector

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The DataConnector Class

• Its the plumbing to
• Bind to a data source
• And connect the data source to the forms control
  instances
• Once bound, the DataConnector provides all record
  navigation and editing facilities

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The TableAdapter Class

• TableAdapters are designer generated components
• They are analogous to strongly typed data
  adapters
• A TableAdapter can contain multiple SELECT
  statements instead of just one

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The Visual Studio Team System

• Team Architect
• Application modeling and deployment modeling
• Team Developer
• Code analysis and profiling
• Team Test
• Load testing and unit testing

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Release Schedule

• Beta 1 has been released
• Community Technology Previews are being released
  monthly
• Beta 2 should be available late March
• Final software available this fall?
• Longhorn will enter beta this fall too