Introduction To New Features of Visual Studio 2013 RC: Part 1

Introduction

As you know, Microsoft has released the latest version of Visual Studio 2013, in other words Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate (RC) in the last week. So here I am describing the new features of this latest version. If you are using the previous version already, in other words Visual Studio 2013 Preview, then you are already familiar with some of these new features. You can read the latest version information of Visual Studio by Clicking Here. 

So, let's have a look at the new features released with Visual Studio 2013 RC:

• ONE ASP.NET
• Scaffolding
• Browser Dashboard
• NuGet 2.7
• ASP.NET MVC 5
• ASP.NET Web Forms

You need to install Visual Studio 2013 RC from here to use these features. I am briefly describing the features.

ONE ASP.NET

Any software developer does not want to waste time and if every task is done from one wizard then who wouldn't want it? Therefore Microsoft revealed this to Visual Studio users with which any developer can start a project using MVC and add Web Forms later or you can also scaffold your APIs to your project. Microsoft makes it easier by introducing ONE ASP.NET.

In that context, as you can see in the following image that in the New ASP.NET Web Project wizard you can select any project template depending upon the demand. You can also add Web Forms and Web APIs to your project from a single wizard and unit test. Have a look:

You can also change the authentication from the wizard. There are various types of authentications available for changing authentication:

Scaffolding

In the Visual Studio newer versions like 2013 Preview or RC, the ASP.NET Web Apps use the code generation framework known as ASP.NET Scaffolding. It helps you to add moderate code to your project with the data model.

In the previous versions of Visual Studio, you cannot use the scaffolding in ASP.NET Web Forms. In this latest release you can use Scaffolding for any project that includes ASP.NET Web Forms by adding MVC dependencies to the project.

If you are using an ASP.NET Web Forms Project then you can use scaffolding to add a Web API. To add MVC dependencies you can add a New Scaffolded item and select MVC 5 dependencies from the wizard. You can select Minimal or Full to MVC Scaffolding. Minimal adds NuGet packages and references to your project and Full adds the minimal dependencies and required content files as well.

Browser Dashboard

This new feature helps you to connect with multiple browsers. You can get all browsers by clicking the "Refresh" link. You can open your project with multiple browsers.

NuGet 2.7

There is a new rich set of features released in the new version of NuGet 2.7. You can get NuGet 2.7 from here. This new version will automatically download missing files and packages. In this version the package restore consent is by default ON. There is no need to use the "Enable NuGet Package Restore" on your solution.

You can see in the following image that NuGet is installed by default.

  

ASP.NET MVC 5

A new MVC 5 project template is available for creating the ASP.NET Web Applications. You can also personalize your MVC project by ONE ASP.NET. You can also authenticate your MVC project by Identity Management. You can use Facebook, Google, orTwitter to authenticate your MVC Application. This is known as ASP.NET Identity. You can change your authentication of MVC Projects. You can now configure filters with which you can apply filters to a given action method or controller.

ASP.NET Web Forms

This new Web Forms project template integrates you to ASP.NET Web Applications. You can create an application with this new project template by ONE ASP.NET. You can also get the benefit of MVC and an API with your Web Forms Template. This project template uses the BOOTSTRAP to provide a polished and shiny responsive look that you can easily customize. You can also change authentication of your web forms applications.

Summary

So far in this article I have described some of the latest features of the new release of Visual Studio in other words Visual Studio 2013 RC. I'll provide another article about another new feature of this version.

Thanks for reading.

Further Readings

Continue to Part 2: Introduction of New Features of Visual Studio 2013 RC: Part 2 >>