Getting Started With Visual Studio 2013

Introduction

Today, I am very delighted to tell you that Microsoft has revealed the final release of Visual Studio 2013. You can also get the benefits of .NET 4.5.1 and Team Foundation Server 2013. This is the 2013 release of Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2013 RC is the previous release of Microsoft.

You can download Visual Studio 2013 to try out various new features related with this release. As you know, developers want the development process to be smart, easy and comfortable. Microsoft has noticed these and designed Visual Studio 2013 as an outstanding tool to build the modern technology and connected apps on all of Microsoft's platforms.

There are various new enhancements made in Visual Studio 2013, such as Peek Definition, Code Lens, Energy consumption, Web development in ASP.NET and much much more. You can now develop apps for Windows 8.1 also. You must join the Visual Studio 2013 Virtual Launch on 13th November to learn the breadth and depth of new features in it.

Visual Studio 2013 Start Page

Visual Studio 2013 ASP.NET Web Tools

There are various new web tools enhanced with this release of Visual Studio. Now, let's have a look at the web tools with the following sections:

• One ASP.NET
• Bootstrap 3.0
• Browser Link
• Windows Azure SDK 2.2
• Scaffolding
• MVC 5
• Web API 2
• NuGet 2.7

One ASP.NET

Visual Studio provides you the ability to create your ASP.NET Web Applications with the various types of Project Templates by a simple User Interface with the power of one ASP.NET. Now, you can create the applications with the support of the various frameworks such as Web Forms, MVC, Web API, Facebook and so on.

You can also get the benefits of features in the Web Forms that are available for MVC only, like multiple authentication configurations and Test project creation.

More enhancements are made in the Organizational Accounts in the Change Authentication wizard. The authentication you choose works the same for all project templates and the hosting environments like IIS Express, OWIN and so on. 

You will get the Congratulation page automatically in the Visual Studio 2013 IDE.

Bootstrap 3.0

Bootstrap 3.0 is used by all ASP.NET frameworks to furnish the responsive design facilities. If you do not understand the fact, the Bootstrap 3.0 theme automatically adapts the changes to the size of the browser by changing the view of the site. Have a look at the responsiveness of the theme with the following images.

Full Home Page

Shorter Page

More Shorter Page

Look at the design changes in the application home page. You can see the various enhancements made in this theme in Visual Studio 2013.

Browser Link

Now using this new feature you can open your project in the multiple browsers and see the changes after refresh. The Browser Link Dashboard displays the total browsers connected with the application. Now you do not need to worry about to click refresh in each browser or close and open. You can simply press the Browser Link Refresh button to see the changes. You can also include more emulators to view your project.

You can find it in your IDE as shown below:

As you can see that there are no browsers connected. Now select the first browser and from the Solution Explorer open the Index.cshtml in the browser by right-clickiing and "View in the Browser". Repeat the same step to open the file in various browsers.

Click on the Browser Link Dashboard. It will show you the connected browsers.

Microsoft also released the Web Essentials for Visual Studio 2013 that contains new extensions for Browser Link such as:

• Design Mode
• Inspect Mode
• Sync F12 Changes
• CSS Sync on Save

Install the Web Essentials and open the project again in the browser. You can see the changes in the Browser Link.

Windows Azure SDK 2.2

Download the latest Windows Azure SDK 2.2 to access the latest services provide by the Windows Azure for Visual Studio 2013. Now without downloading and importing a subscription file, you can connect with your Azure Account by entering User Name and Password. You can see many enhancements in the Windows Azure in your Server Explorer.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding is completely rewritten in the Visual Studio 2013. It is a code generation framework available for Web Applications. Now you can also scaffold Web API controllers and you can use scaffolding in any type of ASP.NET project. Web Forms Scaffolding are removed from this release because it is not ready. It'll cover it in a future article.

You can see the changes in the following images:

• New Scaffolded Item
  
  
   
• Add Scaffold
  
  

MVC 5

You can create a MVC Project by selecting the MVC Project Template for the Web Application through the One ASP.NET wizard. There are new features that exist in MVC 5 that are given below:

• Attribute Routing
• Authentication Filters
• Filter Overrides

Web API 2

Web API 2 also has various new features in this releases. Have a look at:

• Attribute routing
• OAuth 2.0
• OData improvements
• Request batching
• CORS
• OWIN integration
• IHttpRequestContext
• Authentication filters
• Filter overrides

NuGet 2.7

NuGet 2.7 is the latest release of NuGet packages. It is included by default in this release.

Summary

This article has introduced you to the latest features, new releases and new enhancements in the Visual Studio. It has many beneficial features for the developers. So, download, install and use it by right now. You can send the feedback to the Microsoft using the smile tool in Visual Studio.