Jack @ ASP.NET

Visual Studio 2010 was originally released without HTML5 support, so does SP1 finally add support for it? Yes, to some extent. The entire HTML5 specification isn’t supported but most of the new elements and attributes are. That means you get both intellisense and validation for HTML5 with SP1.

Turn it on

After installing SP1 you have to tell Visual Studio to start using the HTML5 schema. Go to Tools -> Options, and then select Text Editor -> HTML -> Validation. You should now be able to select HTML5 or XHTML5 as the target schema.

Or if you have the HTML Source Editing toolbar enabled, you can select it in the target schema dropdown.

Microsoft has just released BizTalk Server 2010, and it is now generally available! Along with this release comes an updated licensing structure  that will be a relief for consultants, and companies managing multiple BizTalk environments. While the cost of the Enterprise edition has increased, the cost of the Developer edition has been eliminated. The Developer edition includes the full capabilities of the Enterprise edition, with the limitation being only that you cannot use it in production.

One of the features, that will stand out the most as you open up Visual Studio 2010 to create your first new BizTalk Server 2010 project, is the new and improved BizTalk Mapper. New features include:

    * Ability to search a map for a given schema node, or functoid
    * Ability to cut, copy, and paste functoids and links between maps and pages
    * Cleaner display of map links based on how related they are to schema nodes within the view
    * Automatic highlighting of links and functoids related to the active selection
    * Automatic scrolling into view of links and functoids related to the active selection
    * Simplified configuration UI for functoids (e.g., the scripting functoid has a single tabbed window with which you can fully configure the connections and the script)
    * Indicative match functionality that suggests nodes to link

Using TODO

TODO comments allow you to tell Visual Studio to maintain a central list of tasks, which it reads from many different places in your code. The Task List is a panel or floating window in Visual Studio that will display all the TODO comments in your project. To open the list, go to View menu -> Task List.

Some example TODO comments

You probably have a lot of code that needs a lot of work. If you don’t, then you need to write code that needs a lot of work. Here are some examples of TODO lines that Visual Studio 2008 will notice and put into its special Task Pane.

//todo: your task 1
//TODO: your task 2

// Todo your task 3

Description of example. This will appear in your tasks pane as a separate task. Note that you have some flexibility with these tokens. The strings "todo", "TODO", and "TODO" all work equally well—Visual Studio’s parser gives you a little bit of freedom.

You might meet these questions in visual studio toolbox, and the items are not shown properly:

• My code works if Visual Studio is already opened when my code executes.
• My code works fine when executed outside of an installation project. 
• If my code is executed from an installation project and Visual Studio is not opened, then ToolBox item is not added. I’ve added a "MessageBox" during the process and I can confirm that devenv.exe *is* executed. 

If you have any trouble using the toolbox items in visual studio, just delete the hidden files:

toolbox.tbd, toolbox_reset.tbd, toolboxIndex.tbd, toolboxIndex_reset.tbd

in

<drive>:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\<VS version>

Ex:

C:\Documents and Settings\JAVIER.VILLARREAL\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0

Start Visual Studio, and it will reset the toolbox items in the correct form. following this, you can active items in visual studio toolbox immediately.