Today there is no build in support for SharePoint found inside Visual Studio 2008 except the SharePoint workflow project. If you want to create studd like Site Definition etc. you need to download the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools for Visual Studio. It is available for VS2005 as well as VS2008. So in TechEd EMEA 2008, Microsoft announced that Visual Studio 2010 tools for SharePoint will be build in for VS2010.
Channel 9 did an interview with Reza Chrisaz on what are the new features in VS2010 for SharePoint developers. You can download the video here. I list down some of Reza’s Key callouts
SharePoint project templates build-in for VS2010
At last!! Visual designer for SharePoint webparts!!
Exploring SharePoint artifacts inside Server Explorer
Package Explorer - sort of like the one we have with VseWSS today
One of my favourite feature - the feature explorer
Adding Solution to TFS source control with Team Build and nightly build support
SharePoint developers always have the pain of going back and forth between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 because 2 of the most productive tools (one is SharePoint workflow project template in VS2008 and WSS3 tools for VS2005) is available in different versions of Visual Studio.
Well, that is the scenario until today the SharePoint team officially released Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 (VSeWSS) with the version number 1.2.
If the only reason you still having VS2005 in your PC is because of VSeWSS then it’s time to say goodbye and have a pure VS2008 development environment.
Download the bits here.
The slides from ODC 2008 are made available on the OBA Central website.
The slides are categorized into a few categories:
- Architecture (those planning a full scale deployment of OBA should read this!)
- Client (incl. coverage of some lesser know product for OBA i.e. Access & Groove)
- Executive
- Server (ala SharePoint, look out for stuffs on BI and Authentication)
- Services (SOA & S+S)
One of the cool thing I saw from the slides is a 3d Silverlight webpart for Plant Floor OBA RAP (pic below).
http://www.obacentral.com/ODC
Jan Tielens who created the SmartPart project came up with another SharePoint project called SmartTemplate. Similar to VSeWSS, SmartTemplate ease the development of SharePoint projects by automating the creating of configurations file with wizards and tools. Further more, by integrating SharePoint Installer, a setup program is created for you as well, giving developers more automation without using STSADM to install the feature. Best of all, it is running inside VS2008!!
Download the project here, it is just v0.2 but can be used to created SmartPart and WebPart project. More are in the todo list, i.e. Event Handler and Application Page project.
Here is the demo video I download from the CodePlex page.
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xSb305Q30E]
YouTube - SharePoint SmartTemplate demo
Microsoft just keeps on raining goodies at Office Developer Conference 2008 that I am holding back notifications to my partners/ developers until it’s over. No wonder they got extra activities on weekends for sleepless attendees!
The new VSeWWS 1.1 just got release and there is a host of new features besides bug fixes. You still got to run it on Visual Studio 2005 but already confirmed that VSeWSS 1.2 will support Visual Studio 2008 and aimed to be released June 2008!!
1. My favorite feature - Visual Basic support !!
2. WSP view for WSP Editing - Not possible previously where you can modify features.xml before deploying to SharePoint server
3. New item templates
4. F5 no longer do IISReset but only app pool refresh, so faster debugging 
You can download the installer and the user guide here. More details at SharePoint team blog.
