Visual Studio 2015 Preview introduces several new features, including support for cross-platform mobile development, an Android emulator, and improved tooling for Apache Cordova. It also enhances performance and code quality with updates to the .NET Framework and Entity Framework, allowing for the development of modern web applications across various platforms. The release emphasizes an open-source approach, supporting both ASP.NET 5 and the new .NET core runtime for multiple operating systems.

1. http://www.dotnet-stuff.com/tutorials/visual-studio/visual-studio-2015-pr...
Visual Studio 2015 Preview Comes with Emulator for Android, MVC6 and Entity
Framework 7
Posted Date: 19. November 2014 Author: Anil Sharma
Categories: .Net Framework, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, LINQ, C Sharp, ASP.NET Web Page, Entity Framework, Visual
Studio, Web API, ASP.NET vNext
Keywords: MVC 6, ASP.NET 5, ASP.NET vNext, Entity Framework, Web API, Emulator for Android, Visual Studio 2015 Preview
M
icrosoft had launched Visual Studio 2015 Preview. Let try to know what's new in this release and point you more
details. One of the other large announcements today is that we will open source the full server-side .NET core stack
from ASP.NET 5 to the CLR and BCL and this version will run on Linux and MacOS X as well as Windows.
Since the majority of initial comments tend to be questions about supported configurations, I’ll put this up front: before you try
to upgrade from Visual Studio "14" CTPs to Visual Studio 2015 Ultimate Preview, first uninstall Visual Studio "14" CTP – if you
don’t, your system can wind up in an unstable state.
I’ve done a few CTPs of Visual Studio 2014 , and today they’re making a full Preview available with Visual Studio 2015. It
includes cross platform device development in C++, an Android emulator, updated tooling for Apache Cordova, the open
source .NET compiler platform, support for ASP.NET 5, and many IDE features.
Here are the top features of visual studio 2015 preview
Visual C++ for Cross Platform Mobile Development:-
Visual Studio 2015 adds support for cross-platform mobile development using C++ leveraging the open source Clang
and LLVM toolchain, enabling you to share, reuse, build, deploy, and debug libraries for other operating systems in VS.
Visual Studio Emulator for Android:-
Visual Studio obviously already has a strong emulator for Windows Phone, but as Visual Studio expands to enable you
to build apps for more devices, we need to ensure you still get a great emulation experience for those devices.
Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova:-
If you’ve been following the CTPs of Visual Studio 2015 and the Visual Studio 2013 Tools for Apache Cordova
(formerly known as Multi-Device Hybrid Apps), you’ll be familiar with what we’ve been doing to enable JavaScript
developers to target Android and iOS devices.
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Performance and Code Quality:-
Better code generation of bit-test operations, control flow merging and optimizations (loop-if switching), and other
scalar optimizations (for example, better code generation for std::min and std::max).
Productivity, Debugging, and Diagnostics:-
Rename Symbol Changes, Function Extraction, Implement Pure Virtuals, Create Declaration or Definition , Move
Function Definition,Convert to Raw String Literal.
C# and Visual Basic Language Features :-
In this release, several new C# and Visual Basic language features help reduce boilerplate and clutter in everyday
code, encourage a more declarative style of programming, and bring the two languages even closer together. For
example, there are syntactic improvements to type and member declarations and to null checking. Also, local variables
can be declared inside expressions, and await can be used in catch and finally blocks. Many of these features are
implemented only for one of the two languages in Preview, but will be available to both languages in the final release.
.NET Framework 4.6:-
They have added many new APIs to enable key scenarios, particularly cross platform scenarios.
Support for code page encodings:-
.NET Core primarily supports Unicode encodings, and by default it provides limited support for code page encodings.
You can add support for code page encodings that are available in the .NET Framework but unsupported in .NET Core
by registering code page encodings with the Encoding.RegisterProvider method. For more information, see
CodePagesEncodingProvider.
Improvements to event tracing:-
An EventSource object can now be constructed directly, and you can call one of the Write() methods to emit a
self-describing event.
Resizing in Windows Forms controls:-
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This feature has been expanded to include the System.Windows.Forms.DomainUpDown,
System.Windows.Forms.NumericUpDown, System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewComboBoxColumn,
System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewColumn and System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripSplitButton types. This is an
opt-in feature. To enable it, set the EnableWindowsFormsHighDpiAutoResizing element to true in the application
configuration (app.config) file.
64-bit JIT compiler for managed code:-
This release includes a new version of the 64-bit JIT Compiler, which provides significant performance improvements
over the legacy 64bit JIT Compiler. While we have tried to make the transition to the new Compiler as transparent as
possible, you may see changes in behavior.
Support for converting DateTime to or from Unix time:-
New methods have been added to support converting DateTime to or from Unix time.
ASP.NET Model Binding supports Task returning methods:-
ASP.NET Model Binding methods that were previously Task returning were not supported and threw an exception at
runtime if configured. If applications are deployed with such methods, these methods will now be executed correctly.
This change applies only to applications specifically targeting .NET 4.6 or later.
Channel support for managed EventSource instrumentation:-
In this release, managed developers can re-use their existing managed EventSource instrumentation in order to log
significant administrative or operational messages to the event log, in addition to any existing ETW sessions created on
the machine. It includes APIs that specify a destination channel for ETW event methods defined on custom event
sources, take the channel into account when testing whether an event will be logged, and support static ETW manifest
registration, which is required for channel support.
Assembly loader improvements:-
The assembly loader now uses memory more efficiently by unloading IL assemblies after a corresponding NGEN
image is loaded. This change decreases virtual memory, which is particularly beneficial for large 32-bit apps (such as
Visual Studio), and also saves physical memory.
Entity Framework 7:-
The new version of Entity Framework enables new platforms and new data stores. Windows Phone, Windows Store,
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ASP.NET 5, and traditional desktop application can now use Entity Framework. This version of the framework supports
relational databases as well as non-relational data stores such as Azure Table Storage and Redis. It includes an early
preview of the EF7 runtime that is installed in new ASP.NET 5 projects.
Shared Projects:-
In this release, new templates are available to create empty shared projects for Visual Basic, C#, and JavaScript.
JSDoc Support:-
Documentation comments written using the JSDoc format are now understood by the editor and shown when using
IntelliSense.
Debugging and Diagnostics:-
The new Breakpoint Settings window allows you to specify conditions and actions for your breakpoints. The window
includes improved IntelliSense support for breakpoint conditions and actions. You can use undo (CTRL+Z) to restore
deleted breakpoints.
ASP.NET 5 Preview runtime:-
This release of Visual Studio supports creating and developing ASP.NET 5 Preview applications. ASP.NET 5 Preview is
a lean and composable .NET stack for building modern web applications for both cloud and on-premises servers. It
includes the following features:
ASP.NET MVC and Web API have been unified into a single programming model.
A no-compile developer experience.
Environment-based configuration for a seamless transition to the cloud.
Dependency injection out-of-the-box.
NuGet everything, even the runtime itself.
Run in IIS, or self-hosted in your own process.
All open source through the .NET Foundation, and takes contributions in GitHub.
ASP.NET 5 runs on Windows with the .NET Framework or .NET Core.
.NET Core is a new cloud optimized runtime that supports true side-by-side versioning.
ASP.NET 5 runs on OS X and Linux with the Mono runtime.
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ASP.NET tooling:-
We have made some improvements in JSON editor, including performance improvements such as loading JSON
schema asynchronously, caching of the child schemas, and supporting better IntelliSense.
Microsoft ASP.NET and Web ASP.NET MVC 5.2.2:-
Template packages are updated to use ASP.NET MVC 5.2.2. This release does not have any new features or bug fixes
in MVC. We made a change in Web Pages for a significant performance improvement, and have subsequently updated
all other dependent packages we own to depend on this new version of Web Pages.
ASP.NET Web API 5.2.2:-
In this release we have made a dependency change for Json.Net 6.0.4. For more information on what is new in this
release of Json.NET, see Json.NET 6.0 Release 4 - JSON Merge, Dependency Injection. This release does not have
any other new features or bug fixes in Web API. We have subsequently updated all other dependent packages we own
to depend on this new version of Web API.
ASP.NET Web API OData 5.3.1 beta:-
ASP.NET Web API OData 5.3 for the Web API OData 5.3 and 5.3.1 beta.
SignalR 2.1.2:-
Template packages are updated to use SignalR 2.1.2.
Microsoft Owin 3.0 package:-
Template packages are updated to use Microsoft Owin 3.0 NuGet packages.
NuGet 2.8.3:-
Support for DevExtreme project and BizTalkProject are added to 2.8.3.
TypeScript:-
Visual Studio 2015 Preview also includes TypeScript 1.3 - the latest release of the TypeScript tools. This release adds
protected member access and tuple types, allowing for more natural object-oriented patterns and more precise array
types. TypeScript now uses the .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn"), the powerful language service behind C# and VB.
With Roslyn come many new editing features including Peek, improved colorization, more accurate rename, and better
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6. support for functional programming.
References:
http://www.visualstudio.com/news/vs2015-preview-vs
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/11/12/visual-studio-2015-preview-visual-studio-community-2013-visual-studio-
2013-update-4-and-more.aspx
Summary:- I am very happy to post this article as i am working on ASP.NET vNext from past 5 month. Availability of the next
version of Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2015 Preview adds significant value including cross-platform development in C++, the
new open-source .NET compiler platform, C++ 11 and C++ 14 support, Apache Cordova tooling, and ASP.NET 5.
Keen to here from you...!
If you have any questions related to what's mentioned in the article or need help with any issue, ask it, I would love to here from
you. Please MakeUseOf Contact and i will be more than happy to help.
About the author
Anil Sharma is Chief Editor of dotnet-stuff.com. He's a software professional and
loves to work with Microsoft .Net. He's usually writes articles about .Net related
technologies and here to shares his experiences, personal notes, Tutorials,
Examples, Problems & Solutions, Code Snippets, Reference Manual and
Resources with C#, Asp.Net, Linq , Ajax, MVC, Entity Framework, WCF, SQL
Server, jQuery, Visual Studio and much more...!!!
Connect with the author: • Google • Linkedin
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