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Back to VSLive! San Francisco Show Daily Home
Visual Studio 2005 for Devices
VSLive! San Francisco, March 25, 2004 The Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) has always played a crucial role in driving the adoption of .NET technologies among developers. Visual Studio .NET 2003, for example, drastically improved the developer experience and productivity on Windows Mobile devices through its support for the .NET Compact Framework (see the sidebar, "Key Device Development Features in VS.NET 2003").
However, the current version of Visual Studio .NET 2003 does not cover the entire Microsoft mobile development platform. eMbedded Visual C++ (eVC) and eMbedded Visual Basic (eVB) developers must rely on the older Visual C++ and Visual Basic IDEs. Visual Studio 2005, previewed at VSLive! and Microsoft Mobile DevCon (MDC) this week, builds upon Visual Studio .NET 2003's strengths and aims to bring all Microsoft mobile development platforms together. Although Microsoft has stressed the focus on managed code in the future Windows Mobile platform, today's developers must still use native APIs to write applications that are tightly integrated with native device software components or require direct access to hardware features (such as special keys, GPS, and cameras). For example, you might need to write a native library for a hardware feature used with a high-level Windows Forms application. The ability to develop and debug mixed native and managed code in a single solution would greatly accelerate the adoption of .NET Compact Framework among the large embedded Visual C++ developer communities. Visual Studio 2005 not only supports mixed development, but it also features a new debugger that allows you to seamlessly step back and forth between native code and managed code. Visual Studio 2005 sees significant improvements on RAD tools. The visual UI designer now supports new Windows Forms controls in .NET Compact Framework 2.0, as well as device screens with different sizes, resolutions, and orientations. The new UI designer supports custom controls and inherited forms. A data model designer for the new SQL Server CE 3.0 ("Laguna") also exists. The device emulators in Visual Studio 2005 have better support for ActiveSync and shared folders to ease file transfer from the development PC to the emulator. Each emulator also provides access to four COM ports. The new IntelliSense in Visual Studio 2005 for devices can now catch methods, properties, and events inherited from the desktop version of the .NET Framework but not supported in the Compact Framework. This has been a major source of runtime exceptions (and frustration) for current .NET Compact Framework developers. Visual Studio 2005 also has some generic feature enhancements that are not device-specific but are generally useful for device developers. MSBuild is an XML-based build system that lets you build deliverables through configuration files. Device developers often package different multimedia files, or optimize for different code performance and footprint goals for different target devices in the build process. Fine-grained control on the customizable build process is certainly a much-needed feature. Code refactoring support is another key improvement in Visual Studio 2005. It allows developers to quickly change the structure of the code safely. In mobile development projects, the feature requirement and target devices can change fast. You must quickly make unforeseen changes to the code (refactor) in late stages of the development process. The alpha version of Visual Studio 2005 is available to MDC attendees. For more Visual Studio 2005 device screen shots, see Michael Yuan's blog.
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