{"id":1133,"date":"2012-09-12T17:20:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T17:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/dotnet\/2012\/09\/12\/celebrating-the-visual-studio-2012-launch-with-the-release-of-a-popular-app\/"},"modified":"2021-10-04T12:58:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T19:58:04","slug":"celebrating-the-visual-studio-2012-launch-with-the-release-of-a-popular-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/dotnet\/celebrating-the-visual-studio-2012-launch-with-the-release-of-a-popular-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the Visual Studio 2012 launch with the release of a popular App"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, we\u2019re happy to announce the launch of Visual Studio 2012 and the .NET Framework 4.5. You can read more about the Visual Studio 2012 launch on Jason Zander\u2019s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been using the new version of Visual Studio for several months now to build .NET Framework apps for Windows, Windows Store, Windows Azure, and Window Server. The Visual Studio team has made many improvements throughout the product that I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll love. We\u2019ve certainly found quite a few.<\/p>\n

Many of you have asked for the \u201c.NET Feature Catalog\u201d app<\/a> that we\u2019ve been demonstrating at recent conferences such as TechEd. To celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2012, we\u2019re very happy to release the source code for this app. More on that below, but let\u2019s first look at one of my favorite features in Visual Studio 2012 for .NET developers.<\/p>\n

NuGet Integration<\/h3>\n

Everyone has a favorite Visual Studio 2012 feature. I\u2019d like to introduce you to one that you may not have noticed yet, which has become a favorite of mine. It\u2019s the NuGet integration in Visual Studio. NuGet<\/a> is a growing web library of code libraries and tools that use the .NET Framework. There are thousands of libraries available on NuGet that have been downloaded millions of times. NuGet is already popular, but I\u2019m guessing that it\u2019s about to become an even bigger hit now that the NuGet client is part of Visual Studio 2012. Let\u2019s take a look at this new feature.<\/p>\n

Using NuGet in Visual Studio 2012<\/h4>\n

NuGet is exposed in a couple of ways in Visual Studio 2012. The primary way that I use it is via the context (right-click) menu on the project node in Solution Explorer. You can see the Manage NuGet Packages<\/b> option at the bottom of the menu in Figure 1. The same option is available on the context menu of the references node. Additional NuGet functionality is available under Tools<\/b>, Library Package Manager<\/b>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Figure 1. <\/b>Visual Studio Solution Explorer project context menu<\/p>\n

Installing NuGet packages with the NuGet Package Manager<\/h4>\n

When you choose Manage Nuget Packages<\/b> from the context menu, you will see the NuGet Package Manager displayed below. The Package Manager enables you to add NuGet packages to your project from the NuGet repository (which is on the web) or remove NuGet packages from your project. When you add a NuGet package, you can use the functionality it provides within your app. Visual Studio takes care of deploying the DLLs from the NuGet package with your app.<\/p>\n

Json.NET, which you can see in the screen capture below, is a favorite NuGet package of mine. It exposes multiple ways of reading and writing JSON payloads from REST APIs. Give it a try.<\/p>\n

\"clip_image004\"<\/a>\nFigure 2. <\/b>Manage NuGet Packages dialog box<\/p>\n

Release of the \u201cWhat\u2019s new in the .NET 4.5\u201d app<\/h3>\n

The .NET Framework 4.5 introduces a number of features to help solve the programming problems of today. We created a sample that provides an end-to-end demonstration of how to build a Windows 8 app that connects to a .NET Framework 4.5 web backend that exposes an industry standard REST API. If you were at TechEd 2012 in North America<\/a> or Europe<\/a>, we showed you how to build this sample from scratch. The app itself is a catalog of features found in the .NET Framework, so you can learn more about the .NET Framework simply by exploring the app.<\/p>\n

The sample demonstrates these main features:<\/p>\n