Visual Studio Blog
The official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team
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GitHub Copilot Free is here in Visual Studio
If you haven’t already heard, GitHub just announced Copilot Free! And great news: you can already start using Copilot Free right now in Visual Studio. It's avai...
Latest posts
Enhancements to Debugging and Profiling in Visual Studio 2013 Update 2
Less than a year ago, I gave you a quick overview of the many investments we made to debugging and profiling in Visual Studio 2013 RTM and got some great feedback from you about what we’d done. Now, with Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC available for download, I wanted to run you through the enhancements we have made since last summer. We’ve done a lot, so this summary post mostly links to other posts. I wanted to talk about two of the larger efforts we’ve made first: the Performance and Diagnostics hub (from where you can run tools such as the HTML UI Responsiveness tool, XAML UI Responsiveness tool, and Energy...
Authoring Windows 8.1 Apps in XAML
At the BUILD conference last week, we announced the availability of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 and Blend for Visual Studio 2013 Update 2. We have been busy improving the overall experience of XAML development in Visual Studio and Blend, and this post gives you an overview of some of the cool new features we have added to this Update that you might have missed amongst all the other big and exciting headlines. Universal Apps for universal experiences! We have worked hard to make it easy for developers to share code between their Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 XAML apps, and at the same time deliver beautiful ...
Using Visual Studio to build Universal XAML Apps
At the Build conference, we announced the release of the new converged Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 platforms. As a developer, this means you can now build XAML and HTML universal apps that run on both Phone and Tablets by sharing a significant amount of code and content. To enable building universal apps, we added a number of new features to Visual Studio as part of the Visual Studio Update 2 RC. You have two ways to learn more about these features. One way is through this blog post. The other way is by watching my Build talk that covers all of the material you will see here in more detail: There is n...
Building Windows Phone 8.1 Apps in HTML
Last week at the BUILD conference, we announced that you can now build apps for Windows Phone 8.1 using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using much the same techniques you use for building Windows 8.1 Store apps today. To help you build these apps, we’ve made many improvements to Visual Studio 2013 and Blend for Visual Studio 2013. In this post, we highlight a handful of the cool and new improvements that you might find useful, with a particular focus on the universal Windows app technology. Universal Apps With the latest updates to Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, you can create universal Windows apps for a common ...
The Release Candidate for Visual Studio 2013 Update 2
Release candidate of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is now available to download. This update supports TFS 2013 Update 2 RTM as well as the Windows 8.1 Update 1 and Windows Phone 8.1 platform releases announced yesterday. Checkout Somasegar’s blog where he talks about these new releases, the .NET Native preview release, TypeScript 1.0 and more. Brian Harry’s post has highlights of what’s new in the TFS 2013 Update 2 RTM release. To learn more about the Windows updates checkout the Windows Blogs. If you missed watching the keynotes at BUILD you can catch the recordings of the keynotes and other sessions on Channel 9....
Windows Embedded Compact 2013 now available for Visual Studio 2013
As announced recently on the Windows Embedded blog, the Windows Embedded Compact 2013 product is now generally available. This update release includes integration to the latest Visual Studio 2013 through updated platform builder and application builder, inbox WiFi device driver for TI SDP44xx and debugging features. Visual Studio 2013 provides a modern development environment for creating the state-of-the-art, next-generation applications for devices and services. With Visual Studio, Microsoft continues to add value with ability to develop applications with greater agility, higher scale and improved quality. A...
Improving High-DPI support for Visual Studio 2013
Visual Studio has had support for High-DPI modes for some time. Visual Studio 2010 adopted WPF as its primary UI framework, which addressed many existing high-DPI issues. Some of our components which leverage Win32, however, had not been fully updated to incorporate high-DPI awareness. At the beginning of 2013, Microsoft shipped the Surface Pro which supported 210 pixels per inch and with a default DPI scaling of 150%. Later that year, 4k resolution displays debuted at CES in Las Vegas. We committed to making sure we were ready for these devices.
Blend for HTML Behaviors and Actions
Blend for Visual Studio 2013 introduces a feature to HTML developers that may be familiar to those who already work with XAML: Behaviors. When attached to HTML elements, Behaviors add life to an application by executing a JavaScript event handler. Developers can choose from a wide variety of ready-to-use Behaviors or create their own. For example, a developer might use Blend’s pre-defined “Toggle ClassName” behavior to start/stop a CSS animation by adding or removing a class name to an element when a button is clicked. In this post, we’ll take a behind-the-scenes look at the product team&...
Announcing Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update
Today at SharePoint Conference 2014, we are thrilled to announce that Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update is available to download! The March 2014 Update ships with a ton of new features that improves support for Office 365 Cloud Business App and apps for Office/SharePoint in Visual Studio 2013. Download the Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update It also allows you to build new types of apps for Office that are enabled in Office 2013 SP1 and Office 365. In addition, “Napa” Office 365 Development Tools is also being updated, which means you can start b...