Visual Studio 2011 Solution Explorer

 

Yesterday Microsoft released a new beta of Visual Studio 2011. I’ve been playing around with it a bit to check out some of the new features.

The first and most noticeable change is the new appears of the UI. Microsoft has gone with a simpler “Metro-style” look for the interface.  Here you can see a comparison of part of the UI from Visual Studio 2011 on the left and Visual Studio 2010 on the right.

        

The new look doesn’t bother me, but I don’t think it really adds anything.

Since we are looking at the solution explorer let’s talk about one of the nice new features that has been added to VS 2011. In Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools add-on there was a feature call the Solution Navigator that combined functionality from the Solution Explorer, Class view, Object Browser and other components into a single tool. In VS 2011 this functionality has been added to the Solution Explorer right out of the box, no need for an add-on. Let’s look at some of the features this brought to the Solution Explorer.

The first new feature is the search box directly below the icon bar. Start typing into this box and the list of files will be filtered to only show file names with that word in it. Here you can see where I typed “Logo” in to the search box and the resulting file list:

The new Solution Explorer also merges in the capabilities of the Class Explorer so you can continue drilling down from the file level to see the Classes that are in the file, then the properties and methods that are in that class.

Finally you can right click on a property or method to see what code is calling the method, what code the methods calls, etc.

The Solution Navigator is a great tool so it was nice to see it made a first class part of Visual Studio.

Windows 8 and VS 2011 Beta

Microsoft did two exciting Beta releases today, Windows 8 (being called a “Consumer Preview” instead of  a Beta despite the fact that the default desktop background is a Betta fish), and Visual Studio 2011 Beta.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

To download the new version you can get the web installer here or download the ISOs from here. I first tried running the web installer from an instance of the Windows 8 Developer Preview running in a VM but couldn’t do the install because I did not have enough space on the virtual C: drive. I decided to just create a new VM using VirtualBox 4.1.8, which now has a profile specifically for installing Windows 8, and install the Windows 8 CP from scratch. The install went very quickly and smoothly and installed without any problems on my first try.

My first impressions are that it seems faster then the previous version and the new tile based start menu works a little more smoothly. There is also a new task switcher that pops up along the left side of the screen when you press the Windows Key + Tab which is a nice feature. The classic desktop is still there, but the start menu button is now completely gone. You can still use the Windows key to switch back and forth between the desktop and the new start screen. I still don’t see how this new start screen is going to work out for desktop users, especially for power users.

Visual Studio 2011 Beta

You can download the Visual Studio 2011 Beta from here, and you can also get it from the MSDN Subscription downloads. I first tried installing the Ultimate version of the beta on my Windows Vista machine but it only supports Windows 7, 8 CP, Server 2008 R2 and Server 8 Beta. I am hoping this changes before the final release. I ended up installing the Beta on a Windows 7 virtual machine, and although the install took quite a while it went pretty smoothly. I also tried the install on a Windows 8 CP VM which, despite some information I saw to the contrary, is support.

I haven’t had to much time to play with the VS 11 Beta yet, but the one thing that is very noticeable when you start it up is the new, very Metro-like  interface. It seems like a cleaner interface then the previous version, but I will need to work with it for a while to see if it’s really any better.