14 DAY TRIAL // The release of the first beta build of Visual Studio 2010 is accompanied not only by .Net Framework 4.0 Beta 1 but also by Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1. The software development kit went live on the Microsoft Download Center earlier this week and is currently up for grabs for developers looking to build extensions designed to integrate with the next-generation development platform from the Redmond company. Essentially what the software giant is offering with the SDK is a collection of tools and templates that can be leveraged into creating new menu commands, tool windows, but also extensions for the Visual Studio editor. Other Visual Studio 2010 features can also be enhanced with products put together with the SDK.
“The Visual Studio Integration Package Template to create WPF Tool Windows and menu commands. A new set of Editor extension templates to build extension to the Visual Studio 2010 Editor. New build tasks to create a VSIX Manifest and a VSIX container. You can upload your VSIX container to the Visual Studio Gallery and share your extension with the world. A new VSIX manifest editor is available for editing your extension manifest. An empty VSIX project is available for building just a VSIX container. This is useful if you're packaging projects or templates that have already been built but need to be packaged up as a VSIX,” a member of the Visual Studio Extensibility team stated.
In addition there are some changes Microsoft implemented in comparison with older versions of the SDK. Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 no longer includes the DSL design time tools, SDK samples and documentation. The Redmond company informed that the items enumerated above had all been migrated online. Developers are provided with the necessary links in the Start menu.
“There’s still work to be done. We are always striving to improve the Visual Studio extension building experience and will be working on the following: improve the VSIX editing experience; add additional project templates for building extensions; create additional tools to help in building and debugging extensions; and continue to build additional samples targeting Visual Studio 2010,” the VSX team representative added.
Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 is available for download here.