Drewby

Jason posted a great episode on our new 10-4 show on Channel9 that covers customizing the Visual Studio 2010 start page. The start page is defined in XAML (Markup language for Windows Presentation Foundation), so adding new tabs, buttons and other functionality is as easy as editing the XAML in Visual Studio or any text editor.

You can do even more than just edit the XAML. Because the start page is using XAML and Windows Presentation Foundation, you can also add your own WPF controls to the mix. Build your WPF control just as you would normally and place the assembly containing the control in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Components. For example, create a build status control that queries your build server for the status of the most recent build:

Watch Jason’s 10-4 episode to learn how to copy the StartPage into your personal documents folder and edit the XAML file. To register your control, place a XAML namespace declaration at the top of the file:

Then, add the control to the XAML at the location you want it to appear in the start page. In my case, this is simply adding the tag <my:MyBuildControl /> above the Welcome to Visual Studio 2010 CTP text. The start page will automatically reload in Visual Studio once your save the XAML file.

Now you can add just about any functionality you’d like to make easily available within the Visual Studio start page. I’m really looking forward to the various customizations that developers come up with and share with the community.

One other note: When you copy the StartPage.xaml file into your documents directory, you’ll also notice a C# Project (.csproj) file. If you open the C# project file and then open the StartPage.xaml file from this project, the appropriate references will be set so that the StartPage shows up in the WPF designer. Once you add your custom control to the start page, you’ll need to add an assembly reference to this C# project file in order to continue using the WPF designer. Right click the project, select Add Reference and point it at your assembly in the Components directory I referenced above.

Our team just launched a new video podcast called 10-4 that will cover the new features in Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0.

Episode 1: Downloading and Using the Visual Studio 2010 September CTP

For this first episode of 10-4, we’ll look at how to download and use the Virtual PC image of the Visual Studio 2010 September CTP. We’ll give you tips on how to download this massive (7GB+ compressed) VPC, show you how to get past some pesky expiration issues, and get you started with the CTP walkthroughs. Lastly we’ll cover where to get assistance and provide your feedback about this release.

In future episodes we’ll dive more deeply into the technical underpinnings of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0, but for this first episode we wanted to make sure everybody could get the CTP and follow along at home.

If you have ideas for the show or topics that you want covered, please let us know! We’ll be releasing one episode a week. You can provide your feedback in the comments of the show or email us at 10-4 at microsoft.com.

If you’ve used the Visual Studio 2010 CTP VPC over the last several days, you probably have noticed the warnings about the end of the evaluation period. However, there is a very easy workaround so that you can continue to use the VPC and evaluate this preview of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0.

Virtual PC allows you to disable the synchronization between the clock in your virtual machine and the clock on your hardware machine. Once the synchronization is disabled, the clock will only tick forward when the VPC is running. This gives you 2 months of total evaluation time for the VPC.

Jeff Beehler does a great job of describing how to do this in his blog post. Make sure you do this with a newly decompressed VHD image so you can maximize the amount of time you have to evaluate the software.

Also, there are other activation messages that you will run into. Brian Keller has a great blog post describing these messages and what you can do about them.

Did you see the announcements over the last month on Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0? Are you still wondering what is new and improved in those products? There is a lot!

I’ve been developing on .NET since the beta of 1.0 and I can tell you that this release is as exciting as any of the previous releases. There are a lot of improvements both in the technology and the way that we’ll build applications on the .NET Framework.

There will be a larger learning curve for this release than for previous releases – it will still feel familiar, but to take advantage of the new technologies, you’ll need to invest some time to learn how to use them. There’s enough there that it’s worth taking time now to understand what’s coming.

What’s the best way to do that? Here’s three ways you can start learning today:

1. Get your hands on the product by downloading the Visual Studio 2010 CTP VPC. This is a pre-configured VPC that you can use to start learning about the new features. There are even walkthroughs for each technology that show you how everything works.
2. Check out the Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit. This kit has several presentations and hands-on-labs that will walk you through various parts of Visual Studio and .NET Framework technologies.
3. View the videos on Channel9. There are two themed weeks of videos that really do a great job of covering what’s coming in Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. Everything from languages, to IDE enhancements, debugging and team system are covered. Here is a complete list of the videos across both weeks:

The last several weeks have been a lot of fun. My team at Microsoft was busy supporting the announcements for Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 that happened at PDC and TechEd EMEA.

Jason Olson delivered a tremendous series of videos on Channel9 focused on Visual Studio 2010 that followed an earlier, very successful series for Visual Studio Team System produced by Brian Keller. Between the two themed weeks, the videos have 1.2 million views!

We finally have some time to breathe and think about what comes next. And I took this chance to follow-up on a conversation I had with Jeff Julian at PDC. He convinced me to get back to blogging on GeeksWithBlogs.net and I’m glad to be part of this community.

Another community I’m looking forward to visiting again is the wonderful CodeMash community in Sandusky, Ohio. Their next event is in January and I’ll be presenting two sessions. The speaker list looks really awesome, not two mention three tremendous keynoters.

Here’s my two sessions:

Modern Web Applications with .NET- To be honest, I’m not even sure what that means. The submission page for sessions had a really small character limit for title and this is what I came up with after 4-5 tries. Basically, we’ll be talking about what is coming in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 for web developers.

Managed Extensibility Framework – This is one is a little more straight forward.  In this session, I’ll introduce the audience to the Managed Extensibility Framework coming in the .NET Framework 4.0. We’ll look at how its used to extend Visual Studio 2010 and how it can be leveraged in your own applications.

Also, I’m setting up 14 computers while I’m there to allow attendees to go through the hands-on-labs in our Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit and get some experience with the next version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework.