Microsoft Releases Visual Studio “14” CTP 3 Early Build of .NET Framework vNext

Microsoft has released Visual Studio “14” CTP 3 and an early build of the .NET Framework vNext. This CTP includes all the Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 web tooling improvement and ASP.NET vNext alpha 3 runtime packages. 

It has improved tooling support for ASP.NET vNext, such as support for build configuration and support for unit tests, and it no longer includes content and compile items inside “.kproj” file. ASP.NET vNext includes an updated version of the RyuJIT JIT compiler.

.NET Native is now integrated into Visual Studio “14.” It includes initial support for calling WCF services within .NET Native apps and the associated Add Service Reference experience in Visual Studio.

In CTP 3 developers can now see how long code took to execute as they hit breakpoints and step through code with the debugger. Simply look at the end of the current line when stopped in the debugger to see the performance tooltip. 

Microsoft continues to enhance its C/C++ standard conformance support in addition to overall C++ user productivity improvements. In the standards area, the compiler now supports the thread_local storage specifier, which allows objects to be stored separately for each thread. In the productivity area, Light Bulbs replace Smart Tags to show fixes to issues. Light Bulbs are both more discoverable and also offer a preview of the action before taking it. 

In addition, developers can now refactor to convert string literals littered with escape sequences into a more easily-readable raw-string format. Microsoft has also integrated the Rename Symbol extension for Visual Studio 2013 into the product. 

In CTP 2 the company introduced Custom Layouts, which enable the abilityto save and apply tool window layout customizations. In CTP 3 Visual Studio will now roam these customizations across machines that have CTP 3 installed if signed into the IDE with the same account.

With CTP 3, developers can create an empty C#, VB, and JavaScript shared project from the “File > New Project” menu. Windows Store/Phone Projects written in C#/VB/JavaScript, as well as some classic desktop projects (Console Application, Class Library, Windows Form Application, Portable Class Library, WPF) written in C#/VB can consume one or many of these shared projects.

In this CTP, Visual Studio supports high resolution icons in command bars, tool window toolbars (standard) and main menus when running above 100% DPI scaling.