New Visual Studio Extensions for the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC

As you may already know we officially released the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Q2 2010. In addition to all the new features with this new release we shipped the Telerik MVC Visual Studio Extensions. With the aid of the VS Extensions you will find it really easy to create new Telerik MVC project, convert an existing project to a Telerik one, configure and upgrade your project to a newer version of the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. With the release of MVC VS Extensions the VSXTeam@Telerik achieved one bigger goal – we now support VS Extensions for all Telerik UI Components! This in turn means that users benefit the same user experience when they integrate our UI components into their projects :).

I will now give you some more details on how to use the VS Extensions and what they can do for you.

Create New Project

Let’s start with the creation of a new Telerik Project - you will find our project templates in the standard New Project dialog:

When you choose one of the project templates the New Project Wizard gets started. It has two pages: one for project wide options and one for Master Page options.

On the first page you can choose:

· which version of the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC to use;

· whether you want a test project to be included;

· specify if you want to use CDN support;

· set if you want the Telerik GlobalResources and Editor Templates copied to the new project;

On the second page you can specify some options for your master page:

· select the skin to be used in the master page;

· specify if the embedded jQuery would be used;

· set the master page to use combined and compressed scripts and style sheets;

Once you click finish you will have new Telerik MVC project configured to use the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC.

Convert Existing Project

If you have an existing ASP.NET MVC project that doesn’t use the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC then you can easily convert it to a Telerik one using a similar wizard. It is launched either through the Telerik menu, or through the context menu of the project.

Now that you have a project using the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC you have two new project modification options:

· Reconfigure the settings in your project;

· Upgrade the version of the Telerik Extensions used by your project;

You can find both commands in the same context menu as in the example above.

Configure Project

The Configure Project Wizard is again similar to the Create New Project Wizard and Convert Wizards. We have one nice feature that is common for the Convert Wizard and the Configure Wizard. It is related to the master page configuration options. When you convert or configure your project and you don’t have a master page the wizard suggests you to create one for you. When you choose to create one you are again able to configure all master page options.

Upgrade Project

The last thing I want to show you is the Upgrade Wizard. If you want to upgrade your project to a newer version of the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC then the easiest and the fastest way is using the Upgrade Wizard. You can either browse to a new distribution of your choice, or you can download it automatically (if you have a Developer license). As a next step you can choose whether you want a backup of your project.

If you are a Visual Studio 2010 user stay tuned since the MVC VS Extensions will be shortly available for download through the Visual Studio Online Gallery. Until then you can download the MSI installer from your client account on the Telerik web site.

As always, your feedback is more than welcome.

Regards,