Telerik’s DevCraft is Visual Studio 2013 Preview Ready

Background

Microsoft has been talking about Visual Studio vNext for a while, and at the //build conference, a Limited Community Tech Preview (LCTP) was released into the hands of eager developers world wide.  This continues Microsoft’s trend of getting software into the hands of developers extremely early in the release process to get real feedback from real developers.  This is a great process that Microsoft has adopted, and shows their commitment to be more transparent.

Telerik’s Developer Tools Visual Studio Integration

Telerik’s Developer Tools (including not only the User Interface Components but also our productivity tools such as JustCode, JustMock, and JustTrace) have long integrated with Visual Studio, providing the best possible developer experience by combining the power of Visual Studio with an incredible array of additional controls, features and functionality.  We’ve been with you through many version of Visual Studio, and with the latest release of Visual Studio and the 2013 Q2 Service Packs for the software in the DevCraft collection, we are proud to say: 

Telerik’s DevCraft Collection Support for Visual Studio 2013 is Live! 

If you’ve been reading the Telerik blogs, you’ve seen many announcements about how the products contained in DevCraft are Visual Studio 2013 compatible.  Not only that, but there was a significant number of additional features and improvements release in those service packs!  Let me sum up all of the releases for you here.  I’ve included links to release announcement posts so you can get all of the details. 

Individual Product Announcements

ASP.NET AJAX

The 2013 Q2 SP1 for RadControls for ASP.NET Ajax is chock full of web goodness, including increased flexibility for the RadTreeView, a new HighlightFirstMatch property in the SearchBox, support for Telerik’s persistence framework, improvements to the PDF export engine, and over 20 fixes for the RadGrid, including improvements to the batch editing mechanism.

NOTE: At the time of the ASP.NET AJAX Service pack release, there was a bug in Visual Studio in the new Browser Link feature that was causing problems with ASP.NET projects and the RadControls.  The issues have been resolved by Microsoft, but at the time of this post, have not yet been released.  Look for the fixes in the next CTP or Developer Preview of Visual Studio 2013.

JustCode

In addition to VS2013 compatibility, JustCode brought some much sought after features in the latest service pack, including debugging decompiled assemblies without debug headers, additional options and improvements to the Assembly Browser window, quick fixes, and much, much more.  You can read the full details in the JustCode 2013 Q2 SP1 Announcement. 

JustMock

The second service pack for JustMock (the first JustMock service pack focused on compatibility with third party profilers) focused entirely on VS2013 compatibility, as described in the JustMock 2013 Q2 SP2 announcement.

JustTrace

In addition to VS2013 compatibility, JustTrace added the ability to “View Source” from the Memory profiler, a new performance snapshot view that groups methods “By Namespace”, as well as usability improvements throughout the system.  Read the full announcement for the JustTrace 2013 Q2 SP1 release.

JustDecompile

JustDecompile doesn’t integrate with Visual Studio, as it’s a standalone product.  We’ve verified that you can decompile code created by Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1 just as well as you can decompile code created with earlier versions of Visual Studio and the .NET framework.

WPF/Silverlight

2013 Q2 SP1 brought significant updates for the RadControls for WPF and the RadControls for Silverlight. In fact, there’s too many to mention here!  In addition to VS 2013 compatibility, please read all about the 2013 Q2 SP1 Release for WPF and Silverlight.

RadControls for Windows 8 XAML and HTML

The RadControls for Windows 8 (both XAML and HTML) are not only ready for Visual Studio 2013, but also Windows 8.1! You can read the full details here: RadControls for Windows 8 Q2 2013 SP1 – VS13 and Windows 8.1 ready.

Telerik Reporting

Telerik Reporting added a lot of features and improvements in addition to VS2013 compatibility. Enhanced graph interactivity and improved Entity Framework support among others.  For more details, read the full release announcement for Telerik Reporting 2013 Q2 SP1.

RadControls for WinForms

The RadControls for WinForms are not only VS2013 ready, but also shipped the new RadGanttView Beta in the latest service pack.  All of the details are available in the very detailed RadControls for WinForms 2013 Q2 SP1 post.

Windows Phone

All of the RadControls for Windows Phone work in Visual Studio 2013 just as well as Visual Studio 2012. The RadControls for Windows Phone 2013 Q2 SP1 brought major enhancements to the suite, including (but not limited to) adding the Image Editor for Windows Phone 7, inserting a text overlay for the image in the ImageEditor, enhanced data synchronization with the cloud, triple the performance for the SlideView, and a host of additional fixes.

Michael Crump has a very detailed post about Using the RadControls for Windows Phone 8 in Visual Studio 2013 Preview. NOTE: Windows Phone 7 projects in general are not supported in VS2013.  

What’s Missing

CTP means essentially “pre-alpha”, and if there is one thing that is guaranteed, it is the fact that there will be significant changes to VS2013 between now and the final release.  Included in those changes are how the Visual Studio extensions are going to interact with the final version of VS2013.  What does this mean to you?  The templates and the upgrade wizards are not yet available for most of DevCraft in the VS2013 preview.  The reason is simple – instead of trying to hit a moving target, the wicked smart engineers building the RadControls are using that time to add even more features into the product lines so that you can continue to deliver more than expected.

Summary

As you can tell, there is a lot of support for Visual Studio 2013, .NET 4.5.1, and Windows 8.1 already built into the tools in the DevCraft collection already.  You can plug the RadControls right into your projects and code as efficiently as ever with the Just family of productivity tools.  And rest assured, by the time Visual Studio 2013 is nearing completion and stabilization, all of the features you have come to expect and enjoy will be included right out the box, including the templates and new project wizards.

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