XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2

This post is the home page for XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2.  Please post all comments and suggestions for this version on this post.

XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 has all the same features as XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2008 except as noted below.  Please use the XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2008 page as a reference for how the the features work.  Please download this version of the software below.

During development of XAML Power Toys for Beta2 I ran into some bugs that are being corrected for the final release of Visual Studio 2010.  As a result I had to cut a few features for this release.

The below image displays the menu for XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2.  Users of the 2008 version will notice the “Group Into” submenu is gone; the “Tools” submenu is gone and that “Create ViewModel for Class” is displayed in the this submenu but it shouldn’t.

The bottom line is, submenus are broken in Beta2 and there is no known workaround.

Notice I have moved “Set Control Defaults” and “About” features from the “Tools” submenu to this submenu.

The other grayed out menu options are not enabled because no XAML was selected when the screen shot was taken.  All features on this menu work as advertised.  “Create ViewModel for Class” just displays here in error and will never be enabled.  It does work correctly in the C# and VB.NET Code Windows.

The good news is, the above software has been updated and works great in Visual Studio 2010 Beta2.

When the final release of Visual Studio 2010 is public I will release a new version without these limitations.

Downloads – Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 ONLY

Remember – Please build your projects before attempting to create forms, ViewModels or using the Field List.

Please set your Control Defaults after installing, new options have been added.

Download now comes from my Windows Live Sky Drive.

Download XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 v5.1.0001 Release Installer (809 KB)

Download XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 v5.1.0001 Source Code not required (594 KB)

Alternate Download Site

Some corporate firewalls do not allow access to Windows Live Sky Drive.  You can download the installer here.  Remember to rename the file from .doc to .zip.  This is a requirement of WordPress.

Download XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 v5.1.0001 Release Installer (809 KB)

Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 Known Issues

The below issues are known, being worked on and will be fixed for the RC/RTM milestone.

1.  Can’t Add Menu inside an AddIn

This problem was first reported on MS Connect. 

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=462766&wa=wsignin1.0

(Click on image for a full size view.)

The workaround for this bug is to set the “Embod Interop Types” property to False for the “Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommandBars 8.0 Reference”

2.  Submenus keep repeating

When adding a submenu to a menu you have added in an AddIn, the submenus will repeat the entire menu tree instead of just showing the submenu items.

This is why I had to remove the “Group Into” submenu and features.  The submenus were simply unusable.

3.  Setup project “Client Framework” problems

When I first compiled the Setup project for this release, upon installation I kept getting a message that I had to install the .NET 4.0 Framework.  Obviously the full .NET framework was installed on the machine.

The only way I could get the message to not show up when running the Setup.exe, was to remove all references to the “Client Framework” within the solution.

Remember, in Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 all WPF and Class Library projects will by default target the “.NET 4.0 Client Framework.”  This is a good thing as it makes application distribution and installation easier for customers of your applications.

However, in this Beta2 release, to get the files to install from the output of the Setup project I had to remove all references to the “Client Framework.”

Close

Hope you use and enjoy XAML Power Toys for Visual Studio 2010 Beta2.

Have a great day,

Just a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.