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Best features in Visual Studio 2008 (and VSTS)?

Visual Studio has certainly gone from strength to strength with humble Visual Studio 6 (and previous versions). Looks like Visual Studio 2010 is much more appropriate (based on blogs, PDC and more recent CTP VMs).

The recent Service Pack 1 seems to have introduced some really intriguing new functionality and improvements.

Like in Visual Studio 2008 (SP 1) today, what do you think is the most outstanding cann't-live-without-it feature in Visual Studio (including Team Suite versions)? Is this what you use on a daily basis?

Alternatively, what features in Visual Studio 2008 can actually use update / makeover / bugfix?

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IntelliSense



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Most of everything that has been posted so far has been in Visual Studio for a fair time. My favorite new feature:

Refactoring



The best features, although not in Visual Studio, are best in Resharper !

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  • Testing modules. While I would use xUnit.NET or NUnit, the fact that it's in a Pro product is a big deal.
  • Cyclomatic complexity. Indeed, many of the code analysis features are really interesting.
  • Profiling - being able to see things like how long your objects are spending across different generations can be very helpful
  • DBPro is amazing. I only want it to work on things other than SQL Server
  • Performance Wizard.
  • Refactoring. As someone else pointed out, it doesn't hit things like Resharper, but still better.
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Intellisense.

Edit-A-Continue.

Immediate window.

Watch the windows.

Ability to drag the small yellow "next instruction" arrow to an arbitrary position for the next command.

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  • Intellisense
  • Watch Windows
  • Themes window (not available for express editions)
  • Immed (for checking stuff on the fly)
  • Conditional Debugging (not available for Express Editions)
  • Go to definition / Search for use
  • extensibility
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The best thing for me about VS 2008 is that tools like VS.PHP can build on this. So you can write a PHP website inside VS with all these goodies like intellisense and so on.

And the worst feature is the DataSet designer, which is "by design" full of bugs and other dirty things. It's just a pain in the ass to use it. So - I don't recommend DataSet Designer.

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Blue guidelines to help you line up controls in design mode.

.Net 1.1 is not supported, unfortunately it is needed when I work. Going back to Visual Studio 2003 is painful.

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  • Refactoring
  • Intellisense
  • Automatic formatting
  • Labels:
    • CTRL +.
    • CTRL + ALT + P
    • F10, F11
    • ALT + Enter
    • CTRL + K + C
    • CTRL + K + U
  • Debugging functions:
    • Break before elimination throws
    • Direct window
    • watch windows
  • Testing modules
  • Find in files
  • Profiling
  • Modules window
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If you right-click a tab and click "Open" that contains the folder, it will open the folder in Explorer and select the file.

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As far as VSTS is concerned, I like the following points.

  • Work Items / Bug Tracking
  • Agile Process Support
  • Code analysis rules and registration policies
  • Error related errors / Workitem
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Split view in addition to design and source view. I think VS 2008 is the first version with this feature that allows you to see the design and source horizontally. And if you have two monitors (not all of us), you can split it vertically and have one screen for the source and one for the design. Many other HTML editors have had this feature over the years.

Sometimes when I change focus from original to design, it messes up a small part of my HTML and I don't figure out why yet. This makes me spend more time looking at my pages before loading them.

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The load testing agent in VSTS Test Edition is great.

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IntelliSense is best out there. Compare IntelliSense to JavaDocs and you'll see how good it is.

Regards!

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