Web Tools Enhancement in Visual Studio 2013 RC

Introduction

Microsoft released the latest version of Visual Studio 2013 named Visual Studio 2013 RC. There are various new features announced with this release of Visual Studio. I have described some features in my previous article, please go there and have a look.

In that context, here in this article I am describing some new enhancements of features in the previous version of Visual Studio named Visual Studio 2013 Preview.

  • HTML Editing
  • JavaScript References
  • Knockout
  • Razor Editing
  • Un-minify
  • CSS Hacks

HTML Editing

The HTML Editor is improved in this version. Now you can get the IntelliSense of your CSS Class in the HTML file. The CSS Class IntelliSense was not present in the Preview release.

HtmlEditor-in-RC2013.jpg

In Visual Studio RC version, all available CSS files and id attributers are accessible in the HTML files. In cases where ID selectors are declared in CSS (such as #maniform), unused ID selectors are available in value IntelliSense for id attributes. The WebForms files or aspx files do not take assistance of this utilization in Visual Studio 2013. It may be resolved in the next release.

JavaScript References

In the Visual Studio 2012, the web project template like MVC there is _references.js file available in the Scripts folder have the reference of the JavaScipt file in the comments form like:

SolutionExplorer.jpg

/// <reference path="modernizr-2.6.2.js" />

You can see the comments in the preceding reference, that are used by the JavaScript Language to develop the IntelliSense in JavaScript files. In RC, there is a new functionality used in this file:

/// <autosync enabled="true" />

In the RC version of Visual Studio, now you can add the JavaScript references manually. Just open the _references.js file and right-click in it and you can see the following image that is used to update the reference and set the autosync to false.

JavaScriptReference-in-RC2013.jpg

Knockout

The IntelliSense that is used for Knockout was not present in the Preview release, but there is an enhancement done in the RC release. Now you can get the benefit of Knockout IntelliSense in the Visual Studio RC 2013. You can have a look for the IntelliSense of Knockout in here.

Razor Editing

As you know, there are various enhancements done with the features in this release and one of them is the Razor enhancement. Now in the RC release you can correct the format of your Razor pages in either of two modes and one of them is Keep tabs.

RazorEditing-in-RC2013.jpg

Only the Insert spaces mode was available in the previous version of Visual Studio.

Un-minify

This option is present in the RC release. You can find it by right-clicking in your HTML file. When you click on this option, nothing happens. It is included in this release to ensure that the localization process was completed for all shipping languages. In the RTM this will expand the minified HTML files.

minify.jpg

CSS Hacks

There is a validation used in the Visual Studio 2012 for the CSS Hacks. There are many hacks resolved with the validation used in the Visual Studio 2012 but developers are encoutering the problem with the unsolved hack named \9 hack. The following declaration was not handled:

float: none\9

The flagged shows as an illegal value in the Visual Studio 2013 Preview. It is now validated as an intentional CSS construct.

Summary

This article will help you to see the latest enhancements with the previous features released with the previous version of Visual Studio. There are still more treasures hidden in the RC and I'll communicate them to you in future articles. Thanks for reading.

Further Reading

Introducing New Features of Visual Studio 2013 RC: Part 2