Scott Hanselman

Released: ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 in Context

February 18, 2013 Comment on this post [87] Posted in ASP.NET | ASP.NET MVC | ASP.NET Web API | VS2012
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One ASP.NETLast year the ASP.NET team started talking about something we're calling "One ASP.NET." I showed some mockups of our ideas last summer at the aspConf Keynote that you can watch online.

We also announced then that we would add new features to ASP.NET as out of band releases (OOB) without breaking existing functionality. This means that developers don't have to wait for the next version of Visual Studio for great web development features today. We're aiming to add to ASP.NET and Web Tools every 6 months.

For those that don't want to wait, Mads and the team also started a feature playground called Web Essentials. This is an extension to Visual Studio that updates all the time with ideas and brainstorms about how VS can be an even better editor for the web. As features "graduate" from Web Essentials, they move into ASP.NET and Web Tools proper. A bunch of features graduate with today's release.

Today we announced ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2. You can use the Web Platform Installer to get ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 now.

Get it with the Online Installer:

Get ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 with Web Platform Installer

OR use the Offline Installers:

1. Get the ASP.NET 2012.2 pieces then get one of these

2. Web Tools 2012.2 for any regular Visual Studio 2012 or  Web Tools 2012.2 for Visual Studio Web Express 

Here's some highlights:

Editors

Syntax Highlighting for client side templating languages within the HTML editor like:

  • CoffeeScript
  • Mustache
  • Handlebars
  • JsRender

Other editors get new features as well:

  • Syntax Highlighting, intellisense and validation for LESS files.
  • Intellisense for Knockout.js bindings!
  • CSS Auto Sync - type into the CSS editor while the site running and get live updates in Page Inspector
  • Everyone's favorite "Paste JSON as Class." Copy some JSON into the clipboard, paste and get either C# or VB classes for your JSON to serialize into.

Browsers

Mobile Emulator support adds extensibility hooks so that third-party emulators and unusual browsers can be installed as a VSIX. The installed emulators will show up in the F5 dropdown, so that developers can preview their websites on a variety of devices. Read more about this feature in my entry on the new BrowserStack integration with Visual Studio.

Packages

With today’s release, all of the ASP.NET templates have updated versions of jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Validation, Modernizr, Knockout, and other open source NuGet packages. Your existing projects won't update unless you update them explicitly.

ASP.NET

  • OData support in ASP.NET Web API
  • SignalR included out of the box and fully supported
  • Web Forms now supports Friendly URLs (no more .aspx extension)
  • Web Forms supports device (mobile) specific pages, so product.aspx can also have product.mobile.aspx.
  • Updated Single Page Application template
  • MVC Facebook Application Template
  • Web Sites get the same publishing tools as Web Projects

These are just the highlights. But let me call out one specific feature that gets us closer to one of the main goals for One ASP.NET which is what I call a more level playing field.

Community Project Templates

One of the most significant "under the hood" changes is the ability to add a project template via a VSIX.

We'll be seeing an update to the Visual Studio Gallery soon that will make it so you can upload your own VSIX files (Visual Studio Extensions) that can be installed (and easily updated) into the ASP.NET MVC File New Project dialog with one click.

It's important to know that we're only halfway there. This is likely not what the final unified One ASP.NET dialog will end up looking like, but it's a start as it's a good place to open up for new templates.

Phrased differently, project templates should be as easy to share as NuGet packages. That's a goal.

Another goal is to be able to take an example project that looks the way you want, with the NuGet packages setup as you like them, then "Save As | Project Template" then publish the resulting template/VSIX to the gallery. That means projects like NancyFX, or FubuMvc or whatever you can think of can live next to out of the box templates.

Here's the initial documentation on how you can create VSIXs of project templates, get in this dialog and make it easy to spread your vision of a great web app. We are working to make this process fewer steps and unify things, but this works great now with VS2012.2 so you can get started today. Stay tuned for more on this.

In the near future we'd like to see the community sharing project templates that look the way the community wants them to look, living side by side with templates from Microsoft.

The fully populated ASP.NET MVC 4 New Project dialog has many new templates

As start, we're announcing four Single Page Application (SPA) templates you can install now. Please note that these community templates could be anything, the VSIX hooks are wide open, it's just that the first few happen to be SPA templates.

And, a clever play on words from John Papa (because what do you get in a SPA?)

  • HotTowel - a more complex template that includes knockout, bootstrap, sammy, toastr, q, momentjs, breeze and puts them all together into one SPA example.

Note how nice the HTML editor looks when working on an Ember project, for example. We've got syntax highlighting, HTML5 Intellisense and coloring in our Mustache templates.

Mustache template syntax highlighting

Remember, you'll need the 2012.2 release to see these new templates, so use Web Platform Installer to get ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 now. And, if you want check out our future playground features like Zen Coding, CoffeeScript and lots more, also pick up Web Essentials. Note that Web Essentials is a small extension and if it causes you any trouble you can just disable it.

Should you fear this release?

ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 doesn't change any GAC'ed (Global Assembly Cache) files. It won't mess up your install of ASP.NET or change any existing projects. It's changes are either tooling within Visual Studio, or additions and improvements via local NuGet packages.

Go get it. ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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February 18, 2013 22:48
Now that's awesome. Thanks Scott

Cheers
February 18, 2013 22:52
Awesome news!
February 18, 2013 23:04
Is this different than the one I already installed about a month ago from: ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2
? Possibly was the previous download from that link a RC version and I need to uninstall and reinstall or something for this version?
February 18, 2013 23:05
There's some great stuff in here. Gratz to the SignalR chaps for getting to version 1, I've been dying to use it in some projects but I get nasty looks when I chuck beta versions of stuff in production apps :)

One question, with Mads taking the LESS/CoffeeScript editors out of Web Essentials, does the new tooling in VS2012.2 replicate that functionality? (preview window, compile to .css and .min.css)

I just sold my team on using LESS based on the awesome support in WE. It would be a shame to lose that experience.
February 18, 2013 23:10
Allen - Yes, you have the RC. You can just install this over the top and it will upgrade.

Nick - We move stuff out of Web Essentials and then into 2012.2. Nothing is lost, it's graduated from being a "labs" feature to being official. The LESS support is now a fundamental part of ASP.NET and Web Tools.
February 18, 2013 23:24
** high fives all around **

:D
February 18, 2013 23:25
what is the difference between webforms and razor 3? performance? thanks!
February 18, 2013 23:25
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i am a big fan of your site it means also you.
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February 18, 2013 23:26
Awesome!

Anyone have instructions on how to get off of the nightlies and onto the final stuff?
February 18, 2013 23:48
And here's extra Hugs (to Scott) for linking to installer directly >:D<

Just in time for my SignalR experiments to contain the RTW thing :).

Thanks ASP.NET Team!

Rock on!
February 18, 2013 23:58
Well, that was fun!

Running the download you've linked to failed, with the suggestion that I should log on as an administrator, despite the fact that I *am* an administrator, and was running the install elevated.

Starting WebPI elevated and installing from there entered an infinite loop trying to install "Microsoft Web Tooling 1.2 for Visual Studio 2012 - Base locale - February ..."; I eventually had to cancel the setup.

After digging through several 10Mb+ log files, I found that the installer was unable to access the directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Web Tools\". Trying to access the directory in Windows Explorer resulted in several "Access denied" errors, and I couldn't even take ownership. This usually indicates that the directory is pending deletion, but something still has an open handle to it.

Eventually, by using the "close handle" feature from Process Explorer, I was able to close the two handles to this directory which Windows Explorer had opened, and the directory disappeared. The install then worked as expected.

So much for the "easy" install offered by the Web Platform Installer. It's a good job we're not expecting end-users to install this update!
February 19, 2013 0:07
On top of the problems installing this update, my SQLCLR projects which previously loaded in VS2012 are now demanding a one-way upgrade!

So much for "It won't ... change any existing projects"! >:(
February 19, 2013 0:09
Oh my gosh, I love the paste-json-receive-C#-feature! It makes lives so much easier.
Also, knockout.js support is awesome. Thanks for the early look into 2012.2 :)
February 19, 2013 0:33
Wow, it is amazingggggggggggggg.
LING LIVE MICROSOFt
February 19, 2013 0:38
Great! Thx
February 19, 2013 2:02
Just installed update and Breeze SPA template. When creating new project based on Breeze SPA project I get load of errors about missing DLL-s in some Visual Studio folders + ASP.NET related DLL-s.
February 19, 2013 2:06
After installing Update 2, my VS2012 still says Update 1 in the About screen and cannot find the SignalR project template under Web project
Vue
February 19, 2013 2:11
Okay, it's nothing fatal. You have to add manually WebAPI related NuGet packages like tracing and OData to project and then it suddenly starts working.
February 19, 2013 2:25
Gunnar - I'll talk to Ward Bell, the community member who made the Breeze VSIX.

Vue - VS itself will get an Update 2 (for non ASP.NET stuff) in a few months, then that will update. Scroll down in that dialog to see Web Tools.

Also, Vue, SignalR is an ITEM template that you add to an existing project. You can also make an empty project, then install-package Microsoft.AspNet.Signalr.Sample.
February 19, 2013 2:30
Thanks! All other SPA templates installed with no problem.

As I see then most useful ones for wider audience from these for templates are Ember and Breeze as they can be compared with OOB SPA template (same thing, different implementation).

Durandal has simple example about showing images from Thumblr and now let's wait major upgrade to his template by John Papa. There were cool message boxes with fade effects but I would like to see some data moving too.
February 19, 2013 6:22
Hello,

I tried the download link but Web PI 4.5 couldn't find it :(
February 19, 2013 6:43
Im surprised at the lack of syntax highlighting for underscore.js templates? (even though it can use mustache syntax, it doesnt out of the box)

And no love for Backbone.js either?

But otherwise, awesome update!!
February 19, 2013 7:07
The support for Ember.js is awesome. Hopefully it will help this awesome framework catch on more in the .NET space.
February 19, 2013 7:38
Thats awesome. Any chance of including BackboneJs with underscore?
February 19, 2013 8:56
Another install failure here. WebPI in an infinite upgrade loop which when cancelled cannot find the 2012.2 Web Tools package.

Any chance of the actual MSI direct link?
February 19, 2013 12:37
Have you also thought about a way to update a template on an already existing project?

Where I work we have several applications that use a common template, and we are using a NuGet package to distribute the common parts (like custom web controls and the master page). This allows us to update all the existing applications when, for example, we need to change something in the master page.

This project templates feature looks very interesting, it would be great to have "update template" support in it.

By the way, I'll try it out as soon as possible :)

Thanks,
Paolo
February 19, 2013 13:00
Great, 5 minute installation on two development pc, worked like a charm.

A warning: i tend to watch images and read later (wrong ? wrong, i know), i kept searching for Durandal template, only finding ten minutes later that i had to manually install them.

Which is perfect, but i saw them in the photo and i wanted it :)

Cheers and thanks for the wonderful support.
February 19, 2013 13:21
Question RE Friendly URLs: How would you recommend transitioning file and folder access restrictions in web.config files? (eg. path="Accout.aspx" deny="?") Is there an easy way to just apply the same permissions in the web.config files to their extensionless counterpart?

Is this an all or nothing scenario, where I need to just update all my links/hrefs site-wide to the friendly, extensionless URLs, and update the paths in all of the web.configs?

The only information I could find on this was an MSDN article from 2009. Any additional info / insight would be much appreciated.
February 19, 2013 14:58
Awesome when u use ember.js
But, how can I change the color of the handlebars-expressions in the dark theme? I've some problems to see colors, and i cant see anything with that color.
All other colors of the dark theme are great!
February 19, 2013 15:31
Hi Scott,

I like the new intellisense for Knockout bindings. But this only works when I have a script tag in my HTML page referencing the Knockout lib.
I load Knockout via RequireJS, so I don't have a script tag, so how do I enable intellisense in my case?

Kind regards,

Maarten Docter
February 19, 2013 16:57
Can't giving it all a try... Especially BreezeJS, CoffeeScript and Mustache.
February 19, 2013 16:57
I mean't "Can't WAIT to give it a try..."
February 19, 2013 18:44
How's it looking for the Git-support?

Right now the previously linked to Git-integration only supports Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP.
February 19, 2013 19:26
I'm a little concerned that the LESS editor has already been folded into this release. The most recent iteration of it in Web Essentials still had some fairly serious bugs.

Does this mean Mads and team will not be able to fix it via Web Essentials and we'll have to wait for the next cycle of the ASP .NET tooling?
Sam
February 19, 2013 20:43
@Matthew - Friendly URLs honors the authorization settings in your web.config files, so you shouldn't need to change them. You can also enable automatic redirect so that users are automatically redirected to the nice URLs if they hit a .aspx link directly (it's a property on the settings object you pass into the EnableFriendlyUrls() extension method).
February 19, 2013 21:18
Does OData now support expands?
February 19, 2013 21:26
I had an infinite "Upgrade to 4.5 loop" upon clicking the above link to download (I deleted all the temp files, uninstalled/reinstalled, no lock) until I clicked the link *while* WebPI 4.0 was open. When I did that, it installed 4.5, and I was able to download the updated tools. Something needs to be fixed...
February 19, 2013 22:04
Question about the "One ASP.NET" thing- is WCF part of this, or completely separate?

Not to threadjack, but is WCF not getting much press because Web API/SignalR is the direction MS is moving towards, services-wise?
February 19, 2013 22:28
You might want to give somebody on the WebPI team a nudge, the https://www.microsoft.com/web/webpi/4.5/webproductlist.xml is poorly formatted (Line 42134, position 81) and causes the installer to fail.
February 19, 2013 22:28
When i try to run WPI now, i get

---------------------------
Microsoft Web Platform Installer
---------------------------
An error occurred while parsing EntityName. Line 42134, position 81.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

I wonder if this is because I'm using Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 CTP to try the Git support
February 19, 2013 22:35
I was able to get it to work by running WPI directly from C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer and choosing the package in there.
February 20, 2013 0:02
@Jason,
Underscore is on our radar, but we do have a few issues with it since it uses the same syntax as WebForms code nuggets. That will produce runtime errors when used on .aspx pages. However, we are looking into supporting it for non-WebForms file types.

We're planning backbone support as well.

@Lukas Kohler
If you don't like the colors of the Mustache/Handlebar syntax highligting, you can change them in Tools -> Options. There are 3 colors you can set and they all start with "HTML Client..." in the Fonts and Colors settings page.

@Maarten Docter
VS needs a reference to your .js files containing the Knockout view models. You can add a reference by opening the /scripts/_references.js file and drag your .js files onto it to generate ///&lt;reference tags. If you don't have a _reference.js file, you can just create one and VS will automatically pick it up.

@Sam
Most of the errors in the LESS editor have been fixed in the Web Tools 2012.2 download. Some of the errors that wasn't fixed can't be fixed through Web Essentials anyway, since it requires changes to the in-band CSS parser. Don't worry, the next Web Tools update is not that far away :)
February 20, 2013 2:34
Looks awesome Scott!

Thanks.
February 20, 2013 3:27
@Damian Thanks for the reply! Not having any luck with it being that easy: I have a web.config in the Account folder, with <allow users="*" /> on specific files (such as Register and Login. And I have <deny users="?" /> on the folder. When trying to anonymously access a FriendlyURL (eg. /Account/Register), I get taken to the Login page with ReturnUrl=/Account/Register. If I anonymously access /Account/Register.aspx, I can view it just fine.

Any suggestions?
February 20, 2013 3:48
Standalone / offline installer would be awesome to have access to.

Thanks
February 20, 2013 5:45
yey!finally got it installed...gonna check it out and demo to my team ..

Great work!
February 20, 2013 7:15
Is there an offline installer?
February 20, 2013 11:15
Offline installer coming this week. ASAP.
February 20, 2013 15:56
Thanks for the cool update Scott. I've watched the ASP.NET features and support grow immensely over the last few years. Speaking of years, I'm an ole-school Windows Forms developer having to update our corporate Intranet (which is about 5 years old, DotNetNuke). Getting back into the web arena seems a bit intimidating with all the new frameworks but it seems to be well supported thru MVC and even WebForms. We've built so many custom modules for the existing DotNetNuke site but it's far behind from newer technologies we would like to implement. Would you recommend an Intranet site built on MVC versus WebForms? I know that's a loaded question but any "pointing" in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for all you do in our programming community Scott.
February 21, 2013 0:51
<input data-bind="value: FirstName">

KnockoutJS intellisense for the above works great while this MVC razor call doesn't work at all:

@Html.TextboxFor(m=>m.FirstName, new { data_bind="value: FirstName"})


Nor this one does work:
@Html.EditorFor(m => m.FirstName, new { HtmlAttributes = new { data_bind="value: FirstName } })

Can you please add it too?
February 21, 2013 2:28
Also there is no intellisense for $data or $parent
Are they not implemented at all?
February 21, 2013 10:14
Any idea on the state of play of syntax highlighting for html withing script blocks. The Link below suggests it should be in this release?

http://webessentials.uservoice.com/forums/140520-general/suggestions/3588819-provide-syntax-highlighting-for-html-within-templa
February 21, 2013 14:11
Is there any change since rc?
nk
February 21, 2013 15:18
Please ignore my last comment, i cannot explain why but it is now showing correct syntax highlighting for html within script blocks. It wasn't working previously, and i did restart VS after installation, the only difference now is i have rebooted my machine. Crazy. Apologies.

Tim
February 21, 2013 19:16
Love the way Visual Studio starts supporting the varied and popular open source libraries like HandleBars, Mustache, Ember.js etc.

Good times to be a web developer with an MS technology stack inclination, I guess !
February 22, 2013 19:42
I'm not sure if it is me but every single machine I have installed this update on (4 different machines) seems to show no difference.

There are no new templates etc. However if I go to Web platform installer it insists I have it.

Is there a way to test whether this update is installed in VS2012?
February 22, 2013 21:06
@DotNetWise,

Intellisense for $parent etc. is not included in this first release of the KO Intellisense feature. Expect to see it in a future update.
February 22, 2013 22:00
Hi Scott, I've installed this update and it was successful, the Web Installer says I have 2012.2. But my VS Ultimate still shows up as Update 1. Do you know what might be the cause? Thanks.
Ray
February 22, 2013 23:27
Dear co-developers,

Is there any framework (out of the box) thats support customer CSS-Themes and resource text files?

We have multiple customers and some of them would like to pay for their inhouse design, others need support multiple cultures...
How can we do this with SPA? Is it mature enough? Are there third party frameworks? Or any other thoughs...
Will there be a template to get an example application to demonstrate this?

Greatings from the Netherlands!

Rolf de Vries
February 25, 2013 6:44
Gunnar - The Hot Towel template is intentionally a baseline template. I created it so that you can build from it without removing much at all. Some of the other templates are more like samples (the Breeze one, for example). They are still quite valuable, but I created HotTowel because I felt we needed a baseline template that people could go to once they were ready to build, and the other templates did not do that, IMO.

However - if there is strong interest in another template that is a more thorough sample using HotTowel, I will create it. Perhaps at the same time as my new intro course on SPA at Pluralsight (March).

February 25, 2013 23:24
> We're aiming to add to ASP.NET and Web Tools every 6 months.
> A bunch of features graduate with today's release.

IMHO switching from a ~15-day release cycle to a 6-month release cycle sounds more like 'retirement' than 'graduation'. i guess it depends who you ask.
February 26, 2013 1:39
Great,
thanks
Sam
February 26, 2013 2:35
The Web Tool stuff is Update 2, but the larger Visual Studio is still Update 1 for a few months. When VS2012.2 is final, they'll be bundled together.
February 27, 2013 4:54
Thanks Scott, I think I got it straight. I think the naming conventions are a bit confusing for this release. As far as I can tell "Web Tools Extensions 2012.2" update installs Web Developer Tools 1.2 on Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 as long as asp.net 2012.2 Web Tools is installed (which is labeled "Microsoft ASP.NET and Web Frameworks 2012.2" in add or remove programs).
March 01, 2013 6:06
Hi Scott
Recently I receive lots of feedback about the installation of ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2, but I'm not sure what's the root of this problem, you could refer relevant issues from the links below in our asp.net forum, hope for your help,
http://forums.asp.net/p/1884784/5318025.aspx/1?p=True&t=634976817590380160
http://forums.asp.net/t/1885029.aspx/1?ASP+NET+2012+2+Missing+Templates
With best regards
Angie xu
March 02, 2013 0:04
I really like the Web Developer Tools and Web Extensions to VS2012.

I found that the knockout intellisense and razor seem to clash on CSHtml pages, in particular with things like attr: { or any other binding that involves curly braces.

If I use data-bind="attr: {id : 'test' }", that's fine.
But if I use data-bind="attr: {id: '@Html.IdFor(m=>m.Id)'}", it causes an "Unterminated string constant" issue and the autoformat adds spaces after the razor syntax - which prevents any use of autoformatting in the documents.

Is there a way to turn this feature off / report the bug?
PM
March 04, 2013 19:39
There's a bug with document formatting. When doing it (Ctrl+K/Ctrl+D) the cursor jumps at EOF.
gio
March 05, 2013 22:29
Hi Scott,

So far no one talked about Visual Studio 2012 Express for Web updating Web Tools 2012.2 yet, here it goes…

I've installed it via your Web Tools 2012.2 for Visual Studio Web Express, the installation were successfully, but it seems only installed:
MS Web Developer Tools 2012.2 - VS Express 2012 for Web

I don't see any extra templates, updated versions of jQuery etc. Only seeing changes FROM Web Developer Tools 1.0.30710.0 TO 1.2.40208.0
Does it suppose this way for VS 2012 Express for Web?

I can't install it via WPI, got infinite loop(first I tried regular version)! I guess I must only use the Express link for VS Express?

BTW, in the same machine, I have VS 2010 Premium with Web Essential(Web Standards Update), and Visual Studio 2012 Express for Web.

Problem/Question is - I don't get the Web Tools 2012.2 for my VS 2012 Express whatever I did.

Any help appreciated!

Thanks!


March 06, 2013 0:02
This Standalone installers finally works for Visual Studio 2012 Express for Web!

Microsoft ASP.NET and Web Frameworks 2012.2
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/5/6/6562AFBE-9503-4E64-970C-1427133FCD73/AspNetWebTools2012Setup.exe

Thanks!
March 06, 2013 1:29
How can I generate css from less files, and js from coffe files ? Web Essentials allowed for this, but i cannot find how to do this with ASP.NET WT 2012 update
March 07, 2013 22:59
I had LESS configured as to how and where to compile as css, but I cannot find those settings with the move to Web Tools 2012.2. Not in Tools/Options that I can see. Is there any documentation for LESS?
thx.
March 08, 2013 0:08
What if you go to the QuickSearch box (upper right corner) and type "less"?
March 08, 2013 1:32
thx Scott.

It seems that the Web Essentials configuration settings still allow you to change how Web Tools outputs LESS, ex minified, in a /css directory, etc. If it works, i guess I shouldn't complain.

One missing feature is that a file that contains an include will not recompile if the include is saved. Use Winless http://winless.org if you need that functionality.

Or did I miss that in Web Tools?
March 13, 2013 20:35
Great news on easier web site publishing -- we can now merge all outputs to a single assembly as we did with VS2010 Web Deployment projects. BUT: the new feature appears to ignore the app_code/assemblyinfo file (dll version is always 1.0.0.0, no copyright or other info from that file). Is there a trick to gettting the merged dll to pickup the assemblyinfo settings?

thx -- john
March 25, 2013 16:06
Now, since Web Essensials are a great addidion to VS2012, I want to share a thought of how you can make it even better!

In order to further extend `VS2012 Javascript Intellisense` I have created this project on Github https://github.com/dotnetwise/VS2012-Javascript-Intellisense

Package also on Nuget https://nuget.org/packages/VS2012-Javascript-Intellisense/

This enables more icons to your javascript code members e.g `namespace`, `class`, `enum`, `interface`, fields by their type and even showing which methods come from `function's prototype` and even common shared from `Object.prototype`!
March 25, 2013 16:10
Oh, I can't edit these comments!

GitHub link for the above VS2012 Javascript Intellisense
And Nuget link
March 25, 2013 22:23
For the offline installer the /layout switch fails to download the update because it doesn't detect the product on the machine I'm using for download. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of offline install? My development environment is Server 2008 R2 with no internet access on that box. I was able to download the Visual Studio 2012.1 update with the /layout switch, but no dice for the ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2?
March 28, 2013 6:37
Is there a place to direct random feature/enhancement requests about the tools? (LESS support to be specific.) I (ab)use the scoping rules of LESS for the following setup:

Site_Themed.less
@import "ThemeColors.less";
@import "Site.less";

ThemeColors.less
@foreground: red;

Site.less
body { color: @foreground; }


That is, Site.less uses variables defined in a file that it doesn't import itself, but that are in scope everytime it's processed. I have multiple theme files that define the colours differently, and a wrapper for each to generate the actual CSS I use. Unfortunately, the editor don't really know how to resolve these variables and thus complains about every use. It'd be nice if there was a way to cluebat VS into looking for variable definitions in an arbitrary other file, using something similar to /// <reference ...> that Javascript IntelliSense files have.
April 08, 2013 19:51
I added this as a suggestion to the Web essentials forum, but in case I missed it, is there any way to control where .js and .css files are output that are generated from TypeScript/CoffeeScript & LESS?
June 21, 2013 0:43
Very helpful, Scott, thanks. Why is it that SignalR shows as an item template only after installing the .Sample?
June 23, 2013 15:55
Thanks
June 26, 2013 13:45
Is this also included in Visual Studio Update 2?

Sooo confusing, I thought you guys (Microsoft) were going to do easier to understand product naming?
June 26, 2013 23:48
Mike - Visual Studio 2012.2 and "update 2" are the same thing.
July 24, 2013 13:13
Any support for BackboneJS or Underscore?
July 25, 2013 3:35
I installed v2012.2.1 at both work and at home and I still don't see the new project templates.

The HTML Editor looks absolutely horrible in Dark Theme as well.
July 25, 2013 16:49
There is several issues with the Less & Templating support, where is the best place for me to submit the bugs?
September 12, 2013 12:20
Nice Article !!

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.