Session compression – For out-of-process session maintenance, the session state is compressed using the System.IO.Compression.GZipStream class. It also looks like it will only do this when CPU cycles are available (but I need to investigate this further).  If that’s the case, you might want to set up some Performance indicators or alerts when it’s not being compressed because that might indicate further problems.

Link: <http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet4/default.aspx>

Multi-Targeting – I’ve mentioned this before, but it allows you to specify which .Net version you are writing for in the VS2010 IDE. This expands the support that VS2008 has by adaptively changing  the IDE to the targeted environment. The IDE adjusts its Intellisense and compilation towards the targeted version.  The whitepaper indicates ASP.Net, so I need to test and see if it applies to WPF and WinForm as well. Some features:

• Specified in the .config file, defaults to 4.0 when not specified.
• Compiles the code to the
• Intellisense adapts to the current version of the framework selected

Link: <http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet4/default.aspx>

Link: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/08/27/multi-targeting-support-vs-2010-and-net-4-series.aspx

Script Loading – The AJAX library includes the ability to have better control of script loading in .Net 4.0. It loads the scripts automatically, and in the order needed. From the whitepaper, here’s the features:

·         Automatically loads all resources that are required by a script.

·         Makes sure that each script is loaded only once.

·         Improves performance by loading scripts in parallel and by combining scripts.

·         Supports loading scripts only when they are needed (“lazy loading”).

·         Supports loading third-party scripts like jQuery and your own scripts.

·         Supports loading scripts from the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network

One of the client features is the Sys.require. When a component and a function is provided, the callback function is called when the scripts are done loading.

Link: <http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet4/default.aspx>

jQuery integration – Speaking of jQuery, it’s now included  as part of the ASP.Net Web forms and the MVC project.

Link: <http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet4/default.aspx>

ClientID changes – I am mixed about this one, simply because once In understood how ASP.Net set its clientIDs upon rendering, I could generate my script accordingly  in my code behind.  However, it’s been simplified in VS2010 to allow the user to have control over setting the client IDs. Be forewarned though, this could open you up to naming issues within container controls as such. Regardless, I am always supportive of giving the developer the option of more control. There’s a new property at the configuration file, page and control level called ClientIDMode which has the following settings:

• AutoID – mimics the previous version naming scheme
• Static – This specifies that the ClientID value will be the same as the ID without concatenating the IDs of parent naming containers.
• Predictable – useful for controls which will be generated in template controls
• Inherit – take the setting of the parent control (lots of this in VS2010, which is great, since I have been a champion for UI inheritance and control-centric programming).

Link: <http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet4/default.aspx>

Improved “Add Reference” functionality – Over the past couple of days, I found myself converting a project from VS2005 to VS2008. As a result, I found myself needing to change some references as well as I changed some of the related projects. This change in VS2008 is sort of a “nice to have”. While it’s not a big win, it’s still nice as it can get painful at times changing the references. Here are the changes with this:

• The .Net and COM tabs are loaded asynchronously
• Defaults opening to the project tab (I find myself using this a LOT anyways, but would have preferred this to start at the “Browse” tab, or better, consider this like a MRU action and remember where I was last time)

Link: <http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/10/29/add-reference-dialog-improvements-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx>

UML Support! Visual Studio 2010 will support the creation of UML diagrams via a modeling project. I like Visio and all, but I look forward to being able to create UML diagrams right from the same IDE I develop in. As of now, there’s no code generation support. I do think a clever developer could possible do some code generation from the saved file via CodeSmith or IDE programming, so I bet we’ll see something like that soon if Microsoft doesn’t provide it first. Check out the link below and you can see some of the functionality. 

Link: http://weblogs.asp.net/gunnarpeipman/archive/2009/11/04/visual-studio-2010-uml-modeling-projects.aspx

Although available in v3.5, VS2010/v4 will have the chart control integrated into it. In the past, your options were a third-party control for charting or to use Interop and Excel, or writing your own charting libraries (gulp!).  The link below lists some details on this impressive charting library if you’ve never used it.

Link: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/24/new-asp-net-charting-control-lt-asp-chart-runat-quot-server-quot-gt.aspx

Developers will have more deployment options Web application

Get it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx