SharePoint Tools in Visual Studio 2010

New tools for SharePoint application development are built in to Visual Studio 2010. The tools and templates could make SharePoint application development simpler and more familiar to .NET developers, which will help partners and corporations customize the product.

Building on Windows SharePoint Services Extensions

The VS 2010 features for SharePoint build on the free Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services, also known as VSeWSS.

SharePoint applications are based on ASP.NET 2.0 and the Windows Workflow Foundation, so VS 2008 can be used for SharePoint development even without the extensions for WSS. However, the extensions enhance VS 2008 with development support for SharePoint site functionality, such as specialized Web Parts, lists, content types, and event receivers (custom code that is run when events occur on a site’s server). The extensions for WSS also include a tool that displays the contents of SharePoint Solution package files used to deploy SharePoint sites, and a stand-alone tool that generates a VS solution file from an existing SharePoint site. Version 1.3 of the extensions, which was released in a Community Technology Preview (CTP) version in Mar. 2009 but has not been offered as a final release, is the last upgrade, as SharePoint integration is now built into VS 2010.