Web development in Visual Studio (not ASP.NET) - Is it possible? - visual-studio

I've wondering if it's possible to use visual studio (2013) to develop a HTML5 based website (HTML5-CSS-jQuery-etc), like Dreamweaver (which I hate by the way). Working with MVC Views was so easy because of IntelliSense, so that's why basically asking this. I want make a webpage, but the only option is ASP.NET...
For all those who are going to ask: Yes I've searched about this, but all the tutorials were about ASP.NET

Visual Studio 2012+ offers built-in support for HTML5 as explained in this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj618298.aspx. You can create an empty web site and write your code/markup in it.
For the earlier 2008-2010 versions there is a VS extension:
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/d771cbc8-d60a-40b0-a1d8-f19fc393127d

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Need to port complex GUI interface projects from RAD Studio to Visual Studio

I'm working for a company which maintain several Desktop application projects written in C++. All of these apps have complex GUI interfaces. What I mean by "complex" is, among others, interfaces with many components, deep component hierarchy, usage of frames, third party and/or custom component packages which support features like transparency and animation.
Until now we always used the Embarcadero RAD Studio suite to write and maintain our apps. However the many recurring bugs of each new version has tired my superiors, and now they are considering the possibility to migrate to Visual Studio.
I think that migrate the application core functions written in c++ will not be a real issue.
However for the GUI it's an other story. I had a previous experience with complex interfaces under the Visual Studio 2003 compiler, and I remember that this was a painful work to create and maintain them. There was no real designer, components were limited, and a huge part of the job was to be done manually. From that I took a look on the designing tools provided with Visual Studio 2017, and my first impression is that not much has changed since. The designer for c++ projects is still so rudimentary, especially in comparison to the RAD Studio VCL, with its well-supplied component library. The C# API is closer than what I need, but I cannot envisage to rewrite all my code in C# as a serious option.
I tried to search tutorials about the good practices to apply in a such situation, but until now I found no helpful info.
My questions are:
Can I recover my current GUI interface, at least a part of it, while I migrate to Visual Studio, or do I have to plan to rewrite everything from scratch?
Does Visual Studio provide a mechanism similar to VCL for composing GUI interfaces, installing third parties packages and writing custom components? And if yes, where can I find relevant info about that?
Is a such port possible without a high dose of headache and tears? Where can I found relevant info about a such process?
I am also currently working on a product which is developed using Embarcadero RAD Studio and some 3rd party UI controls. Development was done many years back, so its UI is quite older style. I tried to migrate it in Visual Studio, by developing application logic in C++ and UI in C#(WPF). But it is as good as writing new application, cost is more. So we discontinued that exercise. However what I learned during this is –
Migrating VCL application from RAD Studio to Visual Studio is like writing new application. There is no one-to-one mapping(data types, stuctures, UI controls etc), you have start from scratch. Also there are no tools available which can help this migration.
Some data types, data structures, UI controls are easily available in RAD Studio, which are not available in Visual C++ (MFC), and vice versa. So you have to review every code line while migrating the application logic.
There are no 3rd party UI controls available for Visual C++(MFC) which can make your life easy. For RAD Studio you have LMD tools, businessSkinForms etc.
After working on RAD Studio over 5+ years, Developing UI is quite easy in RAD Studio (UI in C++). However in Visual Studio you can develop your UI in C#(WPF) which will be rich and can communicate with application logic written in C++.
As you said, you have several desktop applications developed with RAD Studio, while migrating to Visual Studio start with smaller and standalone application. So you will get some confidence during migration of this application and then you can put such migrated small application in production one by one without impact.
~Nilesh

using visual studio 2013 ide for other things

I love VS2013 with the Solarized-Dark theme.
I would like to use the IDE to do other tasks, if possible.
I noticed that SQL Server 2014 uses the VS2010 IDE for it's interface.
I realize that might be because they have the source to the IDE - LOL.
I'm just wondering if I can create an add-in, or in some other way USE the VS2013 IDE for other purposes - creating tabs and hosting my own controls in those tabs - and of course modifying the menus.
The rest of the look/feel - I'd like to remain as I think it's superior for any programmer. The custom (ie; NON-Windows7) scrollbars - the tabs - the Solarized theme - are all things I would want to keep.
Any pointers or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I've use VS since it's inception, but never tried to develop add-ins or extend the IDE in any way.
THANKS in advance!
You can find an overview and deep content about Visual Studio Extensibility (VXS) on my web site:
http://www.visualstudioextensibility.com/overview/vs/
You can extend the Visual Studio IDE or reuse the Visual shell for your own purposes. SQL Server uses the Visual Studio Shell, Integrated Mode.

What can WebMatrix do that Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate SP1 beta as an IDE can't?

I am seeing a lot of blog posts lately about WebMatrix. I don't read them because I tell myself "I have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with SP1 beta". The king of IDE's.
Just in case I am not missing on something important, as an IDE, is there anything that WebMatrix can do that VS 2010 can't do or does better?
Presently:
Access to the Application Gallery which I think is quite a nice feature. I like the way I can grab dasBlog or WordPress, do some edits and miscellaneous fiddling around, test then squirt the app up to the server. I think that's a killer feature for both beginners and experienced devs.
There's also task orientated site starter templates that Visual Studio 2010 lacks
Simplicity - with Visual Studio 2010 there's a lot going on in the UI, all sorts of "technical looking" project types. WebMatrix has one project type which is web projects.
If you have been using VS 2010 or even VWD 2010 and haven't been confused by them so far, you are not missing out on anything. WebMatrix is not intended for you. It has been designed to attract beginner developers, or those who know a little PHP or perhaps classic ASP and would like to try out ASP.NET.
It is primarily designed to make developing Razor Web Pages sites easy, with no clutter. No code complete, no Intellisense (well... except for the wrong kind of HTML Intellisense), no debugging, no compilation required (or possible), no wizards. Bare bones. Knuckle deep in HTML tags and inline code...
Actually, if you are anything like me, you are missing out on a lot of fun ;o)
I am not 100% sure that this is not in VS.net, but one thing I use in Webmatrix is the Reports feature that lets you run an analysis against your site to find common issues with the site like SEO and accessibility. I know this can be done using an IIS7 plugin, but not sure if it can be done directly in VS.net.
The other thing Webmatrix has is a nice interface to IIS Express that allows you to set settings and see requests to your development site in Webmatrix. VS.net 2010 sp 1 has IIS Express support but I haven't seen as nice an interface there.
Also, not too sure if this is not in vs.net, but when you create an SQL CE 4 database in Webmatrix it has a tool to migrate that database to normal sql server.
Finally, something subjective, Webmatrix has a simplicity to it that vs.net does not. VS.net is built for a developer to do anything and everything. It has a gazillion menus and options plus extentions, dockable windows and at least 4 distinct versions. Webmatrix is built just to create web sites. That simplicity lets you go from point A to Z very fast even if you don't know much about setting up web sites, databases or asp.net. It's one IDE where you know that every feature in it is expressly meant for you to create a web site.

Is anyone developing with Visual Studio 2010?

I'm currently considering a big "no no" and jumping over to VS 2010 while it's still in RC... after all, text code is text code, how bad can it "F" things up?
I'm just wondering if anyone is using VS 2010 for their projects? I'm very much interested in the subtle additions as well as the multi-screen support.
I've been using it in a VM and it's been pretty stable and even resharper 5.0 has support for it now so it's as good as fully baked for my liking.
A few things to be careful of are:
the .sln files aren't backwards compatible so it won't be easy to share with other people not using VS2010.
There are a number of plugins that don't yet support VS2010 so if you depend on any third party plugins make sure they work
ASP.NET MVC 2 RC 2 has a bit of funkiness so you should check out this post to make sure you've got all your stars aligned if you're using 2010 and MVC.
As you said first of all it is still in RC. People wouldn't upgrade the current Visual Studio version unless there is a reason for it.
If you are not going to use any of the features in .net 4.0, it is probably not important to switch to Visual Studio 2010.
We are using VS2010RC and TFS2010 for our projects in production.
Works great!!
What I like in VS2010 and use:
Test Manager for recording manual tests in Web, WPF, Windows Forms and soon in Silverlight. AWESOME!
Generating "Coded UI" tests
Hierarchical work items (TFS) finally :-)
What I like in VS2010 but don't use yet:
.NET4 features like: Parallel extensions, dynamic keyword, optional and named parameter
Yes, Multi Monitor support works a bit better, but was fine for me with VS2008 too

How to modify JavaScript Intellisense by using Visual Studio Integration Package?

I need to modify some logic of Javascript Intellisense on Visual Studio 2008 SP1 like some build-in function such as ScriptEngine, ScriptEngineBuildVersion and etc. Moreover, I need to dynamically generate function depend on opened docuement.
In Visual Studio, language services are provided via VSPackages. Most built-in language services in Visual Studio 2008 do not really offer any kind of extensibility or customization that would enable what you're trying to achieve.
There are a couple of options you could consider though:
Write your own Javascript language service. Obviously, this would be non-trivial, but it would allow you to get the precise behavior you're after. Language services are responsible for parsing the file to provide colorization, quick info, Intellisense, auto-completion, and other features to the core text editor. The simplest example of a language service is a sample in the Visual Studio 2008 SDK 1.1 called the RegExLangService. There is also a detailed walkthrough for the sample.
You could attempt implementing either an Add-in or a VSPackage which would insert/manipulate text in the editor based on the contents of the open document. Your question doesn't really say exactly what kind of behavior you need (other than dynamically generating a function). This would certainly be possible with the Visual Studio SDK and much less work than writing your own Javascript language service.
Good Luck!

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