At long last! My much awaited Orcas Beta 1 has just arrived! Visual Studio Codenamed "Orcas" is the next version of Visual Studio. It has long been just a CTP (Community Technical Preview) but now it has entered its Beta stage. So I guess it wouldn't be long before they release it. Somasegar's Blog stated that Orcas will be released later this year or earlier next year (I really hope its this year). So what's new?
- The project properties is now working. I've been at a pain on the last March CTP because the project properties doesn't work on my computer.
- Multi-framework target! And now here it is! You can now create projects that will compile on 3 different frameworks (2.0, 3.0 and 3.5).
- Expression Web Designer. Though it was implemented on the last CTP, I think its worth repeating. The Web Editor of VS is now patterned with Expression Web. So now you'll get all features from Expression Web plus more!
I've just installed it and so far that is the only difference that I found versus the last CTP. I also noticed the IDE to be much more faster compared to VS2005. Which I think is quite good. Here are some screen shots:
Sadly, this is only available to MSDN subscribers. Though there's a VPC (Virtual PC) version of this download. But if your not in to that then you ca try out the Express Editions of Orcas. Yeah you heard me right. There's officially an Orcas Express. Check it out here.