News
Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 Ready for Live Production
The final version is expected sometime this summer.
The third update for Visual Studio 2013 has moved from the Community Technology Preview (CTP) stage to the Release Candidate (RC) stage, and is now ready for live production environments.
Microsoft Technical Fellow Brian Harry blogged about the new release, and says it's "expected to be the last preview before Update 3 is released." He added that the final release should be out within the next several months.
The second CTP, released last month, was a minor update. The RC adds a lot more new functionality, including:
- Application Insights. This production monitoring tool for Web sites and Windows Store and Windows Phone apps has been added. It was originally released as part of Visual Studio Online, the cloud-enabled version of Team Foundation Server (TFS).
- Updated CPU Usage and Memory Usage tools. These include new features, such as Memory Usage's support for Win32 and WPF applications.
- Managed memory dump analysis. New functionality enables using Go to Definition and Find All References for selected object types.
- CodeLens support in Git. Those using Git source control will appreciate that "CodeLens work item indicators now provide information about work items associated with a method, or class," according to Visual Studio Blog posting.
- Mixed Case Menus. Developers have a new option to display the Visual Studio menus in all caps or mixed case. Harry mentioned that all caps remains the default, but if the setting is changed to mixed case, it will persist across upgrades and roam, for users of Visual Studio Online.
Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 RC is available here. Update 3 got its first CTP just a few weeks after Update 2 was officially released. And the next version of the IDE, code-named "Visual Studio 14," is currently at its own CTP stage.
About the Author
Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.