Jon Galloway

Get the scoop on the ASP.NET 4.5, ASP.NET MVC 4, ASP.NET Web Pages 2, and Visual Studio 11 Developer Previews

We just announced a lot of great new information about ASP.NET 4.5, ASP.NET MVC 4, and Visual Web Developer 11. Here's an overview of what's available, how to get it, and some of the top features.

Note: These are all developer previews. That means they're not officially released, supported, shipping products; they're previews to let you get an early look. Read the release notes and play safe!

ASP.NET 4.5 Developer Preview

ASP.NET 4.5 is part of the newly announced .NET 4.5 Developer Preview. It's available for MSDN subscribers today (9/14) with general availability on 9/16. This release includes a lot of great core features in the ASP.NET runtime as well as ASP.NET Web Pages enhancements.

Top Links for the ASP.NET 4.5 Developer Preview:

• http://asp.net/vnext is our hub for new information about what's coming in the next version ASP.NET. Watch it for regular updates... I have production access!
• Scott Guthrie's vNext blog post series - Scott's begun a series highlighting some of the top features in ASP.NET vNext.
• ASP.NET vNext video series - these are some great ~1 minute screencasts from the ASP.NET PM's who own the features, and Scott's been featuring them in his aforementioned blog post series. Stand by for a lot more - I've seen the list, and they're really well done.
• What's New in ASP.NET 4.5 and Visual Web Developer 11 Developer Preview has a ton of information on what's on that way. By "ton" I mean almost 10K words, but broken up by so many beautiful screenshots that it you'll be wishing for more.

Here are some jump links to specific features in ASP.NET 4.5 and ASP.NET from the What's New page to give you an idea of the features:

• ASP.NET Core Runtime and Framework
  • Asynchronously Reading and Writing HTTP Requests and Responses.
  • Improvements to HttpRequest handling
  • Asynchronously flushing a response
  • Support for await and Task-Based Asynchronous Modules and Handlers
  • Asynchronous HTTP modules
  • Asynchronous HTTP handlers
  • New ASP.NET Request Validation Features
  • Deferred ("lazy") request validation
  • Support for unvalidated requests
  • Anti-XSS Library
  • Support for WebSockets Protocol
  • Bundling and Minification
  • Performance Improvements for Web Hosting
    • Key Performance Factors
    • Requirements for New Performance Features
    • Sharing Common Assemblies
    • Using multi-Core JIT compilation for faster startup
    • Tuning garbage collection to optimize for memory
    • Prefetching for web applications
• ASP.NET Web Forms
  • Strongly Typed Data Controls
  • Model Binding
    • Selecting data
    • Value providers
    • Filtering by values from a control
  • HTML Encoded Data-Binding Expressions
  • Unobtrusive Validation
  • HTML5 Updates

ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview

The ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview is available now, and you can install it via the Web Platform Installer.

Top Links for the ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview:

• http://asp.net/mvc/mvc4 - This is our "official" summary page for information ASP.NET MVC 4, and we'll keep this updated with the latest information about ASP.NET MVC 4 through the release cycle.
• Release Notes - The Release Notes are the best way to find out what's new and changed.
• ASP.NET MVC Forum - If you run into any questions or issues, posting on the ASP.NET forums is the best way to get feedback from the product team and the broader ASP.NET MVC community.
• ASP.NET MVC 4 Mobile Features tutorial - ASP.NET MVC 4 has a significant focus on developing for mobile platforms, and Rick Anderson's excellent tutorial is a great way to get up to speed.
• Phil Haack's blog post (ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview Released) - Phil announces the release as well as his ASP.NET MVC 4 and NuGet related talks at BUILD.
• ASP.NET MVC 4 Roadmap - The ASP.NET team doesn't keep many secrets, and they publicly announced the complete roadmap for ASP.NET MVC 4 months ago. The Developer Preview hints at where things could go, but if you want to see the complete vision for the released product, the Roadmap is the best way to find out.

Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview

Visual Studio Developer Preview is of course a lot bigger than "just" an update for the web development features, but it's definitely got plenty of them. The new Visual Studio features are also listed in that big What's New page:

Visual Web Developer 11 Developer Preview

• HTML Editor
  • Smart Tasks
  • WAI-ARIA support
  • New HTML5 snippets
  • Extract to user control
  • IntelliSense for code nuggets in attributes
  • Automatic renaming of matching tag when you rename an opening or closing tag
  • Event handler generation
  • Smart indent
  • Auto-reduce statement completion
• JavaScript Editor
  • Code outlining
  • Brace matching
  • Go to Definition
  • ECMAScript5 support
  • DOM IntelliSense
  • VSDOC signature overloads
  • Implicit references
• CSS Editor
  • Auto-reduce statement completion
  • Hierarchical indentation
  • CSS hacks support
  • Vendor specific schemas (-moz-, -webkit)
  • Commenting and uncommenting support
  • Color picker
  • Snippets
  • Custom regions
• Page Inspector
• Publishing
  • Publish profiles
  • ASP.NET precompilation and merge
• IIS Express

Visual Studio 11 is available for MSDN subscribers today (9/14) with general availability on 9/16. You can find more information about Visual Studio 11 Platform Preview on MSDN.

ASP.NET Web Pages 2 Developer Preview

ASP.NET Web Pages 2 has been announced, with more information to follow really soon. Watch the http://asp.net/vnext page for more information. Here's the feature summary:

ASP.NET Web Pages 2

• New and Updated Site Templates
• Improved Input Validation
• Resource Management
• Enhanced Membership and Authentication
• Side-by-side Execution
• Mobile Device Rendering
• The Maps Helper