A Quick review of new features in VS2008

1. Thow we have new web application project model since VS2005 but developers still love to use classic web application template which includes a structure based on project files and a build model based on compiling all the code for a project into a single assembly. VS2008 continues support for Web Applications Projects. However ClickOnce deployment may not be supported.
2. Visual Studio 2008, Class Designer adds limited support for native C++ code that can be used only for visualization and documentation.
3. Ajax development support. you shall find a new project template "ASP.NET Ajax Server Control" and "ASP.NET Ajax Server Control Extender". You can just put existing controls inside UpdatePanel control and Postbacks from inside an UpdatePanel control become asynchronous postbacks and refresh only the part of the page inside the panel.
4. You also have project template for WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). With this you can easily build 2D and 3D graphic applications.
5. VS2008 has multitargeting support. Multitargeting lets you target code to a specific .NET Framework version 2.0 and above.
6. ClickOnce supports the deployment of WPF Web Browser Applications.
7. Windows Installer has been updated so that installation on Windows Vista is smooth, even when it is running under User Account Control (UAC).
8. VS2008 has incorporated "SPLIT" view in web application like Expression Web where you can see HTML and DESIGN layout both together. The feature is quite useful if you have two monitors where each one will display either HTML view or Design View.
9. IntelliSence support is now extended to JavaScript, AJAX scripting and in XML code comments.
10. O/R Mapping support, assists developers in creating and editing the LINQ to SQL objects that map between an application and a database.
11. You can embedded Expression Blend plugin-in into VS2008. Blend is an XAML tool generator for silverlight applications.
12. Nested Master page support was available in .NET 2.0 but Visual Studio was not capable to handle WUSIWYG during design time. VS2008 now supports Nested pages editing and design time support.
13. Access to .NET framework sourcecode. Yes while debugging VS will pull down the necessary source code from Microsoft source and symbol servers and will allow you to walk through the actual code. This will be very valuable for developers to understand and learn how things work behind the screens.   As seen in below screen you are able to configure to download .net symbols all in one shot or on demand.