Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 Release Notes (SharePoint notes)

A new update to Visual Studio 2013 is out, and as always there are a lot of general improvements and some improvements targeted SharePoint/Project Server.

The most noticeable changes for SharePoint development (and SharePoint App development) is:
 - Better IntelliSense for JavaScript
 - JSON improvements (Loading and IntelliSense)
 - Better HTML IntelliSense
 - #Region support in HTML
 - Razor bugfix
 - XAML Designer bugfix (Silverlight)


(Download it from: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2994375)

Complete release notes

Team Foundation Server

• You can create trend charts and aggregate data from work item queries. When a new work item chart is created, you can see three new chart types: Stacked Area, Area, and Line.
• You can move items in the backlog to the top position (Move to Top) or to any position you want to determine (Move to Position).
• You can enter the "full-screen mode" for all the pages in the Backlogs hub.
• You can search for an Area path in Web Access.
• You can use Pull Requests to help review and merge your code in Git repositories.
• Web Access can return directly to query results from a detailed view of the query by using a toolbar command, or the keyboard shortcut ALT + Q.
• Web Access can generate an email directly from the work item view by using a new toolbar command.
• Web Access has an option to view query results full-screen.
• With the free Stakeholder License, Stakeholders can view the backlog, edit items, run work item queries, and many other operations.
• Agile teams can have up to 999 work items in the first or last column of the Kanban board.
• Web Access now has the option to open a work item in a new window or tab.
• You can maximize rich text fields for quick readability.
• Query results can now be copied as HTML for a better copy/paste experience.
• In work item tracking HTML fields, you can now use Ctrl + Click to open a hyperlink URL in a new window.
• You can configure backlogs to include or exclude bugs.
• Product backlog items can now be assigned to iterations even in hierarchical views such as Features to Stories and Stories to Tasks.
• When you are linking work items, you can find the target work items by running an existing query or based on text in the title.

Visual C++

• Visual Studio now scans or rescans a solution and then updates the database much more quickly for large solutions. Therefore, the browsing process should be much more responsive, and you should experience fewer situations in which you are blocked when you perform browsing operations (such as Go To Definition) on large solutions.
• Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 enables you to collect and analyze GPU usage data for Windows applications by using the Performance and Diagnostics hub. This tool can help you determine whether CPU or GPU is the performance bottleneck of the application. You can also inspect timing data of each GPU event if supported graphics cards are present and the latest drivers are installed.

JavaScript Editor

• When you use the RequireJS JavaScript library, IntelliSense can be shown for your module dependencies.

CodeLens

• The size of CodeLens data that is stored in a Team Foundation Server database was reduced by removing duplicated information and reformatting.
• Only changes in the last 12 months are used to calculate CodeLens Team Indicators. You can change this duration by using TFSConfig CodeIndex /indexHistoryPeriod command.
• You can see the period for which CodeLens data is shown on the tooltip and in the details. You can also view the full file history from CodeLens details. Therefore, you will use less network resources for CodeLens because the data is now compressed.
• When CodeLens temporary data size increases beyond a certain limit in your Team Foundation Server database, processing of past changes will be paused. Processing will restart automatically after temporary data is cleaned up. You can configure this size limit by using TFSConfig CodeIndex /temporaryDataSizeLimit command.

Testing Tools

• Associated Test Suites pane shows all test suites that contain a given test case. The list of test suites is scoped for all test plans across all team projects.
• Recent Test Results pane shows the recent test results associated with a test case for all configurations, test suites, and test plans.
• You can create snapshot or trend charts with test case fields to track test authoring activity. You can create snapshot charts with test results fields to track test execution activity.
• You can view and filter tests by tags in the Test Hub and bulk edit tags of test case in the gird view.

ASP.NET and Web platform

• Microsoft ASP.NET and Web Tools 2013.4 RTM
  • JSON Editor improvement
    
    We have made some improvements in JSON editor, including performance improvements such as loading JSON schema asynchronously, caching of the child schemas, and supporting better IntelliSense. Additionally, there are the following new features:
    • JSON Schema validation Add JSON schema validation feature, based on the schema that is defined in the schema drop-down list.
    • Un-minify context menu You can right-click the JSON editor and select Un-minify context menu to un-minify any long arrays in the JSON file.
    • Reload Schemas context menu Visual Studio will cache the schema that is downloaded from Internet and will use the cache even after you restart Visual Studio. If you know the schema is changed, you can use the context menu Reload Schemas Ctrl+Shift+J to re-download the current used schema in the active JSON document, and then use it immediately on the current document.
    • IntelliSense for package.json and bower.json In addition to proving IntelliSense and validation for both package.json and bower.json files, Visual Studio also provides live IntelliSense for both Bower and npm packages directly in the JSON editor.
    • Duplicate property validationThe JSON editor will now provide validation for any duplicate properties. This helps catch a common problem with JSON file authoring.
  • HTML Editor
    
    Microsoft improved HTML editor with some software updates, updated IntelliSense for web standards, and introduced following new features:
    • Better client template formatting The HTML editor does not parse or format double-curly syntax {{…}} anymore. This is to make sure that the content of that syntax is not treated as being HTML and therefore being invalidated, nor does it try to format them, which cannot be done correctly by using the HTML formatter. This is great for Angular, Handlebars, Mustache, and other double-curly template syntaxes.
    • Support for custom elements, polymer-elements and attributes HTML Editor no longer validates unknown attributes for custom elements, because there will be many custom made tags in different frameworks. Therefore, there will no longer be squiggles under the unknown elements.
    • Basic IntelliSense for Web Components HTML Editor has IntelliSense for <link rel="import" /> that is part of the Web Components standard
      (http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebComponents/)
      .
    • HTML element tooltips Tooltips are supplied for HTML elements in the editor.
    • #region support HTML editor now supports region folding. You can use surrounding snippet to enclose the current selection as well.
    • Todo/Hack comment support in Task List
    • Angular icons Both Angular directives such as <ng-view> and attributes such as ng-controller is now displayed in IntelliSense together with an Angular logo to make it easy to identify them.
    • Bootstrap icons The IntelliSense provided in HTML class attributes are now displayed together with the Bootstrap logo if the class name was defined by the Bootstrap CSS file.
  • CSS/LESS/Sass Editor
    • Todo/Hack comment support in Task List
    • @viewport fix for LESS editor In LESS editor, @viewportwill not show verification warning anymore.
    • Provide many more snippets CSS/LESS/Sass Editor now provides more snippets to ease developing experience.
  • Browser Link
    • CSS automatically synchronous Now, saving the CSS file or changing it externally (such as by using a LESS/SASS compiler) will cause the whole CSS file to reload in the browser. If the file is in a state where it cannot auto-sync, Ctrl + S will cause an automatic reload, and this should put it back into a good state without having to refresh the linked browsers (Ctrl + Alt + Enter). The feature can be disabled in the toolbar.
  • WebJobs Tooling
    
    Now supports controlling web jobs through server explorer WebJobs’ node inside Azure Website in the following ways:
  • WebJobs nodes underneath Website nodes in Server Explorer.
  • Start/Stop Continuous WebJobs from Server Explorer.
  • Run On-demand or Scheduled jobs from Server Explorer.
  • View WebJob Dashboard from Server Explorer.
    
    You can use View Dashboard context menu to go to the Azure website’s WebJob dash board.
  
  
  • WebJobs SDK
    • WebJobs SDK will be preinstalled in the Azure WebJob project templates.
• Microsoft ASP.NET and Web ASP.NET MVC 5.2.2
  
  Template packages are updated to use ASP.NET MVC 5.2.2. This release has no new features or software updates in MVC. We made a change in Web Pages
  (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2014/07/28/announcing-the-beta-release-of-web-pages-3-2-1.aspx)
  for a significant performance improvement, and have subsequently updated all other dependent packages we own to depend on this new version of Web Pages.
  • ASP.NET Web API 5.2.2
    
    In this release we have made a dependency change for Json.Net 6.0.4. For more information about what is new in this release of Json.NET, see Json.NET 6.0 Release 4 - JSON Merge, Dependency Injection
    (http://james.newtonking.com/archive/2014/08/04/json-net-6-0-release-4-json-merge-dependency-injection)
    . This release has no other new features or software updates in Web API. We have subsequently updated all other dependent packages we own to depend on this new version of Web API.
  • ASP.NET Web API OData 5.3.1
    
    See this release note for Web API OData 5.3
    (http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/releases/whats-new-in-aspnet-web-api-odata-53)
    .
  • SignalR 2.1.2
    
    Template packages are updated to use SignalR 2.1.2. See its release note on GitHub
    (https://github.com/SignalR/SignalR/releases/tag/2.1.2)
    .
  • Microsoft Owin 3.0
    
    Template packages are updated to use Microsoft Owin 3.0 NuGet packages. See this Owin 3.0 release note
    (https://katanaproject.codeplex.com/releases/view/113283)
    .
  • NuGet 2.8.3
    • Support for DevExtreme project and BizTalkProject are added to 2.8.3.
    • Check here
      (http://docs.nuget.org/search?q=nuget%202.8.3)
      for detailed information.

Release Management

• Use tags when you deploy to a vNext environment
  
  Now, you can use tags together with the servers in your vNext Azure or standard environments. When a stage is deployed, these actions are performed on any server that contains this tag. Therefore, you have to create the set of actions only one time for multiple servers. By using vNext tags, you can also switch the deployment order from parallel to sequence.
• Access to system variables for your deployment sequences or scripts
  
  By popular user demand, you can now access system variables in the same manner as other configuration variables and you can use them in your release template. You do not have to hardcode these variables any longer.
• Reduce the need for configuration files to deploy your builds
  
  You can now set up configuration variables for your release at the global, server, component, and action levels. This additional flexibility means that you may no longer have to maintain configuration files together with your build.
• Manual intervention with a vNext release path
  
  Now you can add manual steps to a stage in a vNext release path, and you can add a manual intervention activity to your deployment sequence. When the notification is triggered in that sequence, the deployment pauses, and then you can run some manual steps before you continue to process the rest of the automation for the release path.
• Build drops that are stored on TFS servers
  
  If you have set up your build definition to copy the build output to the server and not to a UNC path, vNext components in Release Management can now use the builds that are stored on the server.
• Deploy from a build drop by using a shared UNC path
  
  Now you can use release management to deploy to servers by using build drops that are located on a shared Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path. You can deploy if both the target server and the Release Management server have access to the shared UNC path.

Application Insights

• Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 includes performance improvements and software updates for the Application Insights Tools for Visual Studio. This update is fully compatible with projects that had Application Insights added in the Visual Studio 2013 Update 3, and includes the following updates:
  • Seamless integration with the publish to an Azure website workflow.
  • Improve solution integration and project detection so that Application Insights is no longer included in unsupported projects including Python.
  • For more information about changes to Application Insights data in the Azure Preview Portal, see Start Monitoring your Application’s Heath and Usage
    (http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-insights-start-monitoring-app-health-usage/#add)
    .

Fixed issues

Team Foundation Server

• When you set up reporting without SharePoint integration, the Network Service account is not set for the TfsWarehouseAdministrator role of the Analysis Database.
• When an Area path is reparented, you may see empty revisions in work items.
• You may experience notification failures if one notification initially fails.
• The $(BuildDefinitionID) variable is case-sensitive and may cause builds to fail.
• The addition of a new user after you make Area or Iteration Path changes could block the opening of work items in Web Access.
• In the TfsConfig remapDBs command, a comma separator (',') may be treated as two SQL instances instead of a single SQL instance and a port number.
• Multiple detachments of a collection could lead to incorrect data in the collection database. 
• Assume that you associate different work item types from different projects. When you build the projects, builds may fail.
• You cannot do a continuous integration build for a project from a Git repo if the build definition is stored in a central TFVC project.
• Project Administrator user may be denied access to Version Control administration.
• Some TFS upgrade scenarios may fail when you attach a collection if the same collection is attached multiple times or multiple collections that have the same membership are attached.
• When you try to view contents from Source Control Explorer in Visual Studio, you may receive the following error message:
  TF14044: Access denied: users <> needs the AdminWorkspaces global permissions(s).
• You cannot use source indexing feature unless you setup separate build computer or controller for each build definition.
• You may see the w3wp process using 100 percent CPU.
• TFS does not start if C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config is updated to output X-Content-Type-Options.
• You may receive an unsupported browser message when you try to open security dialog on query or source control from Team Explorer.
• When you experience the following scenarios, a custom build program that uses FileContainerHttpClient.UploadFileAsync will fail unless you recompile.
• If you are trying to use the latest Git template, it may fail.
• A shelveset that fails the CheckInGatedChanges activity at the end of the build results in a failed build that actually did check in changes. The build should be marked partially succeeded.
• Build time for all builds increases with the number of workspaces that are used by builds.
• A chat room administrator will receive an error message when you try to delete the event subscription for the team room unless the chat room administrator is also a Team Project Collection administrator.
• If you create a TFS list in Excel and include an HTML field, you may lose all formatting in the HTML field.
• When you subscribe to the Git commit event notification in team room, the hyperlink in the message may point to an error page.
• You cannot unmap the TFS to Project Server integration if the Project Server instance is deleted or unreachable.
• You may be unable to push repos with TFS Server when an old GIT client was used at any point in the past.
• You may be unable to use feature enablement on some process templates.
• Null reference Exceptions are thrown by Command Query changeset when a requested changeset does not exist.
• You may receive an out-of-memory error message when you push repos with TFS Server.
• You may see database growth if you have many saved builds.
• You may receive a Null Reference error when you annotate files in the Git repository.
• When you write code in Visual Studio, the Output window may start when you try to update SCC glyphs in Solution Explorer.
• Occasionally Visual Studio crashes when it is working in Source Control Explorer.
• The selected work item and scroll location do not remain when you open a work item in a query and then you return to the query results.
• If you detach a collection database from one server and attach it to another server, some identities and groups that could not be resolved will be deleted without a warning.
• If you upload a file that is larger than 1GB to TFS 2013, when you try to download the attachment by using Web Access, you may receive an ArithmeticException exception.
• You cannot programmatically set checkin notes in the Pending Changes page.
• If a plain text field is set to readonly, it is difficult to interact with it by using Internet Explorer.
• If the MinimumSize for a plain text control is set, the control may overlap nearby controls in Web Access.
• If you open a work item with read-only Description field that have leading or trailing spaces, you cannot save the work item or work with it.
• When you merge CSHTML files in both Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) and Git. The toolbar is disabled. You cannot merge CSHTML files by using the merge tool.
• Basic license customers should be unable to turn on and off the mapping pane in the product backlog. 
• When you open a Stories Overview Report or Stories Progress Report by using a Turkish operating system, the report crashes.

Visual C++

• When you define an operator incorrectly, the compiler may crash.
• When you define a static const variable in the header and then declare it in the source, the linker will treat the symbol as multiply defined incorrectly.
• When you define a conversion operator for an undefined type, the compiler may crash.
• Explicitly instantiating a variadic function template can cause an internal compiler error.
• The compiler incorrectly allows for the explicit trivial constructor to be private.
• Using nested templates can cause internal compiler errors.
• Error C2951 can cause a subsequent internal compiler error.
• Designated initializers may not initialize unions within structs.
• The use of default function parameters can cause internal compiler errors.
• Wrong arguments may be passed when you use nested uniform initialization.
• Initializer lists can cause internal compiler errors.
• Error C4530 can cause a subsequent internal compiler error.

Testing Tools

• With TFS 2013 Update 3, Test Plans support custom workflow states instead of just Active and Inactive states. Because users can connect to test plans in any one of the custom states, the restriction to display only active Test Plans in Microsoft Test Manager - Test Plan selection dialog box was removed. Therefore, the Test Plan selection dialog box now displays both Active and Inactive plans. However, the lack of filter and sort capability on the State column in the Test Plan selection dialog box was a regression introduced in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3. Because of this regression, users had to browse through a long list of Active and Inactive Test Plans to select one. In Visual Studio 2013 Update 4, the sort and filter capability is fixed so that users can filter and sort on the Test Plan State column in the Test Plan selection dialog box.

ASP.NET and Web platform

• In a Web Site project, you cannot add Razor (CSHTML/VBHTML)-based item templates unless you first install the correct Web Pages NuGet packages. This change lets you add item templates in WSPs without having to first install a package. Adding the item template will automatically install the required packages.
• You can completely disable request validation in an application. This means that RequestValidationMode=0.0 is supported in Visual Studio.

Debugger

• PDB files will no longer be locked when WCF debugging.
• The Retry button for debug.assert statements now works correctly in Visual Studio Express 2013.
• Return values will be displayed in the autos window for native debugging together with Edit and Continue enabled.
• When you perform mixed mode debugging on an application, the application may crash.

XAML Designer

• When you reference binaries that are incompatible with a 32-bit process in your project, the designer may crash and throw an OutOfMemory exception.