On Monday, June 7^th Microsoft Released-to-Web (RTW) the first Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack, Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack, and the Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Powertools which provide Visual Studio 2010 customers with a bunch of new capabilities.

Here’s a summary of what these new features are:

Visual Studio 2010 Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack

Note: Visual Studio 2010 Feature Packs are limited to MSDN Subscribers and will be delivered via the MSDN Subscriber Downloads site. The Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack has a prerequisite for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.

• Increased Visualization Support – In Visual Studio 2010, we have great visualization support for managed assemblies; however, we do not have any support for native developers, nor did we have first class support for Web projects or Web Sites developed inside Visual Studio. With this Feature Pack you now have some great functionality for both native and Web projects in Visual Studio 2010.
  • Visualize your native (C++) code
  • Visualize Web Application Projects, Web Sites, and ASP.NET MVC code
• Increased UML Support – We received a lot of great feedback on the UML support that we have put in Visual Studio 2010. This Feature Pack delivers two frequently requested features: the ability to quickly populate the UML Model Store from code and the ability to generate code from the UML class diagram.
  • Code Generation from UML Class diagram
  • Rapid population of Modeling Store from Architecture Explorer
  • XMI 2.1 Import
  • Work Item to Model Element Back linking
• Increased Support for Layer Diagram Extensibility – Extensibility for the layer diagram includes three major parts:
  • The ability to easily create command and gesture extensions for elements on a layer diagram, which mirrors the extension points for our UML diagrams
  • An API that allows you to work with layer model elements i.e. to read from and write to layer diagram models
  • An extension point and an API that supports the creation of custom layer validation rules, which enables you to
  • Hook into the layer validation engine invoked when the user clicks “Validate Architecture” (Note: this also works from the command line)
  • Read from and write to the graph that is used during validation analysis
  • Create validation errors that are logged to the error list

Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools (VS2010 Pro and above)

Note: Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Power Tools has a prerequisite for Visual Studio 2010 Professional or greater.

• Document Tab Well – One of the key pieces of feedback that we have received over several versions of Visual Studio is that users want to be able to customize the behavior of their document tabs.  From the ordering of tabs to the position of the close buttons, user can now configure dozens of different options for their tabs. To configure this option, on the Tools menu, click Options -> Environment -> Document Tab Well to configure it as you prefer.
• Extension Update – Provides a bubble tip when there are updated versions of the Pro Power Tools or any other extensions available on the Visual Studio Gallery. To try this experience, install this old version of the “Collapse Selection in Solution Explorer” extension and restart Visual Studio.
• Highlight Current Line – As the resolution of monitors increases, it’s becoming more difficult to find the caret in the code editor. The Highlight Current Line extension makes it easy to find the caret by highlighting the line that the caret is on in the editor.  You can even configure the default color by changing the setting for “Current Line (Extension)” and “Current Line Inactive (Extension)” in Tools Options Fonts & Colors.
  
• Add Reference Dialog – From the Solution Explorer or Navigator, right-click the References node, select Add Reference, and you will be presented with a fast, searchable and easy to understand Add Reference dialog.
• HTML Copy – This extension provides support for the HTML Clipboard format when copying code from the editor. This means that you’ll no longer have to go fix up the formatting of your code when you paste it into a Team Foundation Server bug form or any other HTML based control.
  
• Triple Click – It has never been easier to select a line of code from the mouse by simple triple-clicking anywhere on the line.
  
• Fix Mixed Tabs – Some developers prefer tabs, others prefer spaces, and nobody likes mixing tabs & spaces. This extension promotes developer harmony by warning as they are open or save a file that has a mixture of tabs & spaces. The information bar also provides an easy way to fix the file to suit your preference.
• Ctrl + Click Go To Definition – This extension gives the editor a web browser by adding clickable hyperlinks to symbols in your code as you hold down the Ctrl key.
• Align Assignments – This extension improves code readability by aligning the assignments when you type Ctrl+Alt+] such that it takes this:
  
  
  
  And turns it into this:

  

Note: This may conflict with your formatting settings. For example, in C# you will need to disable the Ignore spaces in declaration statements option: Tools->Options->Text Editor->C#->Formatting->Spacing->”Ignore spaces in declaration statements”

• Move Line Up/Down Commands – This extension maps the Alt+Up Arrow & Alt+Down Arrow keys such that they will move the current line of code or the selected lines up and down through the editor.
• Column Guides – Since Visual Studio.NET 2002, an undocumented Registry key enables users to draw a vertical line in the code editor. This is very useful to remind developers that their full line of code or comments may not fit one a single screen. Thanks to this extension this feature has returned with UI configure it.
• Colorized Parameter Help – This extension improves consistency with the editor by applying syntax highlighting to the contents of the Parameter Help window for C# & Visual Basic.NET.