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What's New in Architecture Edition

  • Article

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture Edition contains new features and improvements in the following areas:

  • Design Application Systems By Using a Top-Down Approach

  • Conform .NET Web Service Endpoints to WSDL Files

  • Support ASP.NET Web Application Projects

  • Save, Import, and Export Custom Prototypes

  • Support Multiple .NET Framework Versions

  • Support Multiple Office Versions

  • Team Explorer

Design Application Systems By Using a Top-Down Approach

System Designer now supports a top-down approach to designing an application system. You can use this approach to visualize and design systems quickly. This approach allows you to delay defining the applications that you will eventually include in those systems for deployment.

You were previously required to use a bottom-up approach to designing systems. This approach required that you first know and define the applications that you wanted to include in your system design.

Note

You can change approaches during your design process.

The following new capabilities support the top-down approach:

  • Start Designing Systems with System Designer

  • Add New Members Directly to System Definitions

  • Add New Endpoints Directly to Members

  • Add New Endpoints Directly to System Definitions

  • Define Web Service Operations on System Definitions and Members

  • Delegate System Behavior to Members

  • Rename Members of Application Systems and Their Definitions

  • Repair Orphaned Members of Application Systems

For more information, see Walkthrough: Designing Application Systems by Using a Top-Down Approach.

Start Designing Systems with System Designer

You can now begin your system design process by using System Designer instead of Application Designer. This release includes the new System Design solution template. When you select this template, Visual Studio creates a solution with a blank system diagram and application diagram. The system diagram opens in the foreground, and the application diagram opens in the background. The system diagram contains a blank system definition. You can now add members directly to this system definition.

For more information, see How to: Create System Diagrams.

Add New Members Directly to System Definitions

You can now add new systems directly to a system definition. You can also add new applications when you need them. This action adds these systems and applications as members of the system definition. Visual Studio adds the definitions of these members to the appropriate diagrams in your solution.

For example, when you add a new system to a system definition, Visual Studio adds a new system diagram to the solution. This new system diagram contains the definition of the new member. When you add a new application to a system definition, Visual Studio adds its definition to the application diagram.

You were previously required to define applications before you could add them to system definitions. You were required to define a system before you could it to another system definition.

For more information, see How to: Add Members to Application Systems.

Add New Endpoints Directly to Members

You can now directly add new endpoints to members of system definitions. This action also adds endpoints to the members' definitions and to the uses of those definitions in other systems.

You were previously required to add endpoints to the underlying definitions of members to make them appear on those members. For example, you were required to add endpoints to application definitions so that those endpoints appeared on the uses of those definitions in other systems.

For more information, see How to: Add Endpoints to Members of Application Systems.

Add New Endpoints Directly to System Definitions

You can now directly add new endpoints to a system definition. You can then add and connect this system in other systems. You were previously required to perform the following tasks if you wanted to connect a system in other system definitions and expose member behavior:

  • First define applications and their endpoints.

  • Add those applications as members of the system definition.

  • Add proxy endpoints for the member endpoints.

For more information, see How to: Add Endpoints to Application Systems.

Define Web Service Operations on System Definitions and Members

You can now define and edit operations for Web service endpoints that you add to system definitions and their members. You can perform this task by using the Web Service Details window.

Delegate System Behavior to Members

You can now delegate the behavior of an endpoint on a system definition. You can delegate that endpoint's behavior to a member of the system definition. This action copies that endpoint to the member (and its underlying definition) and replaces the original endpoint with a proxy endpoint.

For more information, see How to: Delegate Application System Behavior to Members.

Rename Members and Their Definitions

You can now rename members of system definitions and the underlying definitions of those members while you work on a system diagram. You were previously required to rename a member and its definition on their respective diagrams.

For more information, see How to: Rename Members in Application Systems.

Repair Orphaned Members

You can now repair orphaned members of system definitions. Members become orphaned from their definitions when you rename or delete those definitions, and the members' system diagrams remain closed. You can repair these members by selecting a compatible definition for the orphaned member.

For more information, see How to: Repair Orphaned Members in Application Systems.

Conform .NET Web Service Endpoints to WSDL Files

You can now define or update operation signatures for existing .NET Web Service provider endpoints by specifying a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file. This action conforms operation signatures to those described in the WSDL file. For more information, see the following topics:

Support ASP.NET Web Application Projects

You can now generate ASP.NET Web application projects in addition to Web site projects when you implement ASP.NET applications. You can set the Template property for an ASP.NET application to ASP.NET Web Application. When you implement the application, an ASP.NET Web application project appears in your solution.

Note

ASP.NET Web application projects must be file system-based. Therefore, the Project Location Type property is set to File System when you select an ASP.NET Web application project type.

You can also reverse-engineer ASP.NET Web application projects as ASP.NET applications. An ASP.NET application shape appears on the application diagram when you add an ASP.NET Web application project to your solution.

For more information, see How to: Change Project Templates for Applications.

Save, Import, and Export Custom Prototypes

You can now save or install custom prototypes for your use only or for all users on your computer. You can now install custom prototypes by importing them instead of editing the registry.

Note

You must still edit the registry to install .sdmdocument files for application prototypes created from the System Definition Model (SDM) Software Development Kit (SDK).

You can now export custom prototypes that you want to share with others.

For more information, see the following topics:

Support Multiple .NET Framework Versions

You can now select .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5 for ASP.NET, Windows, and Office applications. For more information, see Targeting a Specific .NET Framework, How to: Choose the .NET Framework Version for Applications, and Considerations for Implementing Applications.

Support Multiple Office Versions

You can now select Office 2003 or Office 2007 project templates for Office applications. For more information, see How to: Change Project Templates for Applications and Considerations for Implementing Applications.

Team Explorer

You can now install Team Explorer directly from the same media you used to install Team System 2008 Architecture Edition. Team Explorer is a client of Team Foundation and provides access to the functionality available with Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server:

  • Work Items

  • Team Projects

  • Team Documents

  • Reports

  • Team Builds

  • Source Control

Team System 2008 Architecture Edition includes a client access license (CAL) for installing and using Team Explorer. For information about how to install Team Explorer, including information about its prerequisites, insert the installation media for Team System 2008 Architecture Edition, open the root directory, open the TFC folder, double-click the file TFSInstall.chm, and read the topics in the node "Installing Team Explorer." For more information about Team Explorer, see Using Team Explorer.

See Also

Other Resources

Getting Started with Distributed System Designers