What's New in Data Application Development

Article
02/04/2013

Visual Studio 2010 includes new features for developing applications that access data.

Binding to Data Sources

Visual Studio 2010 includes the following new features for creating data sources in applications and binding those data sources to controls.

Drag-and-Drop Data Binding for WPF

You can create data-bound WPF controls by dragging the following types of data sources from the Data Sources window to the WPF Designer:

Datasets
Entity Data Models
Services such as WCF Data Services, WCF services, and XML Web services
Custom business objects
SharePoint objects

For more information, see Binding WPF Controls to Data in Visual Studio.

Drag-and-Drop Data Binding for Silverlight

You can create data-bound controls by dragging the following types of data sources from the Data Sources window to the Silverlight Designer:

Services
Custom business objects
SharePoint objects

For more information, see Binding Silverlight Controls to Data in Visual Studio.

Connecting to Data in Multiple Objects

When you connect to data in objects by using the Data Source Configuration wizard, you can select multiple objects, instead of selecting a single object during each pass through the wizard.

For more information, see How to: Connect to Data in Objects.

Extending Queries in the EntityDataSource Control

The EntityDataSource control now supports the QueryExtender control, which is used to create filters for data that is retrieved from a data source. For more information, see Applying LINQ Queries to EntityDataSource.

Entity Data Model Tools

Visual Studio 2010 includes new features for working with Entity Framework applications. For more information about new features in the Entity Framework, see What's New in ADO.NET.

Customized Object-Layer Code Generation

You can configure the ADO.NET Entity Data Model Designer to use text templates to generate customized object-layer code. For more information, see How to: Customize Object-Layer Code Generation (Entity Data Model Designer).

Model-First Support

The Generate Database Wizard (Entity Data Model Tools) enables you to do conceptual modeling first, and then create a database that supports the model. For more information, see How to: Generate a Database from a Conceptual Model (Entity Data Model Tools).

Complex Type Support

The ADO.NET Entity Data Model Designer now supports complex types. For more information, see the following topics:

Naming Service

The Entity Data Model Wizard and the Update Model Wizard provide the option of using singular or plural forms of Entity, EntitySet, and NavigationProperty names to make application code more readable. For more information, see Choose Your Database Objects Dialog Box (Entity Data Model Wizard) and Choose Your Database Objects Dialog Box (Update Model Wizard).

Improved Model Browser Functionality

The Model Browser window of the ADO.NET Entity Data Model Designer enables you to delete objects from the storage model and to search the conceptual and storage models for a specified string. For more information, see Model Browser Window and How to: Delete Objects from the Storage Model.

Entity Designer Extensibility

You can extend the functionality of the ADO.NET Entity Data Model Tools by using classes in the Microsoft.Data.Entity.Design.Extensibility namespace to write Visual Studio extensions. Classes in the Microsoft.Data.Entity.Design.Extensibility namespace allow you to do the following:

Extend the .edmx file generation process.
Extend the .edmx file update process.
Add custom properties to objects in the Entity Designer and Model Browser.
Load and save custom file formats.
Extend the .edmx file loading and saving processes.

For more information, see Extending the Entity Data Model Tools.