I’ve finally got around to running the Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” – September Community Technology Preview (CTP). Big thanks to Mauricio who downloaded the image (my Woosh account is tooo slow to download anything over 10Mb) for me.
Device Security Manager
One of the first features I was eager to look at was the integration of the Device Security Manager (Windows Mobile Powertoy) into the IDE. the DSM is available from the Tools menu and renders within the VS IDE. After connecting to a device/emulator you can export/import security configurations from the device. These are xml scripts like the following, that can be applied to the device/emulator.
<wap-provisioningdoc>
<characteristic type=”SecurityPolicy”>
<parm name=”4123″ value=”0″ />
<parm name=”4122″ value=”1″ />
<parm name=”4101″ value=”16″ />
<parm name=”4102″ value=”0″ />
<parm name=”4097″ value=”2″ />
</characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>
Note, as you play with this feature you might notice that the toolbar for the DSM occasionally displays options to Add/Remove certifications – perhaps this is a hint as to what is to come.
Smart Device Testing
When VS2005 was released there was great disappointment from the mobile developer community as we were severly neglected when it came to SDLC support in Team System. Although we could check out projects into TFS we couldn’t use any of the automated testing. In this CTP we have the first sneak preview of the testing support that is going to be built in. To create tests for a smart device project you simply right click on the method and select “Create Unit Tests…”. Be sure to select the “Create a new smart device test project” – if you don’t the tests will not be executed on the device. Also, be warned that running a smart device test will NOT deploy the .NET framework runtime to the device. To do this you can either manually install it from the redistributable, Or you can just run a .NET device application from the VS IDE – this WILL deploy the runtime to the device.