Features of the Visual Studio Add-in

Most of your time as a BizTalk developer is spent in Visual Studio, so it makes sense that the Deployment Framework should integrate with the VS IDE. The add-in provides the following points of integration:

1. Commands that can be mapped to shortcut keys, toolbars or menus
2. Deployment Framework for BizTalk menu under the Tools menu
3. Deployment Framework for BizTalk toolbar
4. Activity logging to the Output window
5. Awareness of the solution status and active build configuration
6. Add New Project wizard to create a new deployment project
7. IntelliSense while editing .btdfproj project files

The add-in provides commands specific to deployment as well as some handy developer tools:

1. A command to deploy your solution
2. A command to un-deploy your solution
3. A command to deploy your solution quickly, useful when schemas and orchestration ports have not changed
4. A command to deploy or un-deploy BRE policies and vocabularies
5. A command to build a Windows Installer MSI for your solution
6. A command to export settings from your settings spreadsheet into XML files
7. A command to restart BizTalk host instances and optionally IIS or selected AppPools
8. A command to terminate all instances associated with the target BizTalk application

This screenshot shows the Deployment Framework for BizTalk menu open while a BizTalk solution is open in the IDE:

This screenshot shows the Deployment Framework for BizTalk toolbar while a BizTalk solution is open in the IDE:

The Deployment Framework commands may be mapped to shortcuts, menus or toolbars, as shown below in the Visual Studio 2010 Tools\Customize dialog:

This screenshot shows IntelliSense in action for a Deployment Framework MSBuild ItemGroup:

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