WSPBuilder 2010 Beta

I have been working hard for some time now getting WSPBuilder ready for SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010. The current status is that WSPBuilder now supports fully the new functionality of the wsp package introduced in SharePoint 2010. Also the WSPBuilder Extension for Visual Studio has been undergoing a major overhaul. Especially the Visual Studio Project/Item templates are currently totally rewritten and new templates will be added with new functionality.

Visual Designer is now supported in WSPBuilder 2010 projects. This means that you will able edit your pages (aspx) and user controls (ascx) with the visual designer in Visual Studio. The reason for this is because the WSPBuilder 2010 project template in Visual Studio is now based on the C# WebApplication project template.
However the special folder types for the Web Application template are not supported and are therefore not added to the project on creation and will have no effect if added later.

Visual Web Part are now available.

Backward compatibility with "old" software like SharePoint 2007 and the previous versions of Visual Studio are very important in the WSPBuilder project. Therefore WSPBuilder 2010 will still fully support SharePoint 2007 and Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. Furthermore I was able to keep it all in one installation file regardless of what system you have x86, x86 / SP2007, SP2010 / VS2005, VS2008, 2010, without going on compromise on the functionality. This simply means one installation file fits them 'all.

One major change that have been done in WSPBuilder 2010, is the change of 12 hive folder name. It will from now on be called "SharePointRoot" according to the official announcement. The old "12" folder is still supported as normal; actually there is no difference between 12 and SharePointRoot regarding functionality in WSPBuilder. But SharePointRoot is less confusing when targeting SharePoint 2010.

SharePointRoot is the new "12" folder.

Now that WSPBuilder 2010 is able to build both SharePoint 2007 and 2010 packages, it will in the build process display a compatibility statement telling the develop if SharePoint 2007 are still supported or not.

Solution compatibility tells you what version of SharePoint this package is compatibel with and the picture show that only SharePoint 2010 is supported.

So when will WSPBuilder 2010 be done?
To quote Blizzard "It's done when it's done!" I'll try to make every beta as much a complete version before releasing it. Currently there are no plans for major changes in the project structure for WSPBuilder, only more functionality and addons.

New features of WSPBuilder 2010

* Fully supports SharePoint 2010 Beta 2.
* Fully supports SharePoint 2007.
* Manifest.config introduced for managing new functionality of the SharePoint 2010 WSP package schema.

New features of WSPBuilder Extensions 2010
 * Support for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.
* Backward support for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.
* Visual Studio Visual designer supported.
* No need to install Extensions to open the project in Visual Studio.
* Pages and user controls designer editing are now supported.
* Item template "Visual Web Part" has been added.
* Web Part will have custom code added if selected, removing the web part on feature deactivate.

Plans for new features in WSPBuilder Extensions 2010
(have not been implemented yet!)

* WSP import project template in Visual Studio.
* Delegate Control item template.
* Layout Page item template.
* New Wizard system for Item templates.
* ...and other item templates.

Important!
Only Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is supported. There are no plans to support beta 1.

Known bugs in the Beta 1.2
Workflow templates in Visual Studio do not work properly.

Download
Please look on codeplex under Download. It’s the last file of the 4 available.

http://wspbuilder.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=30858