Entity Designer CTP2
You asked and we listened. The Dec 2007 CTP of the Entity Designer is available here and works over Visual Studio 2008 RTM and the Entity Framework runtime beta 3. We have enhanced the designer to enable several new scenarios and fixed a slew of bugs since our August 2007 CTP.
Here’s a brief summary:
• Map using stored procedures: you can now map entities to insert/update/delete stored procedures in the mapping details window in the designer
• FunctionImports: Create, update and delete FunctionImports in your model
• “Update Model From Database…”: update model and mappings if tables or columns in the database change. Very useful during iterative development when the database changes after you initially generate the model & mappings
• Embed artifacts in output assembly: package CSDL/MSL/SSDL files as resources in the output assembly. This makes it easy to deploy projects with Entity Data Models
• Easier to find and fix errors: Double-click a validation error selects the offending entity, property or association to make it easy to fix errors
• Cut/copy/paste: Cut/copy/paste entities and properties
• Abstract entity types: Create and map abstract entity types in your model
• Support for more properties: Concurrency control for properties and documentation nodes for entities, properties, etc
• MSBUILD integration: new EntityDeploy MSBUILD task that replaces the erstwhile EdmxDeploy.exe command line tool
• Connection Management: Automatic Entity Connection string management in App/Web.config when .edmx file is moved/renamed in Solution Explorer
• Easier Navigation: Navigate to nodes in the model browser from entities and properties on the designer surface
• Enable MARS by default: Wizard sets MultipleActiveResultSets to "true" in Entity Connection string when connecting to SQL 2005
• Usability: Numerous changes based on UI/usability feedback
• Supported editions of Visual Studio 2008 RTM: Standard, Professional, Team Edition, and Express editions (C#, VB and Visual Web Developer)
Sanjay Nagamangalam
Program Manager, ADO.NET Tools