Visual Studio Architecture, Visualization, Modeling, and UML Tools

Building tools in Visual Studio to help you understand and design software.

Where's All the Posts?

Wondering what happened to the activity on this blog? Check out the Visual Studio ALM + Team...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/19/2012

Got feature suggestions for Visual Studio?

You can now post your ideas about how to improve Visual Studio and vote on them on the Visual Studio...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 08/22/2011

Visual Studio ALM at Microsoft TechEd 2011

Lots of exciting stuff, so check out the session videos on Channel 9: The Future of Microsoft Visual...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 05/27/2011

Social media and other resources about software architecture, visualization, modeling, and UML with Visual Studio 2010 now on our blog

The right side of our blog now features Facebook and LinkedIn communities that focus on software...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 05/27/2011

How to: Visualize and describe workflow using UML activity diagrams in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

This short YouTube video shows how you can visually describe process workflow by using UML activity...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/22/2011

How to: Visualize and describe users' requirements using UML use case diagrams in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

This short YouTube video shows how you can visually describe a software system's users' requirements...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/22/2011

How to: Validate code against the architecture using layer diagrams in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

This short YouTube video shows how you can visually describe your software's architecture on a layer...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/22/2011

Updated Architecture Tooling Guide for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

The VS ALM Rangers have updated this guide, which includes automated guidance, hands-on-labs, and...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/21/2011

New samples: Create UML elements quickly and run unit tests on UML extensions

Alan Wills has created these new samples that help you work with UML more easily in Visual Studio...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/18/2011

Samples that extend UML diagrams in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

Alan Wills has created several samples that let you extend UML diagrams in Visual Studio 2010...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 04/14/2011

Developing Windows Phone 7 apps with the help of dependency graphs in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

Chris Lovett, an architect on the Visual Studio Ultimate team, wrote an interesting article about...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 03/24/2011

How to visualize your code or system with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

Each of these videos are less than 2 minutes long and provide very quick overviews of how you can...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 02/25/2011

Export XMI Sample for Visual Studio UML Diagrams

Steve Cook, a software architect on the Visual Studio team, has created a sample that shows how you...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 12/14/2010

Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 expands test capabilities and includes code visualization + modeling tools from previous feature pack

This feature pack has just been released and includes the following capabilities: Testing features:...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 11/16/2010

MSDN Video Series: How to explore unfamiliar code in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

These videos show how you can use code visualization tools, such as dependency graphs, DGML, and...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 10/27/2010

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate helps you gain better control over code dependencies

There's two ways that you can approach this in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate: - At the physical level...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 10/11/2010

What do you think of Visual Studio 2010?

Jason Zander wants you to tell MS directly: "It's been just over 6 months since we launched Visual...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 10/08/2010

Why aren't linked model elements appearing in my work items? In Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, links...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 09/16/2010

Architecture Tooling Guidance for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

The Visual Studio ALM Rangers have provided this practical guidance for the modeling tools in Visual...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 09/16/2010

August 2010: MSDN Library Content Update: Modeling the Application

Modeling the Application Visualization and Modeling SDK – Domain-Specific Languages We're...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 09/16/2010

July 2010: MSDN Library Content Update: Modeling the Application

We published the following updates last month. Please let us know how useful these improvements are...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 08/10/2010

Channel 9 video series: UML with VS2010 Ultimate

Clint Edmonson, an Architect Evangelist at Microsoft, has posted a series of videos that show how to...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 07/29/2010

Channel 9: Visual Studio 2010 Code Visualization Tools

In this video, Cameron Skinner describes and shows how to use these tools so you can better...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 06/29/2010

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate + Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack

It’s been some time since we updated this blog, so to bring things up to date, we released the...

Author: Esther Fan Date: 06/28/2010

How Do I: Use the Retooled System Designer in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture Edition?

One of the major changes in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture Edition is the ability to...

Author: Mark_Groves Date: 02/04/2008

Architectural Roles

This blog discusses the new Architectural Roles feature available in the Visual Studio Team System...

Author: Mark_Groves Date: 01/15/2008

Top-Down System Design by Delegating Behavior

We’ve added a cool new feature called Delegation to the System Designer to really simplify top-down...

Author: Mark_Groves Date: 08/30/2007

Importing & Exporting Custom Prototypes

You may not be aware, but within Visual Studio Architecture Edition you can create customized...

Author: Mark_Groves Date: 08/23/2007

Team Architect Power Tools

We've just released the Team System Architecture Edition Power Tools. The new download is available...

Author: suhaild Date: 08/15/2007

Intellisense within Web Service Details

One of the features that we shipped within Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects...

Author: Mark_Groves Date: 06/09/2007

New Path Editor for the Domain-Specific Language Tools (DSL Tools)

In the DSL Tools, paths are used in a DSL definition to specify how to navigate from one object in...

Author: Mark_Groves Date: 06/05/2007

Team Architect Power Tools

Over the course of VS2005 and now “Orcas”, we’ve received a good amount of feedback on the...

Author: suhaild Date: 05/14/2007