Dynamics CRM JavaScript Web Resources in Visual Studio 2013

Roshan Mehta, 23 July 2013

Microsoft has released some great new features with Visual Studio 2013 that is guaranteed to please Dynamics CRM developers. At Build 2013, Scott Hanselman and Mads Kristensen showcased some time-saving shortcuts that will surely help developers focus on their coding and get their jobs done faster.

You might recall the new JavaScript editor that was shipped with Visual Studio 2012. Microsoft has taken it one step further with a new and improved JavaScript experience.

We’re all used to the drop-down-list in Visual Studio which allows us to jump to methods when writing code in native .NET languages. This is now available within the JavaScript editor to make it easier to work with large JavaScript files. Gone are the days of excessive scrolling!

The JavaScript editor now has support for constants. If you declare a constant variable and then try to assign it another value, the JavaScript editor will indicate that this is not allowed.

With Web Essentials 2013, developers can also keep their code tidy by adding regions into JavaScript files. Because Visual Studio 2013 is in a preview release, we may see this feature available once the full version comes out. 

If you want to easily identify where a variable or function is being used, you can simply click on the name of a variable or function and the JavaScript editor will automatically highlight all references to that variable or function.

The additions to the JavaScript editor in Visual Studio 2013 will definitely make it faster and easier for Dynamics CRM developers to write client-side code for forms and ribbons.