Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint

At TechEd EMEA in Barcelona, the Visual Studio 2010 tools for SharePoint were announced and demonstrated. What was showed was the following:

• Server Explorer for SharePoint to view lists and other SharePoint artifacts directly inside of Visual Studio

• Existing WSP file import into a new solution

• Visual Web Part Designer (finally!!!) which loads a user control as a web part for SharePoint (this was an idea I had in mind for some time lately, but it seems that I wasn’t alone in that)

• Event Receiver Wizard that creates source code with only the event receiver

• ASPX workflow initiation form designer (and probably other workflow forms, too)

• Packaging Explorer and the Packaging Editor to fine-tune the WSP layout and contents

You can learn more about these tools on Channel9 and the Visual Studio 2010 homepage or read the original announcement at SharePoint Team blog.