If you have developed SharePoint projects in other tools such as SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint Designer 2010, you can import the projects into Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 by using the Import SharePoint Solution Package template. For more information, see Importing Items from an Existing SharePoint Site.

You can use many SharePoint project type templates and SharePoint project item templates to develop SharePoint sites and applications. Some project templates that are included in Visual Studio 2010 include Business Data Connectivity Model, Event Receiver, List Definition, Sequential Workflow, Site Definition, and Visual Web Part. For more information, see SharePoint Project and Project Item Templates.

Visual Studio provides tools to help you create custom workflows that manage the life cycle of documents and list items in a SharePoint Web site. Items provided include a designer, a set of drag-and-drop activity controls, and the necessary assembly references. Visual Studio also includes the SharePoint Customization Wizard to help create and configure the workflows. For more information, see SharePoint Workflow Solutions.

You can integrate and validate business data from a server application or database into SharePoint. Then, end-users can view, add, update, or delete business data by using lists and Web parts. To integrate data into SharePoint, create a model for the Business Data Connectivity service. For more information, see Integrating Business Data into SharePoint.

You can create Web parts to enable users to directly modify the content, appearance, and behavior of SharePoint site pages by using a browser. Web Parts are server-side controls that run inside a Web Part Page. For more information, see Creating Web Parts for a SharePoint Site.

You can use a Visual Studio designer to create application pages, which contain content that is merged with a SharePoint master page. The designer displays a content area for each content placeholder that is defined in a master page. For more information, see Creating Application Pages for SharePoint.

You can also create reusable controls for Web parts or application pages. For more information, see Creating Reusable Controls for Web Parts or Application Pages.

Server Explorer now includes the ability to browse SharePoint connections. This lets you navigate through the components of a SharePoint site. SharePoint site components such as list definitions, content types, event receivers, Web parts, and modules display in a node called SharePoint Connections in the tree view of the Server Explorer window. For more information, see Browsing SharePoint Connections Using Server Explorer.

Before debugging, Visual Studio copies the solution package to the SharePoint server, activates the Site and Web-scoped Features, and starts the project. For more information, see Building and Debugging SharePoint Solutions.

You can use Visual Studio to organize SharePoint Project Items into Features and to create a solution package (.wsp) to deploy your SharePoint Features. You can use the following SharePoint development tools to customize and create the solution package:

• Feature Designer: creates Features, sets scopes, and marks other Features as dependencies.

• Package Designer: groups SharePoint items into a solution package.

• Packaging Explorer: groups and views the hierarchical tree.

When Visual Studio creates the solution packages, the package and package files are also validated. For more information, see Packaging and Deploying SharePoint Solutions.

You can extend Visual Studio by creating SharePoint system extensions and calling into the native SharePoint object model. You can also extend SharePoint Explorer by creating nodes or context menus for existing nodes. For more information, see >Extending the SharePoint Tools.

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