What's New in Developer Quality and Diagnostic Tools in Visual Studio 2013

  • Article

Visual Studio 2013 includes new features for the developer in these areas:

New diagnostic tools for Windows Store apps

CodeLens

Code maps

.NET Framework Memory Analysis with Dump Files

IntelliTrace

Unit tests

Code analysis

Coded UI tests for Windows Store apps

New diagnostic tools for Windows Store apps

Analyze UI Responsiveness

You can find areas of HTML, CSS, and XAML code that impact the ability of your app to be fast and fluid. See Analyze UI responsiveness (JavaScript) and Analyze UI Responsiveness in Windows Store apps (XAML)

Analyze memory issues in JavaScript apps

The JavaScript Memory Analyzer can help you understand memory usage and find memory leaks in your Windows Store apps built for Windows using JavaScript. See Analyze memory usage in Windows Store apps (JavaScript)

Analyze energy use

Energy Consumption tool helps you analyze the power and energy consumption of Windows Store apps on low-power tablet devices that run all or part of the time on their own batteries. Optimizing energy use can increase you app’s adoption and use by customers. Analyze energy use in Windows Store apps

CodeLens

Find out more about your code without leaving the editor when you use CodeLens in Visual Studio Ultimate. You can find code references, changes to your code, linked bugs, work items, code reviews, and unit tests – all in the same context as your code.

CodeLens indicators in the code editor

To find out more about what you need, see Find code changes and other history with CodeLens. For example, to find info about your code when you use Git, you'll need Visual Studio 2013 Update 3.

Code maps

When you want to understand how your code fits together and visually track your place in the code while you trace through it, map your code with Visual Studio Ultimate. You can also visually map the call stack while debugging.

Debugging with call stacks on code maps

To find out more about what you need, see:

For example, to see color-code relationships and dependencies in projects that share code across multiple apps, you'll need Visual Studio 2013 Update 3.

.NET Framework Memory Analysis with Dump Files

One of the issues that frequently affects .NET applications running in production environments is problems with their memory use which can impact both the application and potentially the entire machine. Visual Studio 2013 expands its dump file analysis tools to help you find memory leaks, inefficient memory use, and unnecessary allocations in .NET Framework web, database, and desktop applications.

For more information about the .NET memory analysis tool, see this post on the Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server Blog. For more information about dump files, see Use Dump Files to Debug App Crashes and Hangs in Visual Studio.

IntelliTrace

Area

New features and supported tasks

Diagnose apps in deployment

  • Monitor IIS web apps locally for exception and performance events with Microsoft Monitoring Agent, either alone or with System Center 2012. You can record these events to an IntelliTrace log so that you can investigate these problems further in Visual Studio Ultimate and go to the deployed code when you start debugging from specific events.

    View performance event details

    Start debugging from method call

    Go to application code from performance event

    See Set up your release to diagnose problems after deployment and What's New for System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager

  • Record diagnostic events from SharePoint 2013 applications in deployment with Microsoft Monitoring Agent.

    You can save user profile events, Unified Logging System (ULS) events, and IntelliTrace events to an IntelliTrace log so that you can investigate these problems further in Visual Studio Ultimate and start debugging from specific events with IntelliTrace.

    IntelliTrace log file - View web request + events

    See Set up your release to diagnose problems after deployment.

Unit tests

Area

New features and supported areas

Code editor

Find unit tests and their status without leaving the editor when you use the CodeLens in Visual Studio Ultimate.

  • Review and run unit tests for specific code.

    CodeLens - Choose test status in code editor

  • Find the change history for a unit test definition and compare incoming changes with your local version.

    CodeLens - Compare change with local version

See Find code changes and other history with CodeLens.

Create and save test sets with playlists

You can create and save a list of tests that you want to run or view as a group. When you select a playlist, the tests in the list are displayed Test Explorer. You can add a test to more than one playlist, and all tests in your project are available when you choose the default All Tests playlist. See Create custom playlists

Enhanced filtering and grouping of tests in Test Explorer

See Group and filter the test list for new criteria in Test Explorer that make it easier to organize and run unit tests.

Code analysis

Area

New features and supported tasks

Code Analysis window

Code analysis warnings now appear on the Code Analysis tool window. The window helps you manage and resolve code analysis warnings.

Coded UI tests for Windows Store apps

Area

New features and supported tasks

Coded UI tests for Windows Store apps

Coded UI Test Project (Windows Store apps) template is available for Windows 8.1 projects.

See Testing Windows Store Apps with Coded UI Tests and Set a Unique Automation Property for Windows Store Controls for Testing.

Profile Guided Optimization for Visual C++

Area

New features and supported tasks

Profile Guided Optimization for Visual C++

The Profile Guided Optimization for Visual C++ plug-in streamlines the profile guided optimization experience for developers of native apps for desktop and Windows Store.

See Profile Guided Optimization in the Performance and Diagnostics Hub.

See Also

Concepts

Improving Quality with Visual Studio Diagnostic Tools

What's New for Modeling Tools in Visual Studio 2013

What's New in Visual Studio 2013