Microsoft released today Visual Studio 2013 (and Team Foundation Server) Update 3 Release Candidate (RC).

There is a great video on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site covering many of the features and enhancements in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 RC. If you don’t have the time (or desire) to watch the video right now (it’s about 50 minutes in length) then keep reading…

Here is a summary showing some of what’s new in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 (RC):

CodeLens

Probably the biggest change with CodeLens is that it now supports Git-based repositories. Since it works against a local Git repository, it doesn’t matter if your repository is sourced out of Visual Studio Online or any other Git repository (e.g. GitHub). It’s worth noting, however, that TFVC-based repositories hosted in Visual Studio Online are not yet supported by CodeLens (this will be coming in a future update).

Here’s a quick screenshot of CodeLens showing a commit for a particular method:

Code Map

Various enhancements including a better zoom experience, link styling and additional usage of color.

Visual Studio IDE

This is either a small change or a huge change, depending on your perspective. There is now an option within Visual Studio to offer Mixed Case menu bar items.

Previously, you had to rely on a manual registry change to modify the menu casing. Now it’s as simple as checking a checkbox to revert to the old-style menu text. Also, this setting will roam with your other Visual Studio settings (assuming you haven’t disabled roaming).

Test Case Management

You can now customize Test Plan and Test Suite artifacts, including the ability to add custom fields and workflows.

Release Management

You can now deploy apps using Desired State Configuration (DSC) or Chef. Nice!

Application Insights

Application Insights is now included in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 RC without having to add the Visual Studio Extension that had to be manually installed in previous versions.

Links

• Download Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 RC
• Release Notes
• Brian Harry – VS/TFS 2013.3 (Update 3) RC
• The Visual Studio Blog – Update 3 Release Candidate for Visual Studio 2013
• Ideas for features/enhancements? Post them on the Visual Studio UserVoice site.
• Find a bug? Report it on the Visual Studio Connect site.