New features announced for SharePoint 2010

Development environment and tools
Traditionally, the path to your first SharePoint hello world-web part is littered with technical obstacles in the shape of tedious installation problems, Windows Server 2003 blues, virtual server nightmares etc. No more. Now you just need your laptop to develop SharePoint applications.
The box
SharePoint developers no longer need to run a Windows 2003 Server. In fact, SharePoint and the development tools can now be installed directly on Windows 7 or Vista (service pack 1). Either versions of SharePoint can be used, i.e. SharePoint Foundation (formerly WSS) or SharePoint Server.
The operating system must be 64 bit since SharePoint 2010 only runs in a 64 bit environment.
SharePoint on a desktop operating system is just for developers and not for running a production environment.

Visual Studio 2010
Many of SharePoint 2010’s new features can be accessed from inside Visual Studio 2010. Also, quite a few third-party add-ons may not be needed anymore as the functionality is now covered by Visual Studio.
Highlights:
· Built-in designers for:
o Web parts
o BCS (formerly BDC)
o Workflows
· Package and deploy SharePoint projects
· Generate WSPs
· View SharePoint sites in server explorer
· Integration to Team Foundation Server
· Support for SharePoint sandboxed solutions
· WSPs from SharePoint Designer can be imported (including workflows)
· Build workflow steps for SharePoint Designer
· SharePoint Business Connectivity Services support
· New events projects templates

General improvents

Developer dashboard
A developer dashboard can be displayed automatically at the bottom of every page. The DD displays valuable information about how the page is generated, for instance:
· Timing and duration of events
· Database queries (even the ones SharePoint does in the background)
The DD is activated with the follow stsadm command:
stsadm –o setproperty –pn developer-dashboard –pv ondemand

Coding
Coding for SharePoint just got slightly easier due to the many improvements in .NET framework 4.0 and SharePoint 2010.
Below is a rundown of some of the new features:
· LINQ for SharePoint
· After-synchronous events
· New event types:
o Site-scoped events
o Web creation events
· Workflow improvements:
o Initiation and association forms in Visual Studio
o New design user interface for workflows in SharePoint Designer
o Use Visio 2010 to design workflows
· SharePoint UI can now be saved as a template
· WSP is now the unified developer format – works in site collections and machine

Improvements to lists
In SharePoint 2007, lists can cause any developer headaches. Hopefully, the new list architecture in SharePoint 2010 will solve this. Below is an overview of some of the improvements:
· Validation with Excel-like Formula – forms can be validated using simple syntax
· Lookup to multiple columns
· Lookup fields have true relations which ensure proper deletion (transaction-style)
· List index auto-creation
· Scalability and performance vastly improved:
o Lists and folders can now contain a million elements
o Document libraries can contain 10 million documents
· List query throttling
· Lists views no longer based on CAML but XSL-T. Queries still use CAML

Ribbon and Dialog framework
The ribbon we know (and some love) from Microsoft Office is now used in SharePoint 2010.
Some of the highlights:
· Custom actions can be embedded in the ribbon
· The ribbon is context sensitive
· The SharePoint out-of-the-box forms are replaceable
· New web dialog functionality:
o A dialog floats on top of the SharePoint page and is used to get input from the user
o Fully programmable

Silverlight 3
Silverlight plays an important part in SharePoint 2010 and is used in many of the improved UI elements. From a developer’s point of view, these are the highlights:
· Built-it and customisable media player web part
· List and site creation from within Silverlight
· Office web applications run in Silverlight
· Client object model – call SharePoint APIs from within Silverlight
New features in 2010
User interface
· Ribbon-based contextual menus, much like in Office 2007
· Live preview of font changes etc.
· Broad use of AJAX to minimise number of page refreshes
· More seamless integration of web-based and desktop clients
· All Office documents can now be viewed and edited in a rich web version of the desktop client
Accessibility
· Cross-browser compatibility
· XHTML and WCAG compatible output
Collaboration
· Completely revamped wiki
o Improved editing tool
o Dramatically improved image upload and handling
· Richer blogs
· Improvements to the calendar lists
· Web-based, OneNote-like functionality
Organisation
· Tagging, social tagging
· Rating of documents
· Bookmarks
MySite and Social Computing
· Smart profiles
· Activity feed – overview of a user’s recent activity
· Browse colleagues
· Locate experts within the organisation
· Tag cloud of a person’s recent activities
· Note board – i.e. a tagwall
Content Management
· Improved scalability – lists and folders can now contain a million elements. Document libraries can contain 10 million documents
· Digital Asset Management
· Consistent content type across all servers in a farm
· Streaming of video placed in document libraries
· Improved governance possibilities
Search
· Choice between standard SharePoint search and FAST Search
· Wild card searching – used of asterisks
· Improved people search – rich info on the search results page
· Live preview of documents, slides etc right on the search results page
Business intelligence
· Excel Services – including SQL Server PowerPivot
· PerformancePoint Services – advanced BI dashboards
· Visio Services and Chart web part
· Business Connectivity Services – the new name for Business Data Catalog (BDC)
SharePoint Workspace (the new name for Groove)
· Improved offline content
· Improved mobile access to content
IT infrastructure
· 64-bit only!
· SharePoint Foundation is the new name for WSS
· Online/cloud version of SharePoint is a focus point for Microsoft
· PowerShell Admin
o Fully scriptable admin of SharePoint
o Around 500 PowerShell commandlets will be shipped with 2010
o Admin SharePoint from PowerShell running on Windows 7
o Whatif command to preview impact of commands
· New Central Administration
o Problems and solutions page with overview of current problems on the farm, and possible solutions
· Throttling
o Control how many resources specific lists, sites etc. may use
· Monitoring, Analytics
o Usage analysis database will be customisable
· Improved Upgrade and Availability
o Visual Upgrade enables individual users to choose when to upgrade a site