Live IntelliSense in WCF RIA Services for VS2010

Live IntelliSense is one of the new features added into WCF RIA Services PDC release on VS2010. It enables no-build experience to get IntelliSense support on the client project for business objects defined in the server project.

As we know, IntelliSense provides a fast way in coding to find right types and members. In RIA Services, because of the project crosses over Sever and Client, together with some re-naming convention between server domain service and client domain context, the normal IntelliSense support we have doesn’t work in this scenario. Unless we build the project, IntelliSense information for the updated business objects (including methods, types, etc.) doesn’t updated at the client project. However, building a solution sometimes would take long, especially when the solution has a considerable scale. That would hardly meet our constant requirement for refreshing of Live IntelliSense.

The Live IntelliSense add-on for RIA Services makes it easier. With it, it’s not necessary to wait until a build complete to just get IntelliSense support. What’s more, it also works even the server project is not in a buildable state (i.e. build errors in methods body don’t impact the Live IntelliSense information update at the client project). It not only works for a straightforward RIA Services project with single client-server pattern, it also works if the RIA Services solution includes class libraries.

To try this feature is pretty simple. Just write your logic at the server project, and then switch to the client project and write code to use your server logic without building the project, then you will see the magic happens.

Install the WCF RIA Services for VS2010 now and have fun!