We are pleased to announce the release of Visual Studio 2013! This latest release offers many great features for developers, such as innovative IDE features like Peek and CodeLens, expanded ALM capacities with Git support, enhancements for ASP.NET web development, and much more.
For VSTO developers in particular, new in this release is the ability to code-sign VSTO solutions with SHA-256 certificates. The latest release also supports Office 2013 right-out-of-the-box without requiring a separate download, and the Office 2013 templates can now target the latest .NET Framework 4.5.1.
Visual Studio 2013 also delivers a broad set of tooling for the new apps for Office and apps for SharePoint. Some highlights include the ability to create MVC SharePoint apps, enhancements around app-publishing, and a new set of tooling around Cloud Business Apps that integrate seamlessly with Office 365 services. Learn more on the apps for Office and SharePoint blog.
Tip: Just like Visual Studio 2012, Visual Studio 2013 continues to support the Office 2010 templates. However, to reduce clutter, we have re-categorized the project templates according to the .NET Framework version that they support. So, if you're looking for the Office 2010 templates, be sure to adjust the ".NET Framework" dropdown to ".NET Framework 4.0", as shown below:
We hope you enjoy Visual Studio 2013 and the many great features that this IDE has to offer!
~ Michael Zlatkovsky | Program Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office & Apps for Office