EF Power Tools Beta 2 Available

The Entity Framework Power Tools provide additional design-time tools in Visual Studio to help you develop using the Entity Framework. Today we are releasing Beta 2 of the Power Tools.

Where do I get it?

The Entity Framework Power Tools are available on the Visual Studio Gallery.

You can also install them directly from Visual Studio by selecting 'Tools -> Extension Manager...' then searching for "Entity Framework Power Tools" in the Online Gallery.

If you encounter an error while upgrading from an older version of EF Power Tools, you will need to uninstall the older version first then install EF Power Tools Beta 2. This is due to a bug in Visual Studio that blocks the upgrade because the certificate used to sign Beta 2 has a different expiry date than Beta 1.

What's new in Beta 2?

Beta 2 improves the quality of the previous release, and also adds new functionality.

• Code generated by reverse engineer can be customized using T4 templates.
• Fixed many reverse engineer bugs relating to the code that we generate.
• Generate Views (formerly Optimize Entity Data Model) is now available for database-first and model-first. Right-click on an EDMX file to access the command.
• Enhanced DbContext and database discovery. We fixed many bugs around how we locate your DbContext and the database it connects to.

For a complete list of the features included in the Power Tools see the What does it add to Visual Studio section.

Compatibility

The Power Tools are compatible with Visual Studio 2010 and Entity Framework 4.2 or later.

You can also install the Power Tools on Visual Studio 11 Beta, but you may receive the error "A constructible type deriving from DbContext could not be found in the selected file." This is caused by a bug in the Visual Studio 11 unit test tools where an older version of EntityFramework.dll is being loaded. We are working closely with that team to resolve the issue. As a workaround, you can delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0_Config\BindingPaths\{BFC24BF4-B994-4757-BCDC-1D5D2768BF29} registry key. Be aware, however, that this will cause the Unit Test commands to stop working. Thank you, early adopters, for your superhuman patience with prerelease software.

Support

This release is a preview of features that we are considering for a future release and is designed to allow you to provide feedback on the design of these features. EF Power Tools Beta 2 is not intended or licensed for use in production.

If you have a question, ask it on Stack Overflow using the entity-framework tag.

What does it add to Visual Studio?

EF Power Tools Beta 2 is for Code First, model-first, and database-first development and adds the following context menu options to an 'Entity Framework' sub-menu inside Visual Studio.

When right-clicking on a C# project

• Reverse Engineer Code First
  This command allows one-time generation of Code First mappings for an existing database. This option is useful if you want to use Code First to target an existing database as it takes care of a lot of the initial coding. The command prompts for a connection to an existing database and then reverse engineers POCO classes, a derived DbContext, and Code First mappings that can be used to access the database.
  • If you have not already added the EntityFramework NuGet package to your project, the latest version will be downloaded as part of running reverse engineer.
  • The reverse engineer process by default produces a complete mapping using the fluent API. Items such as column name will always be configured, even when they would be correctly inferred by conventions. This allows you to refactor property/class names etc. without needing to manually update the mapping.
    • The Customize Reverse Engineer Templates command (see below) lets you customize how code is generated.
  • A connection string is added to the App/Web.config file and is used by the context at runtime. If you are reverse engineering to a class library, you will need to copy this connection string to the configuration file of the consuming application(s).
  • This process is designed to help with the initial coding of a Code First model. You may need to adjust the generated code if you have a complex database schema or are using advanced database features.
  • Running this command multiple times will overwrite any previously generated files, including any changes that have been made to generated files.
• Customize Reverse Engineer Templates
  Adds the default reverse engineer T4 templates to your project for editing. After updating these files, run the Reverse Engineer Code First command again to reverse engineer POCO classes, a derived DbContext, and Code First mappings using your project's customized templates.
  • The templates are added to your project under the CodeTemplates\ReverseEngineerCodeFirst folder.

When right-clicking on a code file containing a derived DbContext class

• View Entity Data Model (Read-only)
  Displays the Code First model in the Entity Framework designer.
  • This is a read-only representation of the model; you cannot update the Code First model using the designer.
• View Entity Data Model XML
  Displays the EDMX XML representing the Code First model.
• View Entity Data Model DDL SQL
  Displays the DDL SQL to create the database targeted by the Code First model.
• Generate Views
  Generates pre-compiled views used by the EF runtime to improve start-up performance. Adds the generated views file to the containing project.
  • View compilation is discussed in the Performance Considerations article on MSDN.
  • If you change your model then you will need to re-generate the pre-compiled views by running this command again.

When right-clicking on an Entity Data Model (*.edmx) file

• Generate Views
  This is the same as the Generate Views command above except that, instead of generating pre-compiled views for a derived DbContext class, it generates them for your database-first or model-first entity data model.

Brice Lambson
ADO.NET Entity Framework