Web Essentials, the extension introduced to add better CSS support to Visual Studio, has recently been updated with new tools for Visual Studio 2012, including support for TypeScript, Modernizr, and minification.
When Web Essentials 2012 was first released a few months ago, together with Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012, it included support for LESS, Sass, and CoffeeScript. Version 1.4 adds TypeScript validation and Intellisense features to the list. It also includes a fix for working with these files under source control while they’re being compiled.
The new version provides automatic downloads of new schema files, so that HTML5 and CSS validation, as well as new browser details, will always be up to date. Mads Kristensen, creator of Web Essentials, maintains an extensive list of the CSS standards supported in Visual Studio 2012.
Other new features in Web Essentials 1.4 include:
- document-outline view for CSS and LESS files
- Modernizr class name highlighting
- context menu item for JavaScript and CSS file minification (.min)
- option to use only W3C standards for validation
- new options dialog
Web Essentials 1.4 for Visual Studio 2012 is available from the Visual Studio Gallery.