WCF - Notes 7 Tools

Tool Support: WCF and Visual Studio

WCF has a tight relationship with Visual Studio, which provides a number of WCF-specific capabilities. They include the following:

·         Several WCF-specific project types to make it easier for developers to get started creating typical WCF applications. These include projects for building:

·         A Website or Web application that hosts a WCF service;

·         A library implementation of a WCF service;

·         A WCF application that exposes syndication feeds using RSS or ATOM;

·         A WCF service designed for use by an AJAX client. This service is automatically configured to use the WebHttpBinding with JSON encoding.

·         An AddServiceReference function that lets a developer specify an existing service’s endpoint, then let Visual Studio automatically generate a WCF proxy for that service.

·         The ability to generate a client for testing new WCF-based Web services.

·         A WCF Autohost that can automatically host a library-based WCF service.

·         The Service Configuration Editor, a tool that makes creating and modifying WCF configuration files easier.

·         IntelliSense for WCF configuration, allowing statement completion when creating XML elements in configuration files