Orchestration Expression Window Sizeable in BizTalk 2010

The text below is based on the beta release of BizTalk 2010. It might not (completely) apply to the RTM release.

So what is the greatest new feature in BizTalk 2010? For me it is by far sizeable code window for expression shapes and message assignment shapes in the orchestration designer.

Although this seems like a small improvement it was many times requested and really makes the live of a BizTalk developer easier.

If you follow my blog you might know I wrote the expression maximizer utility a couple of months ago. This was actually a fun project for me to be able to join in the BizTalk tip contest on BizTalk gurus. I must admit though that I use it in my day to day development work.

I’m very excited that Microsoft has a similar feature out of the box. I gives me the same feeling when they added the browse button next for file ports in the admin console in BizTalk 2006 .

The expression window is now a standard visual studio window. This means you can for example dock it into the right pane:

But you can also use it in the normal way:

and resize it:

Zooming in the window is also possible. Handy if you need to do a demo:

Cool! Thank you Microsoft!