Fellow Visual Studio User,

We've been hard at work on Dispatch version 2.0 and can't wait to get some feedback on the progress. Many of the shortcomings in version 1 have been addressed and almost all bugs reported have been patched.

This version is not just additional features piled onto version one, this is a complete re-write from the ground up. Version 2 has a completely new architecture that supports extremely large projects with ease. Opening a project with 10,000+ files takes a mere 4 seconds to load.

In addition to the brand new spankin' code, the UI has also been refreshed - nothing drastic, just a few subtle tweaks and some new icons. Now, onto the good stuff...

New FTP Engine

Dispatch sports a brand new FTP engine. This equates to greater compatibility with FTP server software, a configurable transfer buffer, and the ability to compare the actual content of local & remote files instead of just the last modified date.

FTP w/ SSL

FTP transfers over SSL are now possible. Dispatch will support explicit and implicit connections using either TLS and/or SSL. If you've been holding off on Dispatch due to lack of secure transfers, wait no more.

Broader Project Compatibility

Dispatch version 1 supports web site projects loaded via IIS or the local file system, as well as Web Application Projects. Only web site projects that did not use pre-compilation were supported. Version 2 adds support web site projects that take advantage of pre-compilation. ASP.NET MVC applications are also supported and compatiblity with VS.PHP projects has been added too.

Remote View Overlay Enhancements

Remote View Overlay allows you to see your remote file system directly on top of your local file system. Version 2 speeds things up by only scanning the necessary nodes so you'll see results a lot quicker. Local files and directories that haven't been verified to exist remotely can now be downloaded, deleted and diffed by holding down the shift key.

Uploads

The upload progress bar now shows the progress of each individual file as well as the overall upload job. Additional stats, including transfer rate, average upload speed, etc. have been added. Entire directories can now be uploaded directly from the Solution Explorer.

Comparisons

Local comparisons no longer use the last modified date to determine if the file should be uploaded. Dispatch now uses checksums to determine if the content of a file differs from the last time it was uploaded.

Remote comparisons can also take advantage of this new feature as long as your server supports it. Unfortunately, Microsoft FTP server does not support checksums. If your server does not support checksums, Dispatch will default to using the last modified date.

Some Screenshots

Interested in testing?

The beta can be downloaded from the following location:

http://beta.dispatchasp.net/releases/pre/Dispatch.Installer.533.exe

Trial and permanent keys that work with version 1 will work with version 2.

Please be aware that this IS a beta and will likely include a few bugs (nothing major we hope). Please make every effort to report any issues you run into. I can promise we'll do all we can to get all issues patched in a timely manner.

If you decide to downgrade back to Dispatch v1, please be aware there is a slight issue with Visual Studio where the menu items are unresponsive. This can be resolved by running Visual Studio with the "/resetsettings" argument (example below). As a result, Visual Studio will be reset back to default settings, so we recommend exporting your settings prior to downgrading.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.com" /resetsettings