BimlExpress 2020 R1 Features and Highlights

BimlExpress, the free and powerful Visual Studio add-in, has been updated and overhauled with a whole host of new features for the 2020 R1 rollout, designed to enhance the entire Biml development experience.

BimlExpress is the best way to write Biml for free and become accustomed to the entire powerful suite of Biml products offered by Varigence.

BimlExpress Capabilities

BimlExpress inherently features full support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010-2019, including the most recent Version 16.6. BimlExpress is built to work with all versions of SQL Server. BimlExpress is also subject to aligned ship cycles, ensuring that release updates continue to work with the most recent versions of any preferred database management system(s).

Users can utilize BimlExpress to generate large numbers of SSIS packages while writing minimal amount of code, with improved syntax highlighting and autocomplete functionality. The ability to create Biml files, edit them within a custom code editor, and generate SSIS packages has never been more streamlined. BimlExpress is the best way to write Biml code for free in a program that stays current with powerful database management systems being used today.

BimlExpress 2020 R1 Release Notes

Significant changes have been made between BimlExpress 2019 R1 and the recent BimlExpress 2020 R1, improving performance of BimlExpress itself, Visual Studio 2019 integration, and the generation of SSIS packages.

BimlExpress 2020 R1 is now available for free download here:

Note

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For complete release notes, see below:

BimlExpress

  • Fixed issue with initial menu items not working after first click.
  • Fixed bug where external file change would update active window rather than the correct file, if the edited file was not active.
  • Fixed bug where sometimes the active document could have its contents replaced with the contents of a different edited document.
  • Fix for a race condition that could cause BimlExpress to crash if files are opened very rapidly.
  • Fix for issue where sometimes a file would not track as dirty and would not be able to be saved in the UI.
  • Enable BimlStudio licensees to use their third party components in BimlExpress.

2019 Visual Studio Support

  • Improved background load of VS extension to get rid of slow down warning message.
  • Removed following warning: "This extension was not loaded because it uses deprecated synchronous autoload APIs" when starting BimlExpress in VS 16.3 or later.
  • Solved issue where the first "previously open" code editor does not render correctly on startup.

SSIS

  • Fixed issue in ScriptComponents where they were not emitting the right Version number, causing build errors in SSIS.
  • Added Direction property to OLEDB Source parameters.
  • Fixed a typo where the word "will" was displayed as "WILL" in a few object descriptions.
  • Improved logging for all components, connectionmanagers and containers.
  • Fixed bug where SsisDataTypeOverride properties were not being used in column nodes.
  • Fixed bug where ExportColumn Task columns had an invalid reference id.
  • Fixed casing issue on emission of VersionGUID for SSIS Projects
  • Fixed issue where Flat File definitions did not support the use of brace-wrapped shorthand as in the SSDT designer. For example: CRLF in place of /r/n
  • Fixed bug in AdoNetConnection, AnalysisServices, ExcelConnection, OdbcConnection, OleDbConnection, OracleConnection and SqlServerPdwConnection nodes where RetainSameConnection property was not being correctly emitted.
  • Added support for Teradata ODBC provider
  • Added root guard to XSD parsing to prevent root_ID column from being added to simple XML Source column collections.
  • Improved SMOConnection support.
  • Fixed bug that prevented packages with CDCSplitter components from building.