Release Notes

Version 2010.08.01.00 [Download] [Purchase License]

Delete all tables, queues & blob containers In this version, we've included a feature where you can delete all tables in a storage account with just one click. This is very helpful when you're doing some development and your application creates a number of temporary tables which you don't want in your storage account after the application execution is over. You can also delete all queues and blob containers as well with a single click of your mouse. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. Delete All Tables from Azure Table Storage Demo

Bug fixes - Binary Attribute Values: There was an issue with updating entities having an attribute which is of "Binary" data type. Because of this issue users were not able to update that entity. This issue is now fixed in this release. - Uploading Temporary Files: There was an issue with uploading files which are marked as "Temporary" because of which these files were never added to the upload queue. This issue is now fixed in this release.

Version 2010.07.01.00

Upload data from CSV or delimited flat files into table storage In this version, we've included a feature which will take a CSV or a delimited flat file and upload it into Azure Table storage. You will be able to define the data types for individual columns in the source file and also be able to specify which columns you want to upload. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. Upload Flat Files in Azure Table Storage Demo

New icon for Cloud Storage Studio Most of the users use both Cloud Storage Studio and Azure Diagnostics Manager side by side. When both are minimized, since their logos are nearly identical it was very difficult to identify the applications by icons. We're pleased to announce new icons for both Azure Diagnostics Manager and Cloud Storage Studio.

Guest OS Information In this version, we have included a feature where you can view the information about guest operation system in which your roles are running. You can also view a list of available guest operating systems.

Version 2010.06.01.00

Auto application update notification In this version, we've included a feature which will notify you if your application was updated and provides you with an option to view the changes incorporated in the latest release.

Preserve deployment package file information for future deployments In this version, we have included a feature where you can instruct Cloud Storage Studio to remember the location of your application package and configuration files (either on your local computer or blob storage URL) so that you don't have to search/specify these locations for future deployments. These settings are configured per hosted service.

Preserve entities sort order information In this version, we have included a feature where Cloud Storage Studio remembers the sort order information on entities even when you refresh the entities list or move to next/previous set of entities in a table.

Ability to specify Timestamp value in UTC or local when clearing table Till the previous version you could only specify the Timestamp value in local date/time and Cloud Storage Studio was converting this value to UTC behind the scenes to fetch the list of entities for deletion. In this version, we are giving you an option of specifying this value in either UTC (default) or local.

General UI enhancements We have made it easier now to connect to Azure Storage Account and Hosted Services by including two buttons on top to connect to Azure Storage Accounts and Hosted Services. You can also connect to them using "Connect to ..." dropdown list as well.

Performance improvement while deleting blobs in a container/folder(s) We have made some changes in the application which has improved the performance of the application while deleting blobs in containers/folders. Earlier we were fetching all blobs in the selected container/folder(s) and then delete them one by one. Now we retrieve up to 5000 blobs, delete them and then retrieve next set of blobs in the selected container/folder(s).

Version 2010.05.01.00

Entity batch transactions Till now we were not making use of Entity Batch Transactions which were resulting in single entity uploads/deletes and hence slower operation. In this version, we have made use of this feature so now your uploads and deletes will be much faster. Depending on the PartitionKey values, Cloud Storage Studio will now try to upload or delete up to 100 entities in a single attempt instead of 1 entity at a time.

GZip compression while uploading blobs In this version, we have included a feature where you can instruct Cloud Storage Studio to compress files using GZip compression technique while uploading. You can use this feature to compress your style sheets (CSS), JavaScript (JS) or any other file types. Since the GZip compression may result in increasing the file size of the resultant file, we have also provided an option to not upload a compressed file if the compressed file size is more than the original file's size. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. GZip compression demo

Version 2010.04.01.00

Delete multiple tables, queues & blob containers simultaneously In this version, we have included a feature where you can select more than one table and delete them simultaneously. You can do the same for queues and blob containers as well. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. Delete multiple tables, queues & blob containers simultaneously Demo

Clear table In this version, we have included a feature where you can delete all entities from a table without deleting the table itself. You can delete all entities or instruct Cloud Storage Studio to delete entities where "Timestamp" value is less than a certain date/time value. Please note that Cloud Storage Studio will first download the entities and then delete them. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. Clear table demo

Ability to reorder attributes and show/hide them when viewing entities In this version, we have included a feature where you can instruct Cloud Storage Studio to change the order in which the attributes are displayed when viewing entities. You can also hide certain attributes (including PartitionKey, RowKey and Timestamp) so that they are not displayed when viewing entities. This information is persisted across multiple Cloud Storage Studio sessions. Please note that you can't change the order of PartitionKey, RowKey and Timestamp attributes. If they are included in the display, they will always be displayed before any other attributes. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. Ability to reorder attributes and show/hide them when viewing entities demo

Apply properties like cache-control in bulk to all blobs in the upload queue Currently if you have to change the cache-control property of blobs in upload queue, you will have to do it on each and every blob separately. In this version we are including a capability where you can specify cache-control property and it will be applied to all blobs in the upload queue. Apart from cache-control, you can specify values for content-encoding, content-language property as well. Click on the link below to watch a small demo video showing this feature. Apply properties like cache-control in bulk to all blobs in the upload queue Demo

Bug Fixes - Empty Attribute Values: Cloud Storage Studio was dropping all attributes where the value for that attribute was null. This issue is now fixed. Please note that if the attribute datatype is not of type "String" and it's value is null, that entity will not be saved by Windows Azure Storage. - Date/Time conversion issue when uploading data from relational database and XML files: Cloud Storage Studio was doing some unnecessary date/time conversions (applying offsets) while uploading data from relational data sources and XML files. Now this conversion is removed and date/time values will be same as they are stored in the source database or XML file. - Error parsing large XML files while uploading: Cloud Storage Studio was not parsing large XML files properly while uploading data into tables. This issue is now fixed. - Milliseconds were not included in Date/Time attribute values: Cloud Storage Studio dropping milliseconds part for date/time type entity attributes. This issue is now fixed.

Version 2010.03.01.00

Page Blobs Support In this version, we have included support for Page Blobs. Using Cloud Storage Studio you can now create empty page blobs as well as upload existing Virtual Hard Drives (VHD) from your computer as page blobs which you can later mount as Windows Azure Drives to be used by your applications. You can also download these page blobs from Windows Azure Storage as well.

Limited Proxy Server Support In this version, we have included limited support for proxy servers. So now you can use Cloud Storage Studio behind a proxy server as well. By default proxy is disabled so if you're not using a proxy server to connect to the Internet, no changes are required. To enable proxy settings, open the configuration window and navigate to proxy settings menu.

Improved Create Deployment Process Till the current version, "Create Deployment" was a two step process: First you create a deployment by uploading a package file and configuration file and once it is succeeds, then you have to press the "Run" button to start the application. In this version, we have provided a capability where you can instruct Cloud Storage Studio to automatically run the deployment after it is created successfully. In order to do that, just click on the check box which says "Automatically run the deployment after creation" on the Create Deployment Window.

Date/Time Attribute Values Conversion Till the current version, Cloud Storage Studio was converting and displaying the date/time attribute values in an entity from UTC to local date/time. Likewise, Cloud Storage Studio was converting the date/time attribute values into UTC upon saving the entity. In this version, we have provided a capability where you can instruct Cloud Storage Studio to do the conversion from UTC to local date/time upon retrieval and to UTC upon saving. This setting can be changed in the table/entities settings in the configuration settings window. By default Cloud Storage Studio will not do any conversion.