The Visual Studio Tools menu will automatically enable and disable when an arduino board or xbee is connected. We can override arduino programmer settings from within visual studio
The Visual Studio "Tools" menu example below is taken from a machine that did not have a connected serial port.
How to add a library. Use the Add Arduino Library Options on the Project Menu
Various arduino command are added to visual studio in all relevent positions such as the Standard Tool Bar shown below
The Visual Studio Tools menu allows an arduino board to be selected for a visual studio project as does the boards list on the tool bar
Arduino intellisense in Visual Studio is fully available and automatically built from any arduino sketch
Multiple sketch projects in a single solution are fully supported. F5 will compile and upload the Visual Studio "Start Up" project. Board and Serial port can be selected for each sketch project.
Ultra fast intelligent visual studio arduino compiler
Unlimited serial viewers in Visual Studio auto pause and re-start during upload to an arduino board. All arduino and user conditional compiler directives are fully visible as you code
