Need Urgent Replacement for the IDE

  • Thread starter Thread starter chris
  • Start date Start date
C

chris

Hallo,

I am in need of a replacement for the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

The reason is quiet simple. I develop forms which are used on
different
microsoft windows platform, and one microsoft windows platform spoils
the other microsoft windows platform. For example: I have two
projects, one for pc
and one for pocket pc. I would like (or better I have to) share the
forms.

With the !@# Microsoft IDE this is not possible because the IDE
generated
codes conflict with each other. For example: A pocket pc control does
not have
a tabstop property, but when I edit the form in the pc version, this
stupid
IDE adds this property all the time, overwriting my code which looks
like
this, but does not help.

#if COMPACT_FRAMEWORK = false then
me.combobox.tabstop = false
#end if

What is this IDE doing. It constantly removes the IF statement!!!

It wasn't a problem with vb.6 and embedded visual basic, but on .NET
it's a nightmare. I do not want to have multiple versions of multiple
forms, just because a no brainer wrote some code into the IDE which
spoils programs.
Same with resource files. The platforms use different resource file
syntax.

Please can somebody tell me if were is an alternative to the Microsoft
..NET
IDE.

Thanks

Chris

P.S. If somebody of this Microsoft IDE development team reads this,
maybe this is a valid complain. It also shows clearly how Microsoft
works. One department has no clue what the other department is doing.
Writing stubs (empty properties)
into the Compact Framework would have solved the problem.
Many controls on the pocket pc even do not have a name property, but
the IDE
adds this property happily to the control, and spoils my programs.
 
Chris,
You could try submitting something to MS Wish to have Forms Designer support
designing forms for multiple platforms.

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

Sharp Develop is a free IDE that allows you to design Windows Forms, it
includes source, you may be able to modify it to support what you need if it
does not already.

http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/

The following article explains how to create a Windows Forms designer:

http://www.divil.co.uk/net/articles/designers/hosting.asp

However I have a couple of suggestions!
I am in need of a replacement for the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
Click to expand...
Rather looking for a replacement for the Forms designer, don't use a Forms
designer! create all the code from scratch, then you can tweak & massage it
all you want! And the designers will not "mess it up". Or once you have the
form designed with the designer, and you modified the "do not modify this
section", do not use a designer on it any more! This second method will be
harder to implement!

Rather then including a LOT of conditional compilation in my code, I would
look at implementing an Abstract Factory pattern and class hierarchy.
#if COMPACT_FRAMEWORK = false then
me.combobox.tabstop = false
#end if
Click to expand...

For each form in my app, I would have a base form will the common logic
between platforms, then I would have two derived forms, one for each
platform. The Abstract Factory would return the correct derived form based
on the platform I am running. Then each project would include the base forms
& their respective derived forms & Abstract Factory. Of course if the
respective derived forms are named the same in each project you could get by
without the Abstract Factory, however I would not go that route I would have
distinct names for the derived forms also...

Hope this helps
Jay
 
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