What annoys you about VS.NET 2003 IDE & CF?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Saul
  • Start date Start date
Julie said:
- Word wrap in the editor is virtually useless. When enabled, it turns the
display of the code into an unintelligible mess, carat and selection behavior
is not at all correct, etc. *Very* poorly defined.

- No intrinsic way to switch between .h and .cpp source files.

- No keyboard command for "open selection" as was available in previous
versions.

- No way to create virtual folders in C# projects as can be done in C++
projects.

- No way to manage the start page recent projects.

- Toolbox panes have non-standard slide-effect when switching between tabs;
doesn't respond to system user display effects.

- Toolbox contents to not respond to mouse wheel scroll.

- Open window tabs do no respond to horizontal mouse scroll.

- Open window tabs very subject to clutter.

- Open window tabs a real pain to navigate when width extends past edge of
frame (i.e. scrolling).

- No ability to configure open window tabs to allow for multiple rows rather
than scrolling.

- Open window tabs: in short, take a note from WndTabs -- a nice
implementation, done right.

- Virtual space, when enabled, doesn't behave correctly at the end of the file
-- it should allow positioning past the *end* of the file, as was the case in
previous versions.

- There should be some customization of the various code completion, etc.
popup windows, such as placement (how close to the insertion point,
transparency, above/below, etc.) so that it doesn't necessary block context on
the prior or subsequent line(s).

How's that for a start...
Click to expand...

And --

- Making the MRU file/project list perform updates in a background thread,
rather than in the foreground UI thread. Would solve a lot of lag problems for
remote files/projects that are no longer available.
 
1. The HTML "Intellisense" is woefully inadequate. In my experience, in order for the intellisense to work at all, you need a <body> tag in the document.

Unfortunately, this rules out intellisense in ALL server controls (.ascx)

2. No XSD for any configuration files. Would be really handy when editting app.config in VS.NET

3. Attaching to a process using a macro seems to attach the debugger to both .NET and Native. This should be configurable from the macro.
 
James Simpson said:
What annoys me about VC++ .NET in particular but is not limited to that
Click to expand...
IDE is the fact that importing projects from version 6 or earlier of Visual
C++ or the other Visual Tools, will not compile correctly. For instance if
I take a Visual C++ 6 project I have created, and then compile it, I am
already guaranteed one error even though I said yes to convert the project
to a VC++ .NET 2003 solution. The error that will almost always occur is
the infamous 3dControls error. Microsoft should make IDEs that when you
open older project files, it will convert seamlessly, so that the developer
doesn't have to manually remove the code.

It should also be made easier to convert current project files. Lots of
people developing for mobile devices are creating a parallel desktop project
as well which cannot be converted from the smart device project. It even is
a problem to convert a downloaded Pocket PC project to Windows CE.

Marc
 
Marc said:
IDE is the fact that importing projects from version 6 or earlier of Visual
C++ or the other Visual Tools, will not compile correctly. For instance if
I take a Visual C++ 6 project I have created, and then compile it, I am
already guaranteed one error even though I said yes to convert the project
to a VC++ .NET 2003 solution. The error that will almost always occur is
the infamous 3dControls error. Microsoft should make IDEs that when you
open older project files, it will convert seamlessly, so that the developer
doesn't have to manually remove the code.

It should also be made easier to convert current project files. Lots of
people developing for mobile devices are creating a parallel desktop project
as well which cannot be converted from the smart device project. It even is
a problem to convert a downloaded Pocket PC project to Windows CE.

Marc
Click to expand...

Microsoft has _never_ taken compatibility seriously, it is contrary to their
product lifecycle model and (forced) upgrades. Unfortunately, it is us, the
users, that have to deal with the consequences.

Forget project compatibility, how about simple editor/environment
compatibility??? I have yet to figure out why MS allows for the customization
of their environment, only to have *ALL* of the settings/customizations lost
with each new version. Microsoft has (as as far as I can tell, always will)
have a 'holier than thou' attitude -- don't question them, and blindly accept
what they offer. Harsh, but true -- I've been dealing w/ MS and their products
since the days of DOS 3.
 
The file browser tree in the Open dialog boxes are ridiculously slow,
often hanging the IDE for up to 2 minutes each time I click on a
folder in the tree.
 
Just one thing - Whenever you install new addins(eg DevPartner), all custom toolbars are deleted which is VERY annoying, I hate rebuilding my custom toolbar all the time. Please fix this for vs 2005! Thanks! :)
 
In fact, I believe it is fixed. There is Tools | Export Settings that allows
you to store *all* settings in an XML file so you can either share it across
multiple machine or migrate it between versions.

Thanks
Mikhail Arkhipov (Microsoft)
-- This post is provided 'AS IS' with no warranties and confers no rights.
 
CF related rather than IDE:

Textbox.SelectAll is negated if the Focus event for the control gets
fired. No more auto-seletion of text when the control is tapped on.



Paul
 
Any chance of this being in a service pack for 2003? I find it truly bizarre that I have to rejig
all my toolbar customisations whenever a new DirectX SDK is released!

Andrew
 
I doubt that. Ability to export/import settings in a universal way for every
language and editor available in VS was a major work item in all teams in
Visual Studio division. Scale of changes is too large to fit into a service
back.
Thanks
Mikhail Arkhipov (Microsoft)
-- This post is provided 'AS IS' with no warranties and confers no rights.
Click to expand...


On 7/3/04 7:58, in article OJQ#[email protected], "Andrew

Any chance of this being in a service pack for 2003? I find it truly bizarre
that I have to rejig
all my toolbar customisations whenever a new DirectX SDK is released!

Andrew
 
Using A VS2K1 or 2K3 Database Project with Visual Source Safe......

If another user has the .DBP file checked out and you try to "Add" / "Copy" a new file to the project. It will warn you that the database project is checked out by another user. However, if you happen to try a second time, it will let you add new files without any warning....giving the appearance that the database project has been checked out successfully. If the user subsequently "Get Latest Version" , their modified local copy of the DBP file can be overwritten. For us, this problem has led to several deployment problems where stored procedures and views that are part of the application do not make it into the build. As well, once we realize what has happened, the missing files are extremely difficult to locate, as there is no "Show All Files" option for database projects (as in other VS2K3 projects).


thanks
 
The bug in Visual C# which stops Intellisense working on nested classes, such as the strongly typed DataTables in s/t DataSets, and the HitTest class in DataGrid. But moreover, the fact that this bug existed in 2002, was not fixed in 2003, and has not been patched. That's just /poor/.

Also, I would like to be able to specify a default property for the standard Windows Forms classes in the Form Designer, mainly to set the FlatStyle to "System" for all classes that have that property.
 
That's a shame. Could you at least say why it is that we have to go through this at the moment? How
can it be that simply installing an add-in like the DX SDK means losing IDE toolbar configurations,
they seem like totally unrelated things!

Andrew
 
My #1 gripe:

When you create a custom control in visual studio and compile, the control is automatically added to your toolbox to use. Great. Snazzy. If you change the control's interface, or (god forbid) the control throws an exception, you can no longer recompile the project, because the DLL is in use by visual studio!! You would think VS would be smart enough to allow DLL's that it has referenced to be overwritten by newer versions at compile time. As it is now, I am closing and re-opening my ide 5-6x a day to delete the DLL's and recompile.
 
Here's another one. I'd like to turn on ISO conformance, but still
allow MS specific keywords.

i.e. I'd like things like

class A { ... };
void f(A& a);

void g()
{
f(A());
}

to generate an error. But when I turn on /Za, the compiler complains
about all the MS keywords in <windows.h>. The only ISO conformance that
I can set separately is for loop scope. I'd like full ISO semantics
PLUS keywords as an option.
 
Programmer_blabla said:
Some annoying thinks like the absent of dependency check, header flip
etc. is solved by 3th party. See: http://www.workspacewhiz.com/,
especially their fast solution build can be very handy.

Me
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link.

Yes, I realize that there are third party solutions out there, but it just
absolutely frustrates me to no end the way that MS consistently and constantly
adds features in one version, only to remove it from another for absolutely no
good reason.

For the amount of hype, books, logo, certification, etc. that MS puts out for
the rest of the world, it sure would be nice if they could adopt their own
edicts.
 
My top 6 annoying things:
- Track active item (glad one can turn this off)
- Dynamic help (with the help of powertoys, this can be turned off
too)
- Instabilities leading to crashes, especailly when adding files to
the project
- Intellisense hangs Visual Studio, this happens with complex template
constructs found in libraries like boost
- Missing dependency check, it always scans the whole solution
- Preprocessor not c++ compliant

With the addition of workspace whiz and fast solution however one can
get a pretty powerful development environment. And don't forget that
this new version of c++, finally catched up with the latest c++
conformance. Especially with the partial template specialization (I
think it was already defined somewhere around 1995), one can use the
full power of libraries like boost without too much 'internal compiler
error's or other frustating error messages.

Wkr,
me
 
I forgot one,

The resetting of the toolbar after installation of visual studio add-in.

Wkr,
me
 
I agree with you about Intellisense. I use Vb >NET to read and write XML files, and I only use a certain number of methods, and I want them at the top.

My other big annyoance is the interface. It looks like Office 2003. I don't like all of the highlights and other effects. I want my IDE to be clean and fast.
 
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