Andrew Stopford's Weblog

Speed is definitely my biggest gripe. Not being able to change the user interface element colors (aside from the coding surface) is another - my coding surface is a nice mellow dark grey, while the rest of the interface is still glaring white.

I've been hearing that Visual Studio 10 will be built with WPF (not sure if that's true) and if it is, then it will probably be better for customization. I hope so, anyway.

I agree with Erik. Speed is the biggest issue.

Many times I just need to open VS and create a dummy 5-lines project just to test something. Every window that opens takes too much time (VS itself, the "new project" dialog, "add reference" dialog).

Also VS 2008 crashes once in a while.

Speed is definitely the biggest issue. I usually open Visual Studio first thing in the morning and keep it open even if I'm not actively using it. Opening Visual Studio, opening a project, and adding a project reference are too slow.

We're attempting to "refactor" out a complex stored procedure from our database so we replaced it with a C# stored procedure. We're also linking the C# project in several other projects so we can slowly remove all references to real stored procedure in the database. The pain point is that Visual Studio

complains "There were deployment errors. Continue?" every time we attempt to run a project linked to the stored procedure project. If "Deploy code" is not checked, why is it complaining about code deployment?

Speed as others have mentioned.

For me the second biggest gripe these days is that VS crashes too many times if too many xaml files are edited in a WPF project.

One feature I will love to see in VS is the ability to compile and run code snippets. I wonder if that will happen someday.

Agreed with the others. Speed and crashes. I even get that "delay notification" thing sometimes when building. Now, thats not just a delay, its a complete crash. So killing it from taskmgr is the only thing left to do.

Another nice improvement would be to get rid of that "could not debug because no symbols have been loaded" thing when trying to debug. Resolution is to clean the project and restart debugging. Why do I have to do that? Why cant VS do that for me?

Finally, XAML is the future but a real pain in VS. Please improve that.

I'm not sure if it isn't already in VS10, but a feature that I really miss is a searching ability in configuration window like that in Eclipse.

The configuration tree is very complex and finding an option that I need is sometimes very frustrating..

Speed, especially when window/tabs are switched around, e.g. when starting to debug. The windows switch back and forth which gives it a very slow appearance.

Another thing that has bothered me for years is that the window where you configure your keyboard shortcuts is very small so it's hard to browse through the list.

The context (right-click) menu both in the editor and file view should be more customizeable. There are lots of plugins that add stuff there, making the menu cover a lot of the screen, it's hard to find stuff, also it feels kinda slow if you have lots of stuff there.

There should be an easy way to configure the help topics. E.g. to chose which categories to filter out (XAML, C# etc.)

the ftp that's built in. It's the worst remote deployment solution i've ever used. MS should just buy dispatch and integrate it into the next version.

The step into functionality is the thing I hate the most. Most of the time I want to really step into the method that is called and not first go thru all the parameters that form the input.

I also hate the go to definition when the definition is an interface with one or more implementations. I would like the ability to go the one of the implementations of the interface directly.

Multi monitor support. I use two monitors. Why can't I have one code window on monitor one and a second on monitor two?

We use MSBuild and TeamBuild for most of our deployment but some things are not easily done from the command line. This includes publishing ClickOnce and some Web application publication stuff. Who in their right mind deploys to production from VS?

The synchronous nature of vs really sucks. Why should the whole VS freeze just for the toolbox to initialize. In some cases when debugging I may just be waiting for some animation in the GUI that is not relevant in my debugging session.

If a code file just contain one class why is that class not selected in the class selector at the top of the coding window? More than one, select the first one.

Multi-monitor support!!!!!

The dialog windows that pop up for adding a reference or adding items to the toolbox, plus may others are not resizable.  Don't make dialog boxes fixed sizes, same goes for the contents inside the dialog boxes.

Lack of design capabilities for all XAML project types.

ASP.Net working area - in split view the designer is at the bottom and the html is at the top.   Not easily switchable by the developer.

Muli-Monitor Support.

Speed of loading just about everything.

I sure I will think of some more in time.

It has amnesia about this setting:

Tools->Options->HTML Designer->CSS Styling->Change Positioning to Absolute for Controls Added...

It will not stay checked.

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I have a quad core with 4Gigs of DDR2-800 and 10K raptors in SATA RAID - 0, so no issues with me on speed....it's blazing fast.

I'd say the ftp is the worst ftp software EVER. I use the fireftp plugin for firefox (the only time I use firefox, other than testing) - and a browser plugin works better than a dedicated product....how come?

The WPF designer is way too slow. Even on my machine.

VS shuts down suddenly, from time to time. Not good.

There should be a button somewhere that can "add AJAX stuff to my web.config" for asp.net projects. Also, an automated tool for configuring the providers (for example, the membership provider has MaxPasswordRetryAttemps...we need to do that by manually changing XML).

As stated, definately: Speed

VS2008 performs like an over-weight dog comparred to VS2005.

I don't want VS10 yet, I do want a faster VS2008.

Speed, speed, speed!

Just listing the two features that really need to get a speed up:

Opening the add reference dialog gives me headache every time I have to use it...

Populating the Toolbar when opening a Form is a real pain if you have more than just the few preinstalled controls.

Would it be possible to put in the C# language based screen the same page events dropdown visible as if you are coding in Visual Basic in web development? I find it unfair for C# developers not having that as opposed to VB.

What?  VS has had multi-monitor support since 2002.  I used it with 3 21" CRT monitors back in the day.  Just move all the toolbar/crap windows to a separate screen.

Something like Ultramon would add some nice features.

I **HATE** the add reference dialog.  It defaults to all installed dlls (and is dog-ass slow) when the VAST MAJORITY of the time I want to add a project reference (with far fewer dlls to choose from).  Load the system dlls in the background or let me switch over to it and pay the wait time penalty only IF I need to.

What I hate most about VS is that it thinks every organization has just one big solution file, one source code repository, one rigid project dependency structure in a solution, and one build stream that produces exactly one application. Even if multiple solutions are in use, sharing projects between them is far from trivial. The truth is that even small teams produce and consume multiple units of application functionality: UI modules, server-side modules, libraries, plug-ins, database wrappers, helper utilities, unit test suites, SQL scripts, 3rd party components, etc., and they share code and depend on each other in non-linear ways that may differ not just between projects, but also between debug and release versions and between platforms (32-bit vs 64-bit for example, or WPF vs Silverlight). Moreover, development teams move at different paces so reusing functionality under assumption that one can just feed the right version of the code to VS is flawed -- it's not always clear which version is right and VCS can't manage this alone. A concept of a package and an associated dependency management plumbing would go a long way. Solutions for this are available in, let's see... every other development platform out there: DEB- or RPM-based Linux distributions, Java with Maven2, Python with setuptools and PyPI, or Perl with CPAN, they all have it.

Speed. Especially, when shutting down large projects under TFS. Most of the time I just kill it from task manager.

I would like to see a true 64-bit version of VS available.

Also there needs to be much better organisation of screens when working multi-screen.

I will parrot the speed issue, but it's not as big an issue for me as the lack of multi-monitor support.

MULTI MONITOR SUPPORT!

1) Multi monitor support: The windows from VS should not be constrained to the main VS windows (aka MDI style). What I would love to see is a way for all the windows in VS (editor windows, solution explorer, etc) to be floatable anywhere on the screen (kind of does that already to a certain degree). This should be taken to the next level where the windows could be either grouped like now, but also glued to each other, so when these windows are glued, moving one moves them all. The Google Talk chat application is a good example of what I'm talking about. If this feature would be available even for the editor windows we could have funky layouts: like two windows sharing half the screen, one on top of the other, while the third would take up the other half of the screen. As long as the positions are saved, imo this would solve the multi-monitor problems.

2) Even more than multi monitor support I hate it when VS doesn't properly detect user control creations. For example: I create a new UC, then I go to an ASPX file and add a reference (all this without switching to design view). After doing this VS Intellisense doesn't recognize the new control. To solve this I have to close all the windows, recompile the application, and reopen the ASPX file. Major pain.

3) Typing in ASPX files causes the IDE to freeze for many seconds. When this happens I can't do anything. The IDE should never prevent me from typing. It may not be able to give me Intellisense, that's ok, but let me type...

Thanks.

1. Lack of Multimonitor support

2. Reordering my open tabs in a way I don't understand.

I'm often faced with the situation that my tab, I'm used to find at position x has moved to position y.

I really really hate that.

3. Lack of support for sharing projects among several solutions.

We've solved this with a workaround using subversion externals.

It work's fine, but can cause some headache when creating releases.

What I hate most about VS is how every version makes C++ more and more of an afterthought to the scripting languages they're pushing.

I don't care about anything that begins with "W" and ends with "F". Apart from major head trauma, I simply cannot envision a situation where I would willingly choose to build a program out of XML when I could instead build it with blazing fast native code that I can step through in a debugger.

The C++ framework needs actual work. By actual work I mean importing more BCG code doesn't cut it. The MFC docs are such a mess of outdated material that in some places it essentially lies. Well gee, Goober; no wonder it's not getting any new followers!

I don't want to read about support for "trends" on the 2010 overview page. I don't build software with trends. I build it with proven, high performance technology.

As of this moment, 2010 is a product I don't want, designed to do a job I don't need done.

- I guess I will jump on the "speed" bandwagon. Visual Studio is a bit of a memory hog, even for medium/small sized solutions (11 projects).

- Native x64 support would be nice so I am not constrained to WOW64, and reduce the processor load of switching from 32 to 64. However, I would be surprised if even 2 releases after VS2010 had native x64. It's just too much work to do. I can certainly understand the challenges of moving a COM oriented Application to x64.

- The WPF Designer is a bit shady every now and then. Expression Blend makes up for it, like when using a ViewBox all it shows is a box with the works "ViewBox" in it rather than it's actual contents. I do know that 2010 will improve WPF design. It would be also nice if I could turn off and on animations in the designer. Most of the time I don't need to see them, and they use resources I don't want being used.

- Scott Bruno made some good points about C++. There hasn't been a lot done for Native C++ lately which I am still a big fan of.

- The installation is a little bloated by default.

- BETTER multi monitor support would be nice. It's so-so now (as per Darrel's comment).

Thoughts on other people's comments:

- Buy resharper. It can add references for you if you try to use a class in another assembly or project. Bye bye Add Reference window. How often do you add references anyway?

I hate it when I have a lot of files open in VS and to close each one I have to move my mouse all the way over to the right corner to close one.

Why not have the tab interface like IE7 or FF where I can have the "X" right on the file tab?

That'd be pretty helpful

One more thing:

I hate how build events are shared across all configurations in a C# project. C++ doesn't work that way, and with good reason! Yes you can basically write a batch file that checks the config name but that's messy. Why can't we just have separate pre & post events per config (again)?