PowerUpdate: System Unhosed
It occurrs to me that I may have been a tad harsh in my assessment of the VSNET2003 VB Commenter PowerToy. I also might have been hypocritical, having blasted Frans for taking such a negative stance against VS.NET 2003 a couple weeks ago. An e-mail I got from someone at MS has prompted me to elaborate on my earlier post, and offer some constructive criticism instead of just being a cold heartless bastard.
I was surprised to find out this morning that people actually read my blog. Moreover, people froim MS read my blog. I was pleasantly suprised to see an e-mail Joel Ledgard over at MS about an hour after my post. I'm glad he took the time to e-mail me. This is what he had to say:
Yes, there is an issue with the installer that we are looking at. Howeever: you should not have to re-install/repair VS. There should be an assembly in your \prog files\vs.net 2003\common7\ide directory named msvb.dll.3077. If you remove the 3077 you should be fine. It's actually mentioned in the help file. Of course, we uninstall the help file to, but we are posting the info on the web site today.
Please let me know if you have any other issues. We are looking at making improvements in the future to this tool that includes the handling of HTML tags.
Thanks, josh.
It's good to know that MS is on top of things. The file name was actually something like msvb.dll.Released3077, but I still figured it out. I think the tool is great, couple issues. 1) the fact that the final XML file is not named until close the app is a pain in the butt. I want to see the output right away, but if I open it, VS hangs and I have to exit anyways. 2) The lack of HTML support in the fields is unacceptable. Now, MS has done a great job, and I don't want anyone to think I am not greatful for MS finally adding this functionality (why it was left out in a common language environment, I'll never know, but anyways) but I don't remember seeing any docs that said "don't use HTML or the component will break".
I need to be able to put HTML in my comments. the PowerToy kicked out XML that looked like a 3rd grader's experiment with HTML because I had a
I AM really stoked about the help builder one tho. I haven't tested it yet because I'm still waiting for an updated version of XML VB Comments from Joe. It will be a big help for my components, to really add some value.
Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest. MS: great job so far. Needs more functionality before I jump onboard. I still don't recommend it to anyone until the installation issues are resolved, tho.