Is F1 in VS2005 really dumb?

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CMM

Is it me or has anyone noticed that F1 is really dumb in VS2005. Since VB3 I
have been able to click F1 on an ambiguous method in code and the IDE
automatically determines the type based on the code itself and shows the
right help topic. This even worked more or less in VS2003.

But in VS2005, if I highlight the "Host" method below and hit F1 I get a
help topic on the "UriBuilder.Host" property. Huh????? That's dumb.

Dim o as New System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient
o.Host = ...
 
Oh I see said the blind man. If you DON'T *highlight* the method call but
just put the cursor on it, then F1 behaves as it should. If you instead
highlight the whole word, it does a generic (and pretty much always
innacurate) search.
 
The important thing to remember is that Microsoft is constantly evolving their help systems so that just about the time a developer is comfortable with the
current system they change it - often for the worse.

You'd think that after 20 some years we would have a help system that:

A. Worked
B. Was consistent

but heh another half-assed wiz bang RAD tool is what we really need!!
 
If you don't like the IDE then use the command line SDK and see how
productive you are...
 
Brooke said:
If you don't like the IDE then use the command line SDK and see how
productive you are...
Click to expand...

I've always hated comments such as these. They're argumentative and
pointless. Why can't users gripe?

Yes, I think the VS2005 IDE SUCKS!. Yes, it's still better than nothing. I
like the language changes and the new framework features... they're great!
But the IDE was "improved" by monkeys.

Moving from VB6 straight to VS2003 several years ago, I found the new IDE to
be my-god incredible. I loved it. But, with this release. I think they've
been hit with the "Dilbert Syndrome." For instance, they change the whole
"feel" of the IDE, spend weeks on the toolbox tabs and suppossedly taking
user input (probably the same kiddie users/developers whose apps look
nothing like Windows apps and have orange backgrounds and oversized
obnoxious buttons)... and they end up with really kiddie looking tabs that
don't even look like tabs. Then they can't manage to put icons on the tabs
that do matter, the document tabs!!!.. switching between open documents in
VS2005 is still ANNOYING- I usually click two or three times to find the
right document (myform.aspx.vb, myform.aspx, myform.... which one is it!!!?
Oh I see it now!). An icon in the tabs to indicate
"code/designer/resource/etc" would be sooooooooo helpful. But spending time
on the gee-whiz flying toolboxes I'm sure was may more interesting.

Then they move the View Code/View Designer buttons in Solution Explorer to
the middle of the bar. My god.... these buttons had been in the same exact
location (first and front all the way on the right--- super easy to get to)
since VB3 (and before that I think)!!! Hitting them was like second nature
and reflexive. Then, they can't give us the option to at least put them
back!!! This is BAD!

I could go on.
 
Of course users can gripe.

But, if you have a gripe with Microsoft, (as it appears from your epistle),
why gripe to us.

I always find that the best way to vent a gripe with a vendor/supplier is to
take the matter up with the vendor/supplier concerned.

If there's one thing that life has taught me, it is that Tom doesn't really
care a fig about a gripe that I might have with Harry.
 
CMM said:
Yes, I think the VS2005 IDE SUCKS!. Yes, it's still better than
nothing. I like the language changes and the new framework
features... they're great! But the IDE was "improved" by monkeys.
Click to expand...

Really? I very much like the VS2005 IDE, more so than the VS2003 IDE (which
was itself a lot better than VB6)...
 
What's better about the VS2005 IDE?
And, I mean the IDE itself not the framework improvments or project model
changes.

One things I will say is that it's a lot faster. VS2005 loads up about 10
times faster on my machine than VS2003 and it seems a lot more optimized.

I also like the new Intellisense and "Grammer Warnings" in VB ("This
variable is not used", etc.). But the IDE itself- toolboxes, code windows,
designers (the wysiwyg HTML/ASP designer still sucks!), are not much
improved at all. The Property Editor is still uninspired and cumbersome. In
short.... after 3 years I expected a lot more.
 
Well, a forum like this is a perfect place to gripe. People can discuss
workarounds, reasonings for things, user interface theories, and change each
other's minds. This is how ideas happen. It's like a symposium. Microsoft
looks at these forums. We know they do. And, "buzz" in places like this is
sometimes a lot more educational to the developers of the product than the
mechanized, antiseptic bug-tracking computer at labs.microsoft.com.
 
I'm in the process of transferring from VB6 to VB2005 and let me begin by
telling, I really like the language and the IDE. Of course it takes some
getting used to, after years and years using the VB6 IDE I was pretty much
"at home" there. I could operate the thing more or less blindfolded.

But the thing is.... The help system gets worse with every new version. Imho
the VB 5.0 help system was perfect. Straight to the point + properties +
methods + events + related topics + clear and consise examples.
The VB6 Help information itself was still ok... although not as good as the
VB5.0. The biggest disadvantage of the VB6 help system was that you had to
go through a lot of garbage that didn't apply, but once you found what you
were looking for it still told you what you needed to know.

I skipped the first 2 releases of VB.Net and went straight from VB6 to
VB2005, so I am not really sure how it evolved to the current chaos, but I
have to say: their help system is absolutely useless! If you try to find how
to fill a treeview (something that has significantly changed from VB6) then
you get buried in all kinds of webclasses, constructors, index pages... up
to a hundred of them. After 45 minutes (not joking, my internet isn't that
fast) I finally found a page with a few lines of information and a
"example". The problem was that the guy who wrote the example wanted to show
off how good he was in VB so he buried the actual example in all kinds of
acrobatics with listarrays and what not. Like I said, I'm a beginner in
VB.NET/2005 and I don't have a clue (yet) what listarrays are. By the time I
want to learn about those, I will try to find the subject 'ListArrays'.
Today however I wanted to learn about the treeview, so they should not
obscure the treeview example with listarray acrobatics.

Really, this help system is the biggest collection of garbage I have ever
seen, and after struggling with it for a while I decided this afternoon to
close it for the last time and buy me a book....

So, let's all ask Microsoft to give the guys who wrote the VB5.0 helpfile
their job back!

Martin
 
I was talking about the Help system not the IDE and anyone that can say they are
not frustrated by a constantly changing help system is indeed special.

I recognize the need to evolve and change but at some point we have to stop
swapping out foundations so that we can finish the damn house.

Instead of spending time re-organize the help TOC or building a new interface or
underlying data store how about spending some time writing actual meaningful
help.

The new help system finds things on the Internet twice as fast as it finds them
on my local drive...?

I now have help in my help system that I don't want there and there is no Help
on Help on how to get rid of it.

So much of the Help is regurgitated pseudo-help that re-words what is already
apparent.

Part of the problem is Microsoft wants as wide an audience as possible and so we
have to take time to explain the difference between on-line help and local help
- or do we?

And like the IDE problem previously mentioned changing the Icons and moving them
around DOES NOT HELP ME.

The noise factor in help is way too high.

VS2005 is a great product and a little venting will only help make it better.
 
CMM said:
What's better about the VS2005 IDE?
And, I mean the IDE itself not the framework improvments or project
model changes.
Click to expand...

To name a few (without having given it a huge amount of thought):

- the error correction and refactoring options (such as those that appear
when you change the name of a variable or procedure).

- the "Find all references" option.

- the vastly improved window docking system that actually gives me the
confidence to undock an existing window and get it re-docked where I want it
without making a complete mess of the layout.

- the ability to save and restore all of my IDE configuration options.

- the ability to get all the Output from the environment written to the
Immediate window (the lack of this really irritated me in VS2003).

- the hugely improved DLL referencing system, which allows me to switch
between referencing projects (on my development machine) and referencing
compiled DLLs (on my build machine) without having to keep checking the
project file in and out of SourceSafe.

- the Snippets system -- while not revolutionary, it can certainly save some
typing.

Is that enough for now?
 
CMM said:
Moving from VB6 straight to VS2003 several years ago, I found the new IDE
to be my-god incredible. I loved it. But, with this release. I think
they've been hit with the "Dilbert Syndrome." For instance, they change
the whole "feel" of the IDE, spend weeks on the toolbox tabs and
suppossedly taking user input (probably the same kiddie users/developers
whose apps look nothing like Windows apps and have orange backgrounds and
oversized obnoxious buttons)... and they end up with really kiddie looking
tabs that don't even look like tabs. Then they can't manage to put icons
on the tabs that do matter, the document tabs!!!.. switching between open
documents in VS2005 is still ANNOYING- I usually click two or three times
to find the right document (myform.aspx.vb, myform.aspx, myform.... which
one is it!!!? Oh I see it now!). An icon in the tabs to indicate
"code/designer/resource/etc" would be sooooooooo helpful. But spending
time on the gee-whiz flying toolboxes I'm sure was may more interesting.
Click to expand...

Ctrl+Tab!
 
Stephany Young said:
Of course users can gripe.

But, if you have a gripe with Microsoft, (as it appears from your
epistle), why gripe to us.

I always find that the best way to vent a gripe with a vendor/supplier is
to take the matter up with the vendor/supplier concerned.
Click to expand...

This petition pretty much says it all when it comes to "taking the matter to
the supplier"
http://classicvb.org/petition/

....and, while here, I might as well say.... The VB5/6 IDE's ruled (still do
here). They're extremely fast (can write the entire 'hello world', compile
it, shut down and run the compiled app faster than the dotNet IDE can get
ready to start accepting keystrokes), no suprises, no UI that is completely
bloated with tab after tab after tab control... but, then again, MS is the
star of the "User Interface Hall of Shame" so...
(http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/tabs.htm), the VB5/6 IDEs
supported single procedure view (which I've seen several people ask for
recently and I've been hammering them about it since dotNet day 1) and had a
*real* immediate window. You know.... one that supports blocks of text that
you can actually run, change, run again, copy/paste back into a project. <g>
 
Oenone said:
To name a few (without having given it a huge amount of thought):
Click to expand...

And a few more:

- The little "watch" window that appears when you hover over a variable in
break-mode, displaying all of the properties of the object and its
sub-objects.

- The "visualiser" window, which allows you to view the contents of an
object property as Text, XML, HTML or as a DataTable.

- The way the IDE catches unhandled exceptions when the "Break when an
exception is thrown" option is switched on in the Debug/Exceptions window.

Is that enough for now?

In fact, I think I prefer everything that differs between the VS2005 IDE and
the VS2003 IDE with the following two exceptions:

- the online help system (which was the start point for this thread) seems
to be inferior to me, the VS2003 help system seemed just about right,
whereas the new one seems a confused mess -- and I've had it crash on me
several times too, which really isn't acceptable in this day and age.

- the quick search/replace window, where the "Look in" field has been
changed from a set of radio buttons to a drop-down-list. The radio buttons
each had accelerator keys so any search scope could be easily selected with
a keyboard shortcut. You can't do that using the drop-down-list, which is a
nuisance.
 
I hear ya man... the VB.Classic IDE really had matured into a near-perfect
thing. But, all my gripes notwithstanding, I wouldn't trade VB.NET, or VS,
or .NET in general for the world. I just wish they'd address the IDE's
little head-scratching annoyances (in VS2005 especially... at this point
there is NO EXCUSE for some these bugs).

And--- with all respect- because I understand where you're coming from TRUST
ME.... but, that petition is calling to integrate VB.COM into the VS IDE....
which is contrary to the gist of your post.

-Classic VB coder and lover since 1994... now seduced by the dark side. ;-)
 
There are indeed neat new things in VS2005. Refactoring stuff and snippet
shortcuts (type Property and hit tab) are definately great things. And, the
IDE starts up A LOT faster and is generally snappier than VS2003.

And, kudos goes to the CLR team and the language syntax teams (especially
the VB language guys that gave us Generics even though apparently we weren't
suppossed to get them). But the IDE and Visual Designer guys have been
playing too much ping pong in the Microsoft Campus gamerooms to be sure!

You can't tell me that it is excusable that after three years we still have
a sub-par web form designer (man that thing sucks) and we don't even have a
Visual XML editor (huh... I thought that'd be a no-brainer?) and no Window
Management framework (we're still developing Classic MDI apps in the year
2005?!?!).... I mean they give us a Resource dialog box (you know that place
where you select strings from a resource file like you're suppossed to do)
that doesn't even recognize resource files in App_GlobalResources (ASP.NET).
These guys are monkeys. I'm disgusted just even talking about it.
 
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