VC.NET evils!

[PaulMdx]

Hi,

I just want to get a few of the things I hate about VC.NET off my chest.

1) What have they DONE to the add function dialog? I really hate having to add parameters to a list box using an 'Add' button. I'd much rather just type them in.

2) The events list is now in a VB-style dockable window. What was wrong with Class Wizard?!

3) When I edit a dialog it loads the dialog-editing toolbar, but fails to close it when I close that window. That means I manually have to close the toolbar myself.

4) VC.NET seems to LOVE opening windows and toolbars. It's not happy unless there's at least 10 windows or toolbars open on the screen at any one time. This means you're constantly closing them trying to gain back some space to show your source window.

In principle, MFC 7.0 offers a lot of nice features, but I really think the VC7 IDE has lost of a lot of usability.. Perhaps as I use it more I'll grow to appreciate it more.



Paul.

[c1727130]

Hey Paul,

I worked 2 years in MFC 6 and just started using .NET.

Meanwhile i agree with all the things you said - i also find
them very annoying :eek:

[Jim McCreary]

I worked 6 years in MS Visual C++ for a couple of firms that did not want to take the chance on the "bleeding edge" of technology. My current contract pushed me into Visual C++ version 7.0 and I found it very different at first. Didn't know where any of my old favorite tools were located. However, I've gradually learned where MS hid everything and am now happy with it.

One tip to slap all those windows down is to "un-pin" them. The little thumb tack icon. Then they slide out of the way when you click on the underlying source window. They do have a habit of sliding back unexpectedly though. :confused:

[dsm1995gst]

Originally posted by Jim McCreary
One tip to slap all those windows down is to "un-pin" them. The little thumb tack icon. Then they slide out of the way when you click on the underlying source window. They do have a habit of sliding back unexpectedly though. :confused:
Yea I still can't quite figure that out. :confused:

[matthias_k]

5) Items in brackets and comments are now bolded -- annoying!

6) The solution explorer is too lazy now to sort items by name by default -- it just attaches a new item at the end of the tree -- annoying!

7) Debug output and error messages are now two separate windows -- what was wrong with having all the info in ONE window?! -- annoying!

[dsm1995gst]

Originally posted by matthias_k
5) Items in brackets and comments are now bolded -- annoying!
For me it only bolds them temporarily, and then the bold goes away at the next keystroke. :confused:

[c1727130]

Originally posted by dsm1995gst
For me it only bolds them temporarily, and then the bold goes away at the next keystroke. :confused:
The same for me , but i can live with it ;)

[matthias_k]

dsm1995gst:

Sure, it's temporary, but is it necessary? I don't like this visual overflow Microsoft enforces with its .NET product series. Not my cup of tea.

Nonetheless VS7 has its advantages over VS6 which won't make me switch back to the old IDE. Period. :)

[TWS]

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw those articles/samples on mixing .NET (including 'code polution' WINFORM), these are really a BIG BIG BIG mess!!

C/C++ is unmanaged? Wait until you see how .NET could mess your project! .NET is truely non human manageable framework, only the stupid 'all-in-one, but nothing is good' IDE can manage. While C/C++ is native, at least we can still use a simple text editor to write super efficient application!! :mad:

[Jim McCreary]

I really think that the bolding of parenthesis and brackets in the editor is a good feature. It not only bolds the ending bracket but most importantly it bolds the beginning bracket. You can easily see if you are really finishing the range you thought you were.

[galathaea]

The bracketing emphasis reminds me of emacs and how the block cursor used to jump to the opening bracket momentarily. I missed that in VC++ 6.0 and am fairly happy with the new feature. In fact, I like the style of VC++.NET overall, and think its actually a nicer interface than my old version of CodeWarrior 6.0 (and obviously better than DevC++ or Borland's 5.0). There definitely could have been better window management features, though, and some of the window problems mentioned above seem like poor programming to me. I avoid some of the wizards because I can usually type up a message handling function and add it to the map faster than going to the wizard, finding the handler I want, and naming it (and VC++ 6.0 had some problems of its own with not listing all available messages sometimes). Intellisense seems to have less problems in .NET, which is nice.

My real problem with VC++ 7.0 is that it seems like they spent most of that time from 6.0 prettying everything up and adding all those nonstandard keywords for .NET support instead of fixing the problems with ISO c++compliance regarding templates and exception handling. I hear 7.1 fixed alot of that (but not all) but that just makes me wish I hadn't gotten 7.0...

[Andreas Masur]

Originally posted by galathaea
The bracketing emphasis reminds me of emacs and how the block cursor used to jump to the opening bracket momentarily. I missed that in VC++ 6.0 and am fairly happy with the new feature.
Well...there exists macros which add this automatic 'jump' to the open bracket as well. Besides that, if you place the cursor on the opening or closing bracket and press 'CTRL+E' it will automatically jump between them...

[mdmd]

Originally posted by galathaea
I hear 7.1 fixed alot of that (but not all) but that just makes me wish I hadn't gotten 7.0...
Do you know about the 39$ upgrade from 2002-2003 ?? I ordered
but of course my version been 'back ordered' for almost a
month:rolleyes: Might be a time limit attached.

[mdmd]

Ok, the worst part of the VC7 for me is the absolute worst
release of the MSDN library ever. It can't match search strings
worth a ****, and the "search similar strings" checkbox is
always unchecking itself !! Uggggh, it sucks. APR2000 is the one
I ended up reinstalling.

My settings are never saved consistantly in the IDE. I like to
work with no toolbars, I put the build/compile/run/macros etc
on the main menu bar and open the workspace up. This afternoon
I had 3 toolbars including he database bar that I never used
popping up. Dynamic help window came back, workspace is
cluttered again. HTF did that happen ? :rolleyes:

I enjoy VC6 much better, have VC7 for what I need but most of
the stuff will be done on VC6 till I need VC7 then I'll switch over
with hopefull little problems. If I ever get the 2003 version I'll
check that, hopefully it isn't as munged as the 2002 version.

[galathaea]

Originally posted by Andreas Masur
Well...there exists macros which add this automatic 'jump' to the open bracket as well. Besides that, if you place the cursor on the opening or closing bracket and press 'CTRL+E' it will automatically jump between them...
I didn't know about the macros (though now that I think of it, it seems pretty obvious that you can parse the document to do it). I did remember vaguely seeing the ctrl code in a post here on codeguru some time ago, but promptly forgot it. I guess I mostly use options that are navigatable visually and rarely use keyboard shortcuts (except for the standards ctrl-c, ctrl-v, etc...), but I've been using several compilers lately and they all have their specialties I'm still unfamiliar with. Thanks for the tip, as I'm still using 6.0 for some old stuff that I don't want to check for 7.0 compatibility yet.
Originally posted by mdmd
Do you know about the 39$ upgrade from 2002-2003 ?? I ordered
but of course my version been 'back ordered' for almost a
month Might be a time limit attached.
That is very nice! I am gonna check that out first thing tomorrow. I've been using other compiler's for building, and its a pain to configure everything.

[mdmd]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/howtobuy/upgrade/vstudio03/

WOW 29 bucks. WOW I can't get my status cause the email they
sent points to a bogus page :D

[Bengi]

they should have add an feature like this:
- Classic VC IDE (v6.0)
- Standard VC IDE (v7.0)

funny m$

[indiocolifa]

also, loading a large project in NET 2002 is terribly slow... and my system is a 1.67GHz Athlon XP, 512MBR AM, Win XP Pro...

I do not want to try VC 2003 NET for nothing...

[matthias_k]

Funny seeing this thread popping up again from time to time... ;)

I guess I'll take my chance and ask a question which nobody could answer so far:

Is there ANY possibility to sort items in the Solution Explorer?! I have searched the MSDN and Help like mad, but can't find a word on it. In VS6, all items were sorted alphabetically, which was very helpful.

However, in VS7, everything is just attached to the end of each folder when adding it! My "solutions" are so untidy, I can't find nothing! The only way is to create a temp folder, move all the items into it and MANUALLY move em back in the correct order (in my case alphabetically)...

This is terrible, please help!

[indiocolifa]

And what about the performance?
It is faster than the VS 2002 IDE?

[Mouse_103]

Im only staying with visual c++ 6.0

I own .NET c++ too and hated it so much.

[Radius]

At work here we've found many problems with the .NET compilers. I took mine off and went back to v6 of the compiler after three days of constant crashes and hang-ups.

Not to mention we found a problem (one of many) and I'm not sure if it's been covered in the forums yet.

In a DLL I had a function with a parameter:

my_func(unsigned __int32 val) ...

It works fine until I try to call the function from a program made in the VC7 IDE. It seems it can't properly recognize the __int<whatever> variables all the time for some stupid reason. I had to reqrite the entire DLL interface just to get it working.

You'd think MS would at least test the compilers before releasing them, AND check their own sources. We've had to change some blatant errors in their own code just to make our apps work.

[Andreas Masur]

Originally posted by Radius
At work here we've found many problems with the .NET compilers. I took mine off and went back to v6 of the compiler after three days of constant crashes and hang-ups.

Not to mention we found a problem (one of many) and I'm not sure if it's been covered in the forums yet.

In a DLL I had a function with a parameter:

my_func(unsigned __int32 val) ...

It works fine until I try to call the function from a program made in the VC7 IDE. It seems it can't properly recognize the __int<whatever> variables all the time for some stupid reason. I had to reqrite the entire DLL interface just to get it working.

You'd think MS would at least test the compilers before releasing them, AND check their own sources. We've had to change some blatant errors in their own code just to make our apps work.
Well..one small question...did you experience these kind of problems with Visual Studio .NET 2002 or .NET 2003?

[Radius]

Both, but each one has different problems.

[Andreas Masur]

Originally posted by Radius
Both, but each one has different problems.
Well...that is interesting and of course not what I wanted to hear... :mad: