Visual Studio 2005 blog Feedback Hunt

I've been watching a few feedster searches for feedback on the CTP builds of Whidbey. I figured I'd share some of the information I've found.  If you want to keep up on this yourself search for “visual 2005” or “Whidbey” or “CTP”. So far it’s been pretty positive.

The MVP’s who have seen the alpha now the recent tech preview kept telling me how much it felt like we’ve listened to their feedback. We have been and we still are. This is going to be a great customer focused product!

Bugs

The two bugs that most people seem to talk about include the breakage of IIS and the help system not working. There is more detailed information linked here. A lot of people also seem to be noticing the pink/purple gridlines, task list, and designer parts. I’ve posted the explanation to, what I’m calling, the community readme.

Distribution

I’ve seen numerous requests for a smaller download (that may not include help) and CD distribution option since a bunch of people don’t seem to have DVD drives. One interesting request was that we allow P2P bittorrent downloads that a bunch of PC game companies do for huge demos. The downloads would probably be faster. We’re going to run that one by legal first. (But I can say if you look hard enough you might just find one. J )

Choice Feedback

“ The first big thing I noticed was that Whitehorse still isn't there.. A nice little improvement on the Error Reporting dialog that makes the dialog close itself after the error report has been sent. Thanks, it's the little things that annoy you the most you know…View - Other Windows - Code Definition View. This gives you a window that shows a code block for whatever class happens to be under your caret. Cool!”

https://jelledruyts.homeip.net/PermaLink.aspx?guid=0de0861a-08e7-42ac-8723-18ac09d6bbcd

“ Just from using the new VS a little bit, I must say that I'm impressed…the new WinForm controls and designer at this point, and they're a great improvement over .NET v1.1…ToolStrip and MenuStrip controls, which look and act just like the toolbars in Office 2003 (that shading/gradient/pseudo 3D look). This will definitely help other apps to look as nice as Office 2003 does, and give a more consistent feel to apps in general…Overall, VS 2005 is really shaping up to be a great product. I already can't wait for its release”

https://www.milbertus.com/archives/2004/03/003144.php

“great job on the installation VS.NET Team! This was the shortest install I've ever seen for VS.NET…Upon the first launch, I had to choose some layout that I really didn't understand... and well, I chose the wrong one, and my solution explorer/class view were on the left, and toolbox was on the right. After trying to just drag them over there, I realized you had to make them sticky prior to moving it. Bug? I think so…Startup time is tremendously faster”

https://weblogs.asp.net/mhawley/archive/2004/03/25/96547.aspx

And some more with good screen shots…

https://www.vbaspcoder.com/Default.aspx?Page=BlogDetail&BlogKey=110

https://www.vbaspcoder.com/Default.aspx?Page=BlogDetail&BlogKey=105

https://www.vbaspcoder.com/Default.aspx?Page=BlogDetail&BlogKey=96

https://www.vbaspcoder.com/Default.aspx?Page=BlogDetail&BlogKey=91