Stuff we'd love to see in the next version of Visual Studio | The Coffeehouse

OrigamiCar

This post on a new feature coming in the next version of vs.net got me thinking...

What other stuff would you love to see in the next version?

Here's my top few things that would make my development process and code maintainance easier:

1. Sort methods alphabetically
I'd love to be able to select classes/forms code etc in the solution explorer and choose 'sort alphabetically'. Bonus points if you could configure it to sort be access type (public, protected/friend, private then alphabetically.

2. Remove unused references

3. Find unused imports/usings within classes

3. Find unused public/protected methods so they can be removed easily

4. Find unused usercontrols (winforms and webusercontrols), find unused classes within the solution.
We have a large asp.net site and some controls get retired but we forget which ones don't get instanced in the site. Would love to get a list of unused controls generated so we can pull them out.

I realise that most of this stuff can be done with third party addins, but it would be nice if vs.net itself were able to do this.

What would you like to see?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

Find unused imports/usings within classes

That's in 2008 ...

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

Spec# will get rid of most of these

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

In reply to vesuvius

#Aug 14th, 2008 @ 1:10 AM

Yeah, but Spec# won't be overturning C# as the language of choice any time soon.

Ion Todirel
buuu

1. I'm definitely *yes* for more control over IntelliSense
2. that wouldn't be bad to have...
3 and 4. I don't agree, that's not really really important and it's not that hard to do it by yourself, since you wrote that class you should remove it not Visual Studio

I would like the Object Browser replaced with something like Reflector, a nicer extensibility model, Start Page replaced with something like MSDN Reader, maybe more options over code formatting, more editor enhancements, less menus and sub-menus, more use of multi-core CPU's, faster install time, easier uninstall and less dependencies and the most important one *performance improvements*

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

I'd love to be able to select classes/forms code etc in the solution explorer and choose 'sort alphabetically'. Bonus points if you could configure it to sort be access type (public, protected/friend, private then alphabetically.

That's pretty much my most wanted feature too. Also, I'd like some more control over the namespaces visual studio generates, specifically to turn off the feature where visual studio appends the foldername to the project's namespace if you create a class in a folder. Also, I'd like to be able to set the template used for event handler names, so that you can go "button1.Click += [tab] [tab]" and have it generate, for instance, a handler called OnClickButton1() instead of the default button1_Click().

And if all of this is already possible, I want an easier options dialog to find all those settings.

Like Blowdart said, removing unused Using statements is already in VS2008, but it'd be good to have for references too. Public/protected functions... maybe. If you write a class library or a base class for other people to extend you have no way of knowing if those functions are going to be used or not.

Yggdrasil
Pour me a cab, 'cause I can't drink no more.

One of the greatest features of Resharper is its ability to mark unused code and usings on the fly (greyed out), as well as rearranging using statements intelligently (seperating by root namespace, for instance).

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

Two features I'd like the see:

1. Be able to fold many projects into one directly in Visual Studio - I often have tens of small projects open in a solution which are interlinked in order to gain a lot of granularity over my code (and also so I can check the external API to code I create).

The problem with this is that my output folders are filled with hundreds of little DLLs which is fine for most of the time, but makes it awkward to take on the road, so we use ILMerge, but this should be integrated with the compiler itself in order to get whole program optimisations.

2. Be able to mark an assembly (executables only presumably) as non-reflective, and thus allow the compiler to inline methods, drop dead code and throw away all symbols. It's not about obfuscation here, it's about minimising the amount of stuff in the executable. If my exe doesn't need to be opened by someone else reflectively then renaming a method to "a" from "MyVeryVeryVeryLongMethodNameThatDoesStuff" can save a lot of unnessisary string table wastage, as well as preventing your average idiot from inspecting your assembly.

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to Yggdrasil

#Aug 14th, 2008 @ 2:37 AM

Blowdart "carries on" about resharper as well (if I remember correctly) so it may need to be looked into.

Foolishly speaking, I think Visual Studio should leave a bit of a mess behind. When learning to use the IDE, and you application is slow, you learn to know all the libraries that you application is referencing. If you are a novice and start with a sparse reference set, Visual Studio isn't too much help in letting you know which library to reference. In fact that is probably VS's weakest point, i.e. libraries, and it is a hard problem to fix.

I'm sure the seasoned developers (espescially those from a #include <iostream.h> background) will tell you that you're being plain lazy.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to vesuvius

#Aug 14th, 2008 @ 2:46 AM

I do love Resharper. DevExpress also does a plugin tool which is aimed slightly differently; but they're both roughly equivalent.

jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException()

2. Remove unused references

Am I the only one that already has this?

Oh, and resharper continually insists for me that System.Linq is an unused namespace..... It's not!

wkempf

The only feature I care about from the IDE at this point is a usable WPF designer. Everything else is either already there, or available as an addin from somewhere. I don't need/want new features, I want bug fixes and performance improvements. Smiley

PavAtMSFT

In reply to wkempf

#Aug 14th, 2008 @ 6:10 AM

Hi wkempf!

Thanks for your comments. I'm part of the WPF designer team. On bugfixes and performance issues help is already at hand in the form of the release of Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (see our video at http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/AdamKinney/WPF-35-SP1-Tools-with-Erick-Ellis-and-Mark-Wilson-Thomas/ for some details of the kind of stuff we've been fixing - but in broad terms expect to see a lot less XAML load failures, and snappier startup perf thanks to the work the WPF platform team have been doing). Have you had a chance to look at the SP yet?

If there are particular bugs and issues you'd like to see fixed or you have other feedback on the designer please drop me an email at mwthomas AT microsoft DOT com.... we're working on our new release as we speak. What would be your number one feature to make the WPF designer more usable in the next release?

Thanks,

Mark Wilson-Thomas
PM WPF + SL Designer Team, Visual Studio.

gsbell

It would save us developers lots of time if the Add Reference... dialog box and the Toolbox Choose Items... dialog box provided the ability to filter the listed items.

For example, you could open the Add Reference... dialog, type in a partial word in a Filter TextBox, like "Chart" and click a Filter button to filter the list to only list items containing the word Chart.

And while I'm at it, tell the Windows 7 team that the Add/Remove Programs list needs similar functionality.

esoteric
λ

In reply to gsbell

#Dec 23rd, 2008 @ 3:29 PM

In other words, the now standard Windows search field which is so darned useful it should become pervasive.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

What I'd like to see is better options for viewing data during debugging.

For example, right now when you open the Text/XML/HTML Visualizer it shows in a modal window, while with some applications I've worked on I have a need for seeing a building stream of text. The Debug Output window isn't a perfect solution for that. I'd like that window to be non-modal, or have the option to have multi-line rows in the Watch windows. If we could just stretch the rows with a rubber band that would be an ok solution.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

I'd like to see a lot of smaller stuff implemented:

Document Outline support for C# code files (it already works for WinForms, CSS, XML, and XSLT, why not C#? (support for HTML was removed in VS2005, I don't know if it's in 2008 or not though)
Go easier on my system please and remove unnecessary bloat

It doesn't seem right for VS2008 Pro with no third-party add-ons (besides the Microsoft Team Foundation Server client) to use 100MB+ of RAM with no project/solution loaded
Debugging is also really slow when I'm in low-power mode on my laptop (even with all the debugging windows closed)

Better Remote Debugging

The requirement that the computer the remote debugger runs on be a member of the same domain is a bit of a pain.

Ditch ASP.NET Websites

They just confuse new users who want it for something when they need to be using ASP.NET Websites

Bring back WebDAV support for ASP.NET Applications

Removed in VS2005 and only available for ASP.NET Websites; it's a shame since it makes initial project setup and deployment on dedicated test webservers harder

And a TFS client Explorer shell extension (like TortoiseSVN) would be nice
Oh, and make the Class Designer faster. Why is it so slow and sluggish?

Also, I'm wary of news that VS2010 will be WPF-based.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to W3bbo

#Dec 23rd, 2008 @ 4:01 PM

There is a TFS shell extension, it's part of the TFS power tools

But yes, Create New Website must die.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to gsbell

#Dec 23rd, 2008 @ 3:29 PM

And while I'm at it, tell the Windows 7 team that the Add/Remove Programs list needs similar functionality.

It's already there in Vista (Ctrl-E, type in the search box to filter).

esoteric
λ

In reply to evildictaitor

#Aug 14th, 2008 @ 1:40 AM

True! Esp. since Spec# doesn't have all the features of C# 3.0 and C# 4.0. (Please correct if mistaken here.)

esoteric
λ

In reply to PaoloM

#Dec 23rd, 2008 @ 4:34 PM

That is a brilliant addition and thanks for that Paolo!

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

Make it run on multiple platforms. Smiley

jh71283
Throw new System.Beverage. OutOfCoffeeException()

In reply to Bass

#Dec 23rd, 2008 @ 4:44 PM

Better Remote Debugging
The requirement that the computer the remote debugger runs on be a member of the same domain is a bit of a pain.

They don't need to be on the same domain, they just need to have matching user/password.

The most annoying part of remote debugging however is that you cannot remote debug from Vista home. Unfortunately most of the computers at work were supplied with home instead of business.

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