10-4 Episode 2: Welcome to Visual Studio 2010

The Discussion

• 

  Thanks a lot. Within a short time, this episode helped me in understanding how to customize the Start page in VS2010.   I am going to try this with the VS2010 CTP. 

• 

  Great to hear Seshan! If you have any problems trying it out, feel free to let us know!

• 

  Thanks Jason.. I was able to add my custom section in Start Page and have even blogged about it here

• 

  Thank's for the video, Jason. Xaml-based start page is a great idea! It will be nice if you tell key topics of the next episode in the end of the current episode.
  

• 

  Great suggestions! I'll let the guys know.

• 

  Cool deal! I am looking forward to the next CTP where we can actually install it via iso though lol. That would be far better than having to use a virtual machine with a predetermined operating system. Other than that, I am really pleased with what I see in VS2010.

• 

  I thought this was a very good video; I'm looking forward to lots more.

• 

  This is an attempt at constructive criticism, so please take it that way. If I'm way off base, please, community at large, flame away. But I think the audience on this web site can be heard saying, "Shut the hell up and run Visual Studio already!!!" during these types of videos.

  
  

  I'm very interested in the 2010 product, but in spite of that, the first two videos have both put me right to sleep. Too much "high level overview" stuff. Specifically, too much talking about what you had in the PPT slides. You could have just put the slides up and paused for about 5-10 seconds to let me read them. Your talking about them provided literally zero additional information than my reading would have given me.

  
  

  I found myself clicking every 1/4 inch on the timeline looking for something other than bullet points with your head in the corner (which covered up text on several slides, btw). When you finally got to the XAML start page stuff, that was relatively interesting. I did stop long enough to look at the bullet points when the slides changed, but other than that, it was SKIP AHEAD time.

  
  

  ...but maybe it's just that my attention span is that of an ADHD 10-year old.

• 

  Great feedback! Thanks a bunch for watching.
  
  Yeah, my worry when I had the slides was the issue you brought up exactly. These first two videos have intentially been really high level to "set the stage" for the rest of the videos (we will be doing these all the way until launch). I'll make sure to pass this feedback on to the other guys as well.
  
  Ideally, in our perfect world, we want very little times on slides (I would like my future videos to have only a single slide that simply says what will be shown). 99% content FTW .
  
  Thanks again!

• 

  so i must learn XML to create a new "tab" there....  that's stupid. why didn't you make a "create a new tab" button there??
  
  
  

• 

  I hadn't thought of that option. Though you need to remember that XAML (not XML) is the basis of WPF and Visual Studio is starting to adopt WPF more and more itself as the presentation framework to use.
  
  Here are some questions mrares: I think creating a new tab is the easy part (where a button works). However, once the new tab is created, how would you design a new designer-driven experience that allows the user to easily customize the content of that new tab itself. For instance, displaying different choices in that tab, having each choice have a different "content" element which could be text, hyperlinks, another list, an embedded video, a set of embedded videos, etc.
  
  This is "easily" done with XAML as the basis of the presentation framework, and is a model already adopted and used in new client apps leveraging WPF. And, with it being XAML-based, the limit is more your imagination rather than the implementation of the designer tool (like the dialog-driven experience that might grow from a button).
  
  If you have some more thoughts on the subject, I would LOVE to hear them and pass them along to the team . Thanks for watching!

• 

  I agree with Jason on this one. While it does require that you dig into XAML, what that means is that you have an amazingly flexible environment to work with. If you simply had a "Create tab" button then it wouldn't be nearly as flexible. And even for those of us who aren't XAML experts or don't have the time to invest in building a rockin' start page, I'm excited by the possibility of people creating their own unique start pages and sharing them with the community. Codeplex here we come!

  Brian

• 

  1.) I also think that the Powerpoint presentation was useless. It sounded like the typical marketing stuff provided by Microsoft all the time like "Windows Vista ist faster, better, easier to use than all before. It has much more networking support etc. but no concrete information what really changed or how to use it. Sentences like "Accessing data is much easier" sound very nice, but that is also true for the new elevator up to the library.
  
  2.) I also think that there should be an easier way to customize the start page. For a classical Linux user who likes modifying his configuration files with vi and compiling old C code with gcc using the command line and debugging the code with massive use of printf and when sitting in front of windows they spend half an hour for finding the command line options for winzip instead of simply double clicking the file this will be absolutely fine, but most users use Visual Studio because they do not want to do that stuff. For Web Developers this should be no problem, but for simple Windows Application designers like me (many of my applications have only a close button and an exception log) WPF is completely new. I agree it is also not good if you only have a GUI and nearly no options. I think the best way is a GUI that allows you to customize the most important features that generate XAML code like it is done in Access. You can do much by simply clicking without spending weeks to learn it and if you want to code something you can do it as well like editing a query in SQL etc.

• 

  What is the support for "optional and named parameters in C#" you mention, for supporting Office?  Are we talking IDispatch::Invoke DISPPARAMS arrays?  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms221653.aspx  That is some stale stuff dude.
  

• 

  You can also open the start page XAML file in the WPF Designer in Visual Studio 2010 CTP. To do this, there is a provided .csproj file in the start pages directory that Jason shows in the video.
  
  So you'll have a visual design surface to add new components. However, this still won't be perfect for basic edits. However, I'd expect that developers will create new start pages with their own components and share them via the community. So, often your custimization will simply be downloading someone else's start page and applying it to your own environment.

• 

  Hi Jason,
  The biggest thing that jumped out at me is the fact you are running XP.. What gives?? Windows 7 is SICK! I am sure you have the ability to get a copy don't you?

• 

  This is my first message here so it might be wrong, but wat about the icons in the start page; they are being enlarged a bit upon mouse hover, but the original size of the icons are exceeded so it looks very fuzzy and ugly. Why not just display the icons a little bit smaller than the original, and then when the mouse is hovering, it should be enlarged to the original size. That way the icons will look aewsome

  
  

  Can this be done through XAML? Anyway me myself is not interested in doing it, i just want you to know the icons look very ugly as of now, please fix before release.

  
  

  And i also have one question; the C++0x standard will probably be finished after the release of VS2010, so when will the full implementation be done, in a Service Pack or in the next release?

• 

  I prefer hearing from product developers on the new features. I think the job of a web based evangelist at microsoft is to grease the wheels and get the demos and interviews going in that regard. 
  
  Think what Rory, Charles, et al used to do. (and now do to a lesser extent.) 

• 

  i'm just a beginner, but i'm intrerested in it.

• 

  I've been thinking the "Recent Projects" should be like "Favorites" in your browser.  To be able to create groups, and manage solution files like favorites would help a lot.
  
  Would this be doable in the "Sky's the limit" comment you made?

• 

  Sorry!
  What is Passwords for VS2010CTP?
  Please Help !  

• 

  i've been just wondering when you click to close button on the visual studio 2010 it took some time to close it. what is the system requirements(and for best)  for this compiler? Could you please enlight us? And i wanted to add that you guys are really doing great.
  

• 

  Oh, I am still using visual studio 2003. And I am afriad I am far left behind.

• 

  Thanks for this video information....I dont loose anything Episode
  
  See you folks!

• 

  Yep - way too much yack and not enough "gee look at this..."
  What on earth is FTW?

• 

  It's interesting that someone commented on the Visual Studio 2010 start page here.  I just noticed the link on the VS2008 start page for this site in the Visual Studio Headlines section.  Since I hadn't noticed this title before, I clicked the link.  Now I see that the "headline" is 4 months old.  That is the reason I hadn't noticed the headline before: the visual studio start page, now in its 4th version (2002, 2003, 2005, and 2008) is still useless.  It doesn't update regularly and I think most developers, including me, just tune it out.  When, like happened today, something does catch my eye and I give in to the temptation to follow a link, I am not rewarded with the latest news about Visual Studio or development in the Microsoft world.  Instead I get reinforcement that the start page is useless. 
  
  And until the memory of today fades and I succumb to yet another outdated and worthless link in the Visual Studio start page,
  
  Regards,
  
  Dale
  

• 

  Not only does the Visual Studio headlines still show 10-4 Episode 2 as  the lastest headline for Visual Studio, making me think there simply were no headlines, now I discover that the 10-4 show goes to episode 16.  Yes, the start page is useless.  And now Microsoft wants to put the burden of maintaining the start page on me?  I guess that's to be expected since they clearly have no intention of maintaining it themselves.

• 

  2010? Why would anyone use it; 2008 is such junk is is remarkable.

• 

  It is Microsoft. The whole orginization has gone to hell!

   

   

• 

  Will Mobile Web Form be part of VS2010?

  If not, what will be available for us to develop mobile web applications?

  Thank you

   

• 

  I can't see the video of any part....i've got installed Silverlight ....wha's the problem?

• 

  Hi. I ve watched all 23 Episodes of videos. They r great n give very good insight of VS2010 or what can we expect in VS2010.

  I liked the presentation n information.

  But

  Video Quality was not so good  Video resolution should have been better .

  Hope in further shows or Series2 (if any ) Video Quality would be taken care of

• 

  Attention all people associated with Microsoft and it's entire family of programming languages!!!

  Ready?

  STOP SAYING "we’ll GO AHEAD and"  OR "I'm going to GO AHEAD and..."  or "Let's just GO AHEAD and..."

  Seriously, JUST STOP IT NOW.

  Seriously, STOP!!!

  STOP

• 

  Does VS2010 retain the feature where some panes slide out and just stay there inexplicably? I like how when I load a project in 2005/8, some random pane just comes barfing out into the screen and won't go away unless I pin it and then unpin it. This can also be triggered by random other events duing build and debug. It's almost like VS is insecure in itself and just wants me to use some of it's panes once in a while to validate it emotionally.

   

  Better still is how when I have a solution with ~75 projects, it expands them all by default. I heard this got fixed, so that'll be nice.

   

  (last one) what about how I can have the form designer open, click on a control, then slide out the properties pane only to have it showing me the properties of some file or something OTHER than the control I clicked on, then when I click on the control again it loads the properties correctly and then immediately hides the properties pane. Pretty sweet.

   

  Seriously though, I am annoyed most of all that microsoft would go launching ahead with all these new features that will probably not get enough use to justify their presence, while at the same time passing over serious and obvious productivity problems with the UI that have persisted from VS2003. Each new release seems to slow down in direct proportion to the level of "shiny" you guys keep adding. Now when I ask the IDE to close, it just sits there not using significant network or CPU resources for about 15 seconds, then closes... man, seriously? Stop adding "shiny" and start adding "fast."

   

  /rant

   

• 

  that was the first thing that caught my eye as well.  At least a vista OS is to be expected. A bit of an oops in my opinion as MS partner.

   

  OT: looking forward to this new platform. the part on the XAML issue. As a developer working on a developer platform it is a must to learn XAML (pitty because there is already so much you need to know), but going forward that should not be a problem but an esset in the future i guess.

• 

  Ok, Irony here...

  I got to this video via a link on the vs2008 Start Page.

   

  So,

  I got to this useless video, about a useless topic from the same useless feature - in the previous product.

   

  My recommendation: just stay away from Start Pages -- and videos about Start Pages (linked from Start Pages).

• 

  等待 vs 2010 

• 

  I find it really interesting that your showing VS 2010 with Windows XP. That speaks volumes about your confidence with current releases of windows.

   

• 

  Awesome!!!

• 

  Man, hopefully you guys have developed thick skins by now!  This is a rough crowd.  I upgraded our two copies of VS2005 pro to VS2008 pro, and I have to admit 2008 is much slower that 2005.  Now with 2010 staring us in the face, I don't know what to do.  I've got a good working copy of win7 RC on a laptop, along with Ubuntu linux, WINXP Pro (which is what I depend on), and Vista for supporting the few poor souls who are using that.  I think MS needs to take a step back and look at what they are doing: Making their products look better, but not delivering a better product.  People can see through that, people that matter.  I think the flopdoption of Vista by business is a clear example.  It is the IBM PCjr of the 21st century.  I heartily concur that the videos which I have watched are too much talk, not enough substance.

   

• 

  easy deployment, yea right, as if it's easy to find a .net supporting host to deploy aspx to.

  That is the main reason I dropped this stuff because I couldn't find a host to practice on.

  Also this info is so general it seemed useless to me, sorry just callin it like I see it.

   

• 

  Hmmmm. The bottom "Comment on Post" button doesn't work as well as the top one.

  Well, I liked the video, the video presentation and the content.  It really helps when I get previews of stuff. Really, the VS 2005,8 Start Page leaves a lot to be desired. This looks like quite an improvement.  

  More hostiles around here than in Monument Valley. I dunno. I adapt rather than want everything to adapt to me.

  Enjoy, Miguelito

• 

  Awesome ...loking fwd to use this BABY 10

• 

  Perfect

• 

  Visual Studio 2010 but you are still on XP. Will you upgrade to Windows 7??

• 

  I've had VSTS 2010 BETA for a couple of Months. Can you recommend some laptops and processing requirements?

   

  thanks

• 

  hi JasonOlson,

   

  Can you please give me the differences between visual studio 2008 and 2010 in aspects of designing, development and testing...

   

  I would be looking for your feedback...

   

  please contact me on bmmkumar@yahoo.co.in

• 

  To tell you the truth, I haven't used Visual Studio, but after watching the video, it made me want to learn and use it! Thanks!
  
  <a href="http://lifeuk.info/blog/">James A.</a>

• 

  g8.....work. Thanks for this video information.