aaron's weblog

1. XP, themes disabled
2. Classic look (no theme)
3. Themed title bars are too bulky, looks too plastic
4. Yes, the truecolor icons are very nice. But I would prefer flat toolbar backgrounds instead of the current tube gradient things, they're just obnoxious.
5. Absolutely, the intellisense is much improved. Love some minor UI stuff like being able to rightclick a tab and choose "Open containing folder", and so on.
6. That accidentally pressing F1 (happens easily on a laptop kb), causing a 30 sec load (my laptop has a slow harddrive) of the help application, is not cancellable.
7. Intellisense! It ROCKS for C#. All I want from it now is a Rename refactoring for C++.

For me, the least favorite part of the VS2005 UI is an agressive tie between

(a) the variable height of the toolstrip region

and

(b) the "logic" by which documents move to the foreground when a document is closed.

Issue a:

Imagine that six documents are open in VS2005.  The documents are a mix of C#, ASPX, RESX, etc., and I want to close several of these documents manually.

I position the mouse over the "X" close button, and start clicking.  Every time I click over the "X", a document closes and a new document becomes the active document.

The first two documents I want to close are C# files.  VS2005 is configured to show one layer of tool strips for C# files, so I position the mouse one inches below the top of the window, over the "X", and click to close the window.  So far, so good.  I click again to close the second C# file.  Still good.  Now I get to the third document, which is an ASPX file.  VS2005 is configured to show two (or three or five) layers of tool strips at the moment.  My mouse is still one inche below the top of the window, where the close button was for the previous two documents.  Unfortunately, there is now a completely random toolstrip button under my mouse, precisely where the close window button used to be.  Too bad I already clicked on it.  Did I just delete all the databases off my server? Reformat the document? Revert my last SCM checkin?  Who knows?

To summarize: PLEASE GET RID OF OR FIX TOOLSTRIPS!

Issue b:

I'm still trying to close my documents.  I have my documents organized just the way I want them, so tabs for related documents are next to each other on the screen.  When I close a document, the active document shifts to what is for all practical purposes a completely random document.  I'm sure there is logic to it, but it's virtually never the logic I want, because there is no way for me to predict which window will be activated next.  When I close a document, the tabs should work the same way they do in a tabbed browser - the adjacent tab gets the focus.  Simple, predictable, consistent across applications, and never a surprise.

To summarize: PLEASE FIX THE "ON DOCUMENT CLOSING" BEHAVIOR TO MIMIC TABBED BROWSING.

thanks,
-Don

My pet peeve is the document tab bar - when you have close to 20-30 documents open it is impossible to find anything and the drop down menu dosn't help either.

Event 2003 had a better system where you could scroll thru the open tabs

XP sp2 Luna Metalic

  1. Yes
  2. XP, standard blue theme
  4. Yes.  First, I've never been fond of 2003's "flat" look.  It's also un-themed unless you add a .manifest file, which can cause issues with the IDE.  I could go either way with 2005's gradient toolbars, but they are at least an improvement.  The improved icons are also nice.
  5. Not a lot of difference that I've noticed.  Once I've the toolbars and windows set up to my liking, things seem about the same.
  6. Gotta agree with 3dgraphicsnut - the "rebuilding Help" dialog is frustrating.  I clicked the "?" button in the options dialog, wanting to check something, and was rewarded with the "rebuilding help" dialog for several minutes, during which it gave no indication that it was actually doing anything useful.  I would have been a little mollified if it had shown signs of progress, and even happier if I could have just cancelled it.
  7. No particular favorites, although the "blue arrow drop points" when dragging windows are a big help during the initial customization period.

1) YES
2)  I'm using XP Mediacenter Theme on XP Prof - using XPize (http://xpero.msfn.org/)
3) -
4) It looks better, but I want better support to:
 a) Zoom (anything like code, UI, etc) - you added it to IE7 so you should add it also to Visual Studio ;)
 b) Docking/undocking - it should have normal windows buttons (maximize, minimize, when you have undocked windows - a la SDI UI, but with glue borders support)
5) It is faster (almost always ;) - but refactoring is realy poor), it have snippets, clear menu
6) UI is ok but refactoring it is so sloow on ASP.NET, and there is NO SUPPORT for MULTIPLE MONITORS
7) Docking and new tabs

ps. PLEASE ADD -  Multimonitor support (check this out http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2005/07/20/441126.aspx)

Do you use Windows XP, 2003, or Vista
All of the above.
with visual styles (themes) enabled?
Nope, pretty much default. I do tend to make the the actual window color a little off white instead of default white, it is a little easier on the eyes after a 10 hour coding session.

Regardless of your answers to questions 1-3, do you think Visual Studio 2005 looks better than VS 2002 or 2003? Why, or why not?
Yeah, I do like the interface a little better, however my biggest complaint which has been there since day one is Multi monitor support. I know Sara Ford asked about a lot of Multi monitor support questions back in the beta versions of 2005 but I can not seem to find that thread right now but we bring it up a lot. We need multi monitor support in the UI I know I also reported a huge post with screen shots and idea into ladybug back in Beta as well as  suggestions on how to deal with it. But basically the UI could be a little more nimble https://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/comments/403475.aspx

Another thing I know I have brought up before, the start page. The new start page is a huge improvement, I mean huge. But you know it could be better. Make it easy for me to create little widgets or gadgets of my own in there similar to live.com, along with a bunch of premade ones and customize them in the possitions I like. I mean for some of us we open email and VS at the begining of the day and are in it all day long. The in VS browser support is another nice thing that I do like. I can order Pizza from pap johns online without ever leaving VS.

Do you think VS 2005 is easier to use than VS 2002 or 2003? Why or why not?
Yes I think it is alot easier to use. 2002 and 2003 I really didn;t notice much of a difference between them. 2005 is a lot better.
What is your least favorite part of VS 2005's UI?
Server Explorer. I love the tool I use it all the time but it needs some work, it is very slow to respond sometimes, sometimes freezing vs until it open. It would be nice if it was more like Team System where it just popped out very fast and beside all the things in there it would just say working... while it was working instead of boggin down until it gets all the info it is after. This is really noticable in a Virtual machine running only a few hundred megs of ram.

What is your favorite part of VS 2005's UI? The new class designers of course, that is just sweet. Like Visio and VS finally got together.

The only other thing maybe I could tell you to improve is making the UI toolbars a little more flexible. I am not sure if you have ever looked at Rhino3d.com but Rhino is a development tool for making 3d models. Its user interface is rather interesting which leads to fast development the right clicking on buttons pulls down more features for that button, expanding buttons the ability to just pull off dock expansion of commonly used buttons, build your own floating toolbars and so on would be realy useful in VS. It is very quick to do it in rhino so say like I am working on some UI design I just simply right click on a few buttons pull off the feature I want to use and have them floating in space. Then when I get that done I click on the close button for the floating bar and move on. Fast and easy and quick. But basically add a lot more right clicking option and the right clicking morphs to match what ever I right clicked on, this would speed me up even faster.

My least favourite part of the UI is that it's slow, and it's buggy has heck.

Speed up the code editor and make the Windows Forms designer as fast as VB 6 was.

I don't care about anything else. Being pretty doesn't save me from wasting 30-45 minutes a day with a slow UI. And since you were able to provide essentially the same functionality with the VB6 Form Editor as you have with the Win forms designer is VS.net, there is absolutely no execuse for it's slowness. It's just brutal switching between a maginally complex form's code view and design mode and visa-versa.

Oh, and man, there are so many things that slow down the code editor now, that I'm actually having to resort to using notepad sometimes and pasting into VS.net when I'm done! BRUTAL.

You guys just need to work with 10,000 + line source files that drive a WinForm and work on getting it clean and fast at all times. "Hello World" forms are not the real world. In the real world, having 10 Grids on 10 tabs on a form is nothing, and that generates A LOT of code.

I'm using VS2005 on XP with themes disabled, because I feel that too much color tends to distract me.

By and large, I think VS2005 looks considerably better than 2003. True color in toolbar/intellisense makes a big difference.
From ease of use, I don't see a big difference. Maybe the WinForms "Smart Tags" are easier for beginners, but I don't use them.

If you are looking for areas of improvement, I would start with the VB (and C# I think) project property pages. The feel somewhat "slow" (you can see controls being redrawn in several stages & flickering when you select a page or resize the window). Also for the "Resources" page, I think the toolbar should be updated (e.g. make the second "menu" button several "command" buttons). And the control toolbox is also a bit slow when loading the list of controls for the first time.

What I like most... probably the new IntelliSense and expandable debugger tooltips.

1. Yes to both
2. XP Pro SP2, Royale
3. n/a

4. By and large, yes. I appear to be in a minority amongst your posters in that I actually really like the "Office'03"-style gradient toolbars. (This is, of course, because Royale has a gray-ish color to begin with.) Almost every aspect seems to be more polished and slicker than in the past. In terms of pure aesthetics, I'm with you.

5. In some cases yes, in some cases no. Again, in a minority here, but the smart tags and other shortcuts make production life a lot easier (assuming you know what all the code they generate actually does). The My feature of VB rocks -- I can't tell you how many times I built a "ResourceHelper" class with a bunch of Friend ReadOnly String properties to give me access to my danged resources.

For the no area, I actually think ASP.NET got considerably more painful. I loathe the "new web site" in lieu of "new project" (what, again, is the major difference?). I miss having vbproj and csproj files for my sites. I dislike that simply opening a site via the file menu seems to ignore SourceSafe integration; instead requiring "open from SourceSafe." (This is very difficult for me, because I have a junior developer who's still adjusting to SS, and constantly misuses it because he's not getting the benefit of the integration.) The overall speed kills me -- it feels slower than 2003 (even if the metrics tell you it isn't). (This is extremely true in the huge and possibly overwrought project properties view.)

6. The ability to see your docking "previewed" before actually doing it. With all the little gotchas behind the docking mechanism, it's nice to get that little feedback before starting.

7. Speed, speed, SPEED! One thing we developers need more than anything is lightweight and fast. Aside from that, my other UI gripe is the "visual" control+tab display. It's also slow, and frankly somewhat confusing in that it allows me to control+tab my way to windows that aren't documents -- completely against my ingrained understanding of that behavior from hundreds of other Windows apps.

I never, ever, in my life thought I'd say this, because I always did (and still do) consider VS the gold standard of IDEs ... But go over to that MacBU and spend some time with the guys using XCode. They lack almost every single feature of VS that I like (and their equivalent of "intellisense" is kind of a joke), but XCode is lightning-bloody fast -- even on my 4-year-old powerbook!

1) Win2003 with Themes Disabled - classic look
3) Takes up too much eye candy and waste of workstation processor cycles painting the eye candy.
4) VS 2005 does look better- true colored icons, gradient toolbars, enhancements to the ASP.NET Editor.
5) Of course there are new features in the editors which makes the usage a lot better. But from a shell point of view there does not seem to be significantly large usablity changes for daily tasks (besides the Tabs). There are good subtle things like the indicators to dock windows etc. But those things you use once in a while.
6) Slow load times between switching from Code Mode to Design Mode. its really a huge discouragement since it just takes so long. I wonder the tabs will be made like IE7? Since once we get used to IE7 Tabs for daily browsing wouldn't that be an expectation for every other tab based application?
7) It just works! I mean I love the editors despite they being slower as well as the enhancements in the code editors etc.

Do you use Windows XP, 2003, or Vista with visual styles (themes) enabled?
Win2k, XP and 2003 all with classic look

If not, why not?
Win2k and the classic design are my favorite because they are lightweight (in comparison).

Regardless of your answers to questions 1-3, do you think Visual Studio 2005 looks better than VS 2002 or 2003?
I didn't really notice that much, but then again I don't care that much for a UI - as long as it's not too bulky. That said it's a good sign because I would definitly have noticed if you would have blown up the ui with XP Style designs or something like that ;)

Do you think VS 2005 is easier to use than VS 2002 or 2003? Why or why not?
As already mentioned the Intellisense got a nice boost, but I begin to wonder if I would need the keyboard anymore in the next VS ...

What is your least favorite part of VS 2005's UI?
The Exception Popup bubble(or whatever you want to call it)! The first time I saw it in a magazine which had a look on an early beta I hoped that was some kind of joke.
Sadly it was not, but I think I should be happy that someone forgot to add the Office Assistant ...

I mean, really, if there's a Nullreference Exception everyone would know that there's some variable or result which is accessed but is null. The hints of what to do next(call new - who would have thought of that?) are mostly obvious and not much help - at least I never found something helpful in there.
It should just be the Propertybrowser to have a look at your exception and thats it.

Otherwise I agree fully with everyone else about speed. I begin to care about UI when the application responds quickly.

One more thing would be the Solution Explorer: I'm still missing a button in the context menu to collapse all folders, it's very annoying to close all Folders manually in a big project.

What is your favorite part of VS 2005's UI?
The Docking support is really a great future and the new tab functionality is also great(Close all but this, open containing folder and you can even close a tab with the middle mousebutton)!
I also like the redesigned Debug->Exceptions dialog.

I have a beef with the tabs that represent the documents you have open in VS 2005.

I have a few files open called: ArchiveDocument.aspx.cs, CopyDocument.aspx.cs, and RefreshDocument.aspx.cs.  They are in the folder: WebProject\Section\Documents\.

In each tab, the text is the same thing:


Section/Docume...ument.aspx.cs


That is very useless when trying to quickly switch between the different files.  First off, I don't need the folder included in the tab name.  Second, I want to be able to see the full file name (aka CopyDocument.aspx.cs) in the tab so I can easily switch between them.  Horizontal space is not an issue.

I propose some sort of option for configuring the tab names so that it is easier to be able to see each open file clearly and quickly if desired.


Dave

  1. Windows XP Themes: Yes
  2. If so, which OS and theme do you use? Blue
  4. Regardless of your answers to questions 1-3, do you think Visual Studio 2005 looks better than VS 2002 or 2003? Why, or why not?
Yes I do. I really appriciate the new icon graphics that have been implemented. The soft gradients are more pleasing than hard lines. The curved tab vs a plain square.
  5. Do you think VS 2005 is easier to use than VS 2002 or 2003? Why or why not? Yes, not sure.
  6. What is your least favorite part of VS 2005's UI?
The way the tabs close button moves around from tab to tab. The fact that the Solution Explorer / Property page on the right doesn't always auto hide. Live find like in Mozilla Firefox would be a nice addition. +1 for the ability to have two documents on two screens up (Multi Monitor Support). +1 for "glue edges."  The drop down document list could use the little document graphics.
  7. What is your favorite part of VS 2005's UI?
I really like the solution folders. I also really enjoy the new property pages.

  1. Yes
  2. Windows XP SP2 with Royale
  4. Yes, much better.  The default color scheme is nicer, the tabs and toolbars are better looking,
  5. Yes, it is easier.  Better Intellisense, class highlighting, and built-in refactoring go a long way to make coding faster
  6. Occasionally docked panels set to auto-hide fail to retract, and the only thing that will make them retract is to set the panel to "stuck" and back to "autohide"
  7.  It's a lot snappier to use than VS 2003

1. WinXp no theme
2. I love it fast, the wall in my office is colourful
3. looks better ->icons, toolbars,...
4.vs2003 is "easier" for beginners, less menuitems,icons,toolbar and less "things" to distract from programming
5. least favorite: F1 accidentally;  30 sec wait; not cancellable.
6. Intellisense is SUPER.

I need more speed in my work!!!
e.g.
-> Switch between Code/Designer
-> launch help
-> sometimes the ide doesnt respond for 10-20 secs

1) XP, some machines with themes, some without
2) For machines with- the standard blue theme
3) For machines without, the whole theming service is disabled.  I've found it's just a cleaner, less distracting look.  Performance also seems marginally snappier
4) Yes- In general a cleaner more modern (aka less MFC 6) look
5) Easier?
    visual docking feed back good
    frequent traps bad(usually it just evaporates without even giving a trap dialog).  (BTW- the help/doc manager is far worse than the main IDE)
6) In no particular order:
   a.  Document tab ordering/selection is atrocious
   b.  http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackid=575d79d7-8849-4632-8525-f9a2265281fb
   c.  (Designer issue)  For images/icons/imagelists/etc.  I almost NEVER want to have the image serialized to the resx file.  You try updating a product's icon when 30 other developers have added the icon on 200 different forms in 50 different projects and 10 different solutions.  What I really want is to add a link to the image file as an emebdded resource
   d.  Speed.  Most of the machines I use are 2+ GHz with 1GB of RAM, and I still seem to spend a lot of time waiting for the IDE to catch up
   e.  (Bug reprting process)  Huge kudos for the use of ladybug, but by the halfway mark of the beta cycle,  There were so many issues that the web was only useful for looking for specific issues.  Browsing the bug lists is important if you want votes/feedback to mean anything
   f.  I still miss the VS6 toolbar combo box to select the active project.  I know you can turn off active item tracking, but since, like most other people I know, I allow the solution explorer window to hide there is no at-a-glance way of identifying the current project without popping the solution explorer back up
7.  Visualizers (add more default ones!),  Intellisense is much improved, docking feedback

1) XP, some machines with themes, some without
2) For machines with- the standard blue theme
3) For machines without, the whole theming service is disabled.  I've found it's just a cleaner, less distracting look.  Performance also seems marginally snappier
4) Yes- In general a cleaner more modern (aka less MFC 6) look
5) Easier?
    visual docking feed back good
    frequent traps bad(usually it just evaporates without even giving a trap dialog).  (BTW- the help/doc manager is far worse than the main IDE)
6) In no particular order:
   a.  Document tab ordering/selection is atrocious
   b.  http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackid=575d79d7-8849-4632-8525-f9a2265281fb
   c.  (Designer issue)  For images/icons/imagelists/etc.  I almost NEVER want to have the image serialized to the resx file.  You try updating a product's icon when 30 other developers have added the icon on 200 different forms in 50 different projects and 10 different solutions.  What I really want is to add a link to the image file as an emebdded resource
   d.  Speed.  Most of the machines I use are 2+ GHz with 1GB of RAM, and I still seem to spend a lot of time waiting for the IDE to catch up
   e.  (Bug reprting process)  Huge kudos for the use of ladybug, but by the halfway mark of the beta cycle,  There were so many issues that the web was only useful for looking for specific issues.  Browsing the bug lists is important if you want votes/feedback to mean anything
   f.  I still miss the VS6 toolbar combo box to select the active project.  I know you can turn off active item tracking, but since, like most other people I know, I allow the solution explorer window to hide there is no at-a-glance way of identifying the current project without popping the solution explorer back up
7.  Visualizers (add more default ones!),  Intellisense is much improved, docking feedback

1.>XPSP2, 2K3SP1, Vista Ultimate SKU
2.>XPSP2 - Classic, 2K3SP1 - Classic, Vista - Glass
3.>I do run VS on XP or Server on the account of I develop graphic conversion software that will be too slow to build with VS enabled. I run high performance mode. On Vista, I'm doing any development only testing; therefore, I need VS enabled.
4.>VS 2005 is much better visually and it has some great features.
5.>I believe VS 2005 is really no more easier to use than say VS 2003. It has a lot more nice features; however, they could be enhanced a bit to provide a better user experience. I guess that's what PowerToys are for. :)
6.>I will have to agree with the others about the Tabbed document bar. I want the scroll buttons back. What's the deal with clicking the middle mouse button and it closes the document? I discovered that one by accident. The bookmark functionality by default is a real pain. I can't stand it that when I press F2 that the navigation jumps to other open documents. This has caused some problems during editing. The snippet interface needs some work as well as some functional improvements.
7.>I like the intellisense stuff alot as well as the exception suggestion tooltips. I also think the CTRL+TAB dialog is pretty slick.

I would still like to see better support for Winform desiging ( integrated icon editor, skinning wizard and Rich Media ). I think another nice perk would be to set a default comment template when a new file or class is created; this would save a lot of time when you're a developer that likes to put verbose comments throughout the source file.

When is Spy++ going to get a face lift. Shouldn't things be cohesive in appearance?

All and all, VS 2005 is outstanding; good work!
-Ed

1.  Yes

2.  Windows XP - standard Olive Green theme - Large Fonts - Clear Type - Fade Effect - Dual Monitor

3.  N/A

4.  I certainly think that VS2005 is a better looking application than 2003.  It is generally more attactive, easier on my eyes, and looks stunning on a 24" LCD.

5.  I do not know if I have been able to use the interface enough to make an honest comparison.  I have spent the bulk of my time on my first couple of 2.0 projects waiting for user interface to catch up with me and dealing with the plethora of issues brought on by the terrible implementation of the "web site" project type.

I work mainly with very large web sites and class libraries and the web site project model provided in the initial release was a real disaster.  I was almost debating reverting back to 2003 and spending my time there.   Heck...  I still have VID 6.0 projects that I manage.  ;)

I was finally able to take the time to download the latest beta of the Web Application project model this week and give it a try.  So hopefully my frustrations will subside and I will have a chance to concentrate on the user interface.

There is no doubt that lots of features will make it easier to code going forward, but there are still some things missing that would make coding more productive:


a.  Intellisense is much better, but I want to see the summary information from my XML comments in the tooltip as I move from item to item.  I seem to remember that this might be possible with fully compiled assemblies by jumping through a few hoops.  However, I've never had the time to play with such things.  If I take the time to comment my code with XML comments, the IDE should make sure that the summary information is provided as help when I roll over items in the intellisense list.  I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get this to happen.


b.  Some of the first work I did in VS2003 was WinForms development in C#.  I realy liked the fact that when a code file was added to the project that it was automatically namespaced based on the folder it was added into.  A lot of the WinForms and ASP.NET projects I work on are quite large and Namespacing the code is the only way to stay sane.

Since this feature wasn't implemented in VB or ASP.NET, I developed the habit of doing this manually.  While it's an inconvenience, it wasn't too difficult.  Still, I have always wanted to see the auto-namespacing functionality added to those tools as it existed in C#.

Due to the fact that there were several features missing in VB which were implemented for C#, I assumed that this was just one of those things that didn't make it.  I was really hoping that 2005 had implemented this in VB.  It was the first thing I looked for.  Alas...  It still doesn't exist.

Along with that, I would also like to see the ability to drag-n-drop items in the Class View window to easily move and group items into Namespaces.  Renaming Namespaces, and creating new Namespaces could be done from that interface as well.  This would be a wonderful code organization tool.


c.  While I'm discussing the Class View, I would like to mention that I think it is silly to show all the levels of the namespaces at the top.  I would like to see them rolled up into one item...  Let me illustrate...

Root Namespace:

    CompanyName.Web.Sites.Internal.SiteName

Class View:

    CompanyName
            Web
                    Sites
                            Internal
                                    SiteName
                                            Object 1
                                            Object 2
                                            Object 3
                                            Object 4
                                            Object 5
                                            SubGroup
                                                    Object 6
                                                    Object 7
                                                    Object 8
                                                    Object 9


...what a waste of horizontal space...  :)  I would rather see:

    CompanyName.Web.Sites.Internal.SiteName
            Object 1
            Object 2
            Object 3
            Object 4
            Object 5
            SubGroup
                    Object 6
                    Object 7
                    Object 8
                    Object 9

...in other words...  Roll the Namespaces up to the least common denominator between all of the objects in the view for that project.  Most likely, this would always be the project's root namespace, but not necessarily.

Horizontal space in the project explorer and the class view always seems to be wasted and I find my self constantly having to increase the size of that window to see what I need to see.


d.  The Recent Project list is broken.  It is displaying projects that have been removed from the hard drive and no longer exist.  VS2003 used to remove any project from the recently viewed list upon load, when the file no longer existed on the drive.  I think you should bring back that functionality.


e.  You changed the defaults for some of the most common keyboard shortcuts.  Most notibly the options to get to the Find dialog from the menu; Alt-E, V, A used to get you to the auto-format option on the menu; The checkout dialog used to default focus to the text box and while slightly annoying, I was in the habit of hitting TAB then Spacebar every time I was prompted for that dialog.  It is different now and 2 months into using the tool, I still find myself hitting the wrong key combination.

We went through quite a change to move from ASP to ASP.NET.  I wasn't expecting the move to 2005 to be a new learning excercise.  I was expecting the interface to behave the same as it did before, with some new enhancements.

f:  The ErrorList is not reliable and does not always show issues with code in all files.  It also does not update nearly fast enough.  It is always minutes behind.

I use the error list regularly for refactoring in 2003.  I change an item then examine the error window to find out what else I need to update and continue until all issues are solved.

In 2005, the only reliable way to get a good list of error items is to close all open files and rebuild the solution.  Even then, I find that sometimes I have to close out of the IDE all togehter and reload everything to get a clean, proper list.



6.  I think the least favorite part of the UI is the most recent thing that I identified...  The error list (background compillation) problems.  These really need to be fixed before I will find this a usefull tool.  I won't be migrating any of my 2003 projects over to 2005 anytime soon.  Mostly because of these issues.


7.  I love the new debugging features available when mousing over variables, etc.  Extremely useful.

1. Windows XP, themes disabled (classic).

3. I find the Luna theme to be visually distracting and wasteful of screen space. The Windows 2000 scheme is cleaner and more compact.

4. It looks better, but I think in a way that's worse for usability. Like Luna, I find the VS2005 gradient bars to draw too much attention, and the truecolor icons are harder to read at a glance than the VC6 or VS2003 icons.

5. Not sure. VS2005 has fewer idiosyncracies and new, useful features, and I find it much more amenable and closer to the VC6 experience than VS2002/2003, which I passionately hate. Then again, that's because I've gotten very used to 2003. I think the learning curve for a non-VS user might not be any better; if anything, VS2005 is the most complex release yet.

6. It's still SLOW compared to VC6. I still have regular moments when VS2005 just inexplicably pauses for several seconds at a time. The new .NET UIs also redraw too often; 2005 in particular redraws its entire solution explorer every time I bring up Find with Ctrl+F.

A runner up for hated part of UI is the native dialog editor. The property grid is much harder to read than the old VC6 tabbed dialogs, since they're just homogenous walls of text — and using a dropdown for a true/false option is a step backwards in usability.

7. I'd have to agree that the docking popups were a good general addition to the UI; I no longer have to have to wave windows around until they dock in the correct spot.

Im very hope that the VS 2005 can provide some function with which we can change the feel & look (or skin) of VS 2005 to windows classic style or vs2003 style etc.

for me, Im very like the vs2003 or windows classic style, they are very compact, concise and less system resource (such as memory resource) required.

1. Windows XP SP2, Themes ON, Blue or Olive (actually not big choice)

4. VS2005 looks better than previous because of

4.1 it's something new (anything pall on with time)
4.2 more gradients and light colors make system more easier to look at

5. VS2005 easier because it has better intellisense, docking tips, smart tags (but they too small, middle mouse can help open them?).

VS2005 NOT easier because performance are far from real time (I have 1000 lines source that need 1-2 seconds to scrolldown one line on Intel 830 CPU with 2GB RAM). Also I install today Workflow and try to paint it in designer - performance very bad.

6. Designers. Slow performance + bad horizontal scrolling (no middle mouse button there) + most of them lack of pan miniwindow.

7. text editor with intellisense. really good experience (but more filtering to intellisense suggestions good to have).

Not sure the "help system feeling" and "text editors/designers issues" are part of Look&Feel, but here goes anyway.

1. Yes

2. XP, standard theme, only removed the background image.

3. -
4. Yes, I just like it better. Can't put my finger on any particular issue.

5. Yes, much of this has to do with the new refactoring and snippet functions, as well as new visual clues in the editors.

6. Buggy designers. If you mean strictly UI look and feel, then I'd have to say the toolbars, they keep moving about. Sometimes when I debug the start/stop buttons are in one place, next time they've moved slightly. Too unpredictable where I find things on the toolbars as things keep hiding/disappearing/rearranging.

7. Text editor, beautiful work. If you mean strictly UI look&feel then I'd have to say the docking system, bug with Pending Checkins nonwithstanding (see below).

Additional comments:
- the help file opening is in need of an overhaul. Why it has to lock the main IDE while opening the help is beyond me. It doesn't matter if it takes 1 minute or 2 seconds to rebuild the help file (when needed), just make the help system independent of the main IDE
- designers has some bugs. Some times when I switch from a form designer to code window, it still displays the X/Y coordinate part in the status bar, and keeps updating it after each keystroke causing severe slowdown. Ie. keypress = X/Y coordinates briefly disappear, then come back, takes about a second each time. Have to close editor windows to get rid of problem.
- docking the "Pending Checkins" window at the bottom and making it auto-hide sometimes cause it to reappear all the time. Ie. click on code window, pending checkins pop back up. Click in PC tab, back in code window, PC disappeares, comes back up. Have to close it completely to get rid of it. Minor docking issues like that.

I agree with JohnGalt - The UI is very slow when working with more than a few forms. Almost every actions has a 5/10 second wait. In my opinion, looking at the various versions of Visual Studio (inc vb6), here is how I would rate them:
Vb6 - very fast UI
VS.NET  - fast UI
VS.NET 203 - slow UI
VS 2005 - very slow UI

the look and features of VS 2005 are excellent - but give I would trade them all for vb6 speed any day!

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