Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

gramcha — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 07:00:01 GMT

I am wondering why there is delay in showing splash screen after double clicking the studio exe. From your document i understood that splash is native code only. But it takes some to display splash screen itself.

I created one sample isolated shell project and found following code in Winmain()

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)

{

.....

....

.....

STARTFCN Start = (STARTFCN)GetProcAddress(hModStubDLL, "Start"); //function present in appenvstub.dll

if(!Start)

{

ShowNoComponentError(hInstance);

return -1;

}

Sleep(2000);

nRetVal = Start(lpCmdLine, L"VSShellStub2", nCmdShow, NULL, NULL);

FreeLibrary(hModStubDLL);

return nRetVal;

}

Inside appenvstub.dll only that splash screen creation and display is done.

I decided to show my own splash screen before calling this Start() function. This helped me avoid the delay between the action of launching Visual Studio shell application and the splash screen appearing.

To avoid the overlapping of the shell splash screen, I am passing the "/nosplash" flag in commandline.

Now I am able to get the splash screen immediately after executing shell application. Problem is user can not run every time from command line or shortcuts. Sometimes user may directly execute the studio without this "/nosplash".

So I just hard-coded(appended) this "/nosplash" into "lpCmdLine" variable, instead of passing it from command prompt. But Start() somehow find that "/nosplash" flag is not passed from command line and it shows shell splash screen, which is overlapping my spalsh window.

Do you have any idea to fix this issue?

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

knockNrod — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:16:45 GMT

Man, I have the opposite problem. I don't get any splash screen when I double-click on a solution file, and I really need one so I know that VS 2010 is working to open the file. I keep thinking my mouse is flaking out, and I eventually double-click a second time, followed shortly after with two IDEs opened on the same solution, which doesn't share well, and I have to close both and start over. Is there a way to force the splash screen to display when you double-click on the solution file?

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

John — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:57:22 GMT

Thanks for all the effort on the splash screen.

It's really interesting to see what you've been through. It's the best Visual Studio had.

>Splash screens are so 1990s.

I don't think so. They are really useful and makes a good branding.

Did you start Apple ITunes on your PC recently? It take forever to load without any tips that it's still loading. ITunes should really have a splash screen like VS 2010!

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

Ruel — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:43:06 GMT

The people who dislike splash screens must be performance purists, no clock cycle goes wasted. I on the other hand find splash screens, fun to program and fun for the user and it's a great way too really separate your product from the others while adding a strong touch of branding. I really have to give credit to Microsoft - this is by far the best splash I've seen so far for any program. I don't mind having it displayed for such a tiny fraction of a second, I'm not in that much of a hurry.

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

Ruel — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:42:37 GMT

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

Mujeeb — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:12:25 GMT

nice

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

Doug Clutter — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:28:52 GMT

Excellent post! Thanks for sharing.

However, why not solve the real problem? WPF and WinForms applications should have a way to instantly display a static splash screen so users know that these programs are loading.

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

ShadowChaser — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:54:27 GMT

> Splash screens are so 1990s

Definitely agree with you there. The new slash screen is extremely ugly and I'd wished there was a way to disable the VS splash screen for decades - I had no idea there was a /nosplash option!

Also, I disagree 100% with this command:

"1. There must be the shortest delay possible between the action of launching Visual Studio and the splash screen appearing."

It should be the exact opposite! Nothing is more annoying than the splash screen appearing and disappearing when Visual Studio 2008 starts up in less than one second!

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

Ryan Molden [MSFT] — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:58:27 GMT

>I thought that the splash screen in .NET 3.5 SP1 was using native code to improve the performance ? Is this wrong ?

It may be but you still have to wait for the CLR to spin up in order to PInvoke to the native code, so if you are looking for the fastest possible result NOT waiting for the CLR will always be faster than waiting for it (this isn't a slight on the CLR, just a tautological statement).

re: Behind the Scenes: The Splash Screen

Jeremy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:49:06 GMT

I thought that the splash screen in .NET 3.5 SP1 was using native code to improve the performance ? Is this wrong ?