The Visual Basic Team : Power Packs

New "How Do I" Videos Available on the Visual Basic Developer Center (Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:07:00 GMT

If you missed it, last week 48 new How Do I videos (Forms over data, Windows development, Office development and Security) were added to the Visual Basic Developer Center in addition to adding new download formats for 12 others. Many thanks to Rob Windsor, Pat Tormey and Steve Hansen for doing these videos.

In addition to these I also uploaded a couple more that I did on Windows Forms development. One is on the new DataRepeater control available in the latest version of the Visual Basic Power Packs and the other I did in response to customer requests on how to handle unhandled exceptions and email them.

You can go directly to the How Do I video series main page to see the complete list.

Enjoy,
-Beth Massi, VS Community

New Data Repeater Control in Latest Power Packs Release! (Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:50:00 GMT

Check it out, the team just released a new version of the Visual Basic Power Packs which now includes a Data Repeater control. Power Packs are free Add-Ins, Controls, Components, and Tools for you to use that make developing .NET applications even easier.

From the Power Packs Team:

Today we are announcing the release of the third version of the Microsoft Visual Basic Power Packs!

This version includes a new Data Repeater control that enables you to use standard Windows Forms controls to display rows of your data in a scrollable container, giving you more flexibility and customization than standard grid controls.

Here’s a quick example of how you can use the Data Repeater control to create a very custom looking Windows Form to display your data. This example is using two Data Repeater controls, one with the default vertical layout display data for today’s forecast and another one using the horizontal layout to display the five day forecast.

Also included in this version of the Visual Basic Power Packs are updated versions of the previously released Visual Basic Power Packs, Line and Shape controls, the PrintForm Component and the Printer Compatibility Library.

You can download the new Visual Basic Power Packs here.

Thanks
The Visual Basic Power Packs Team

You can also check out the Channel 9 screen-cast that I recorded with John Hart from the QA team which demonstrates how to use this new control.

Enjoy,
-Beth Massi, Visual Studio Community

Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Power Packs 2.0 now available

VBTeam — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 03:40:00 GMT

In case you didn't see the links go live on the Visual Basic Developer Center the VB Off-Cycle team has shipped the latest edition of the Power Pack controls. You can download them from here.

In this update we've added the much anticipated Line and Shape controls.

The line and shape controls give you drag and drop ease at design time and great performance at runtime. By simply setting a few properties you can accomplish complex gradient fills. An improvement over the VB6 version of Line and Shape is we've added support for Events. These are fully supported by Microsoft as part of your Visual Basic support agreement, and will likely be rolled into the product in future releases. Remember if you have ideas for future Power Packs go to the Visual Basic 2005 Power Pack Suggestion Center and let us know about it. You can log new idea or vote for ones already there.

This release also includes updates to the PrintForm component and the Printer Compatibility Library. We also include a bootstrapper package in this release, something I am especially excited about because I am also responsible for ClickOnce experience in Visual Studio, and having a bootstrapper mean you only need to check a box to redistribute the Power Packs with your application.

Have fun, and send me pictures of any cool things you do with the new controls.

-Scott