vs2005news's WebLog

Give Feedback on MSDN Forums Code Formatting

2005-08-30T23:49:00Z

Go here or here and give feedback on whether you would rather see improved cut/paste into the MSDN forums or more/better code formatting buttons in the new post UI.

What to Expect When Filing VS 2005 Feedback

2005-07-30T00:37:00Z

The product feedback center team has an important note for anyone reporting issues and suggestions with VS 2005 at this stage in the product cycle. Check it out here. (http://blogs.msdn.com/productfeedback/archive/2005/07/29/445136.aspx)

Give Feedback on MSDN Forums RSS and New Post UI

2005-07-29T03:06:00Z

The MSDN Forums team is looking for feedback regarding the future direction of their RSS Feeds. Let them know what types of feed you want and how you want those feeds to look.

They would also like feedback on a concept design for the new post UI designed to cut off duplicate questions.

Customer Says: Call browser is the coolest VS 2005 Feature

2005-04-08T03:00:00Z

Sure, the call browser has actually been around for a while, but no reason oldies can't be big hits right?

Via Michael

Here's an example. Let's say I want to add attended transfer (where you have a call, press transfer, dial a number, talk to the new call, then hangup to connect the two). I'm looking in the source I'm familar with (the IAX protocol area), and see iax2_hangup(). That's a packet-level call, so when someone physically hangs up, that, somehow, gets called. Where? Well... right click the function, Call Browser -> Show Calls To:

Click... click... click... bingo. Now I've got a complete grasp on the call flow that would send a IAX_COMMAND_HANGUP. My old way (which makes me feel stupid now) of browsing source doesn't even come close. A lot of programming these days is managing complexity. It's all about making the best use of our limited brainspace (some more limited than others). 17 lines/1 small diagram. That's all it takes for me to see this complete flow. How much mental capacity does that require versus browsing multiple locations in 4 different source code files?

Confusion around all of the Betas and CTPs?

2005-04-01T19:37:00Z

TheServerSide has a nice take on getting all of the various CTPs for SQL 2005 and VS 2005 plugged into one another. Or, you could just look at this page for the answers.

TTFN - Kent

VS Core Community PowerToys

2005-02-15T02:50:00Z

Did you know that the VS Core team, working with the community (that would be you) are working together to create great tools for your use of Visual Studio .NET 2003 and for the upcoming Visual Studio 2005? Get more details at their page on GotDotNet.

In addition, their first in this community development program is out. Big props, kudos and attaboys to Henrik Stuart for his contributions to the VS Editor Zoom control.

More details on the VS Core Community Powertoys program.

From Sara's announcement:

The VS Editor Zoom control allows users to increase and decrease the editor font size using a zoom percentage control similar to Word’s.

See How Visual Studio 2005 is Tested

2005-02-09T01:33:00Z

There are a lot of great msdn blogs and posts written for or by testers at Microsoft. Given all of these you could probably start to piece together an aggregate of what it means to test a product at Microsoft, but you might be lacking some of the end 2 end experiences. Recently we filmed Sara Ford (an SDET for Visual Studio) go through the experience of analyzing a testcase, debugging the failure on our labs, and ultimately logging a bug discovered in the process. The results of this experiment are currently hosted on the Channel9 Devdiv site. Each segment is less than 15 minutes long. Enjoy!

Josh

Feb 2nd VS 2005 Chat: Visual Studio Community Features

2005-02-02T07:08:00Z

February 2, 2005 – 11:00 A.M. Pacific Time [View Additional Time Zones]

Title: Visual Studio Community Features [Enter chat room]

Description: Join members of the Visual Studio community team to talk about Community Downloads, the Feedback Centers, "Ask a Question" functionality, and Codezone community integration.

Don't forget when the chat occurs - Add to calendar

For a full list of upcoming technical chats, visit our World Wide Chat Calendar (there is no download required to attend our chats. Our chat rooms are HTML based and require only the http port)

Jan 19th Chat: Visual Studio 2005 IDE Extensibility

2005-01-19T07:50:00Z

Title: Visual Studio 2005 IDE Extensibility [Enter chat room]

Description: The Visual Studio team has been hard at work putting together a new product to help make your development tasks easier to perform. But Visual Studio also offers many opportunities for you to extend this platform with your own tools and ideas. For example, create a new language featuring a colorizing editor and project system, create a macro or Add-in to increase your productivity, or create a new, innovative tool for Visual Studio that nobody has yet thought of. The possibilities are limitless. Join the Visual Studio Extensibility Team in a chat where you can ask questions about how the extensibility features of Visual Studio works, and how you can make those features work for you.

Date/Time: Jan 19th, 2005
1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time

Don't forget when the chat occurs - Add to calendar

For a full list of upcoming technical chats, visit our World Wide Chat Calendar (there is no download required to attend our chats. Our chat rooms are HTML based and require only the http port)

Meet VS Team Members and Get Some VS 2005 Demos

2005-01-13T23:14:00Z

Over at Channel9 they have recently posted a two part tour with members of the "VS Core Team". They are a little lengthy, but Chris has posted some good advice for those of you looking for the juicy parts.

Check out the Part 1 or Part 2 posts choose the link called "[save]";
Right-click on this and click "Save target As"
Save it to your machine
Use Windows Media player to skip around or even watch it at a faster speed!

Juicy Bits from Part 1

16:00 New VS 2005 Start Page with RSS Feeds
18:30 Paul talks about the difficulties of coding UI for the IDE
32:40 MSBuild Guys. Dan describes the qualities of a great tester

From Part 2

0:00 Sean demonstrates Code Snippets in the editor
10:50 Chetan shows off some test automation
16:45 New Class View features
19:45 New Help Integration features

Share and Enjoy!

Jan 12th VS 2005 Chat: Visual C++ Editor and IDE Features

2005-01-11T21:39:00Z

January 12, 2005 – 1:00 P.M. Pacific Time [View Additional Time Zones]

Title: Visual C++ Editor and IDE Features [Enter chat room]

Description: Chat with the Visual C++ Editor & IDE team to talk about new Whidbey features such as Code Definition Window, Call Browser, Emacs & Brief Emulations and XML Comments.

Don't forget when the chat occurs - Add to calendar

For a full list of upcoming technical chats, visit our World Wide Chat Calendar (there is no download required to attend our chats. Our chat rooms are HTML based and require only the http port)

Jan 12th VSTS Chat: Enterprise Dev & Test Tools Public Chat

2005-01-11T21:39:00Z

Title: VSTS Enterprise Dev & Test Tools Public Chat [Enter chat room]

Description: Chat with members of the Enterprise Development and Test team of Visual Studio Team System. We'll be answering questions and discussing our new tools: Static Code Analysis (FxCop/PREfast), Dynamic Code Analysis (Profiler), and Test Tools (Unit, Manual, Web, Load, etc).

Don't forget when the chat occurs - Add to calendar

For a full list of upcoming technical chats, visit our World Wide Chat Calendar (there is no download required to attend our chats. Our chat rooms are HTML based and require only the http port)

Jan 5th VS 2005 Chat: Visual Studio Help Integration

2005-01-05T20:26:00Z

Topic: Chat with the Visual Studio Help team about Whidbey Help features

Date/Time: TODAY! Jan 5th, 2005
1:00 - 2:00 P.M. Pacific time

Add To Calendar: http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/outlook_reminders/05_Jan5_VSHI.ics

Where: http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/chatroom.aspx

November CTP Impressions? Post Yours!

2004-12-21T01:49:00Z

Over at Channel9 a bunch of November CTP impressions have been linked to. Feel free to add yours here or on the Channel9 thread.

Team Foundation Team Starts a Blog

2004-12-17T22:32:00Z

New blogs seem to start every day on MSDN and its hard to keep up. I wanted to make sure that this one does not go unnoticed. The VSTS teams have been putting a lot of effort into making sure they form solid connections with their customers in V1. Their new blog will be part of that effort. They are even putting a content schedule behind it so there should always be something interesting to read.

Check it Out (http://blogs.msdn.com/Team_Foundation/archive/2004/12/17/323241.aspx)

Some readers may pause here and ask: What exactly is Team Foundation? For those who are unfamiliar with the Foundation, it is the server-based part of Team System that ties together many of the various pieces of the software development lifecycle. It provides a suite of source control, work item tracking, Excel and Project integration, reporting, project portal, and build automation functionality for seamless and effective management of a team-driven development project. But now I’m jumping ahead to next week’s topic…

Week of	Topic
3-Jan	Better Together - Team Foundation Update
10-Jan	Theme Introduction: Managing a Project
17-Jan	Office Integration
24-Jan	MSF Agile
31-Jan	Reporting
7-Feb	Theme Introduction: Integrated Development
14-Feb	Getting Started with Beta 2
14-Feb	Branching, Merging, Shelving
21-Feb	Build Automation
28-Feb	Theme Introduction: Customization Overview
7-Mar	Methodology Customization
14-Mar	Work Item Type Customization
21-Mar	Check-in Policy Customization