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Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1


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Does anybody know the improvements and new features included in Visual Studio 2010?

I'm disappointed in the changes to the user interface - I don't feel their enough. More integration with the Windows 7 interface, like Office has (the colours and feel of the interface) would have been nice and that included with the ribbon interface would have been even better. It seems silly that they haven't included the ribbon in this update :/

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In a video on Channel 9 I remember the chief architect for VS2010 saying they've looked into adding the ribbon and realizing it didn't make sense for Visual Studio. So it seems this is for the better, or at least by design.

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The ribbon? in a development environment? you ARE joking, right? Precious lines of code !!

What has "precious lines of code" got to do with the ribbon interface? You minimise the ribbon to get more screen real estate so it only appears when you click on a tab. That actually gives you more room for your code than the current toolbars.

In a video on Channel 9 I remember the chief architect for VS2010 saying they've looked into adding the ribbon and realizing it didn't make sense for Visual Studio. So it seems this is for the better, or at least by design.

Well, at least they've thought about it. It's a shame they had to come to that conclusion but it must make sense (I haven't had time to analyse it). I just hope they decide to make the design more in-line with the look and feel of Windows 7 applications like Windows Media Player, Office 2010, Windows Live Mail etc. Maybe they could utilise the glass more like Office does.

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Not in Beta 1. The WPF version of the .NET Ribbon has been out for a while. Here it is.

As for the UI..I kind of like what they did with it. A big improvement over the old style UI they've been using with minor tweaks since .NET 1.0 came out.

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The WPF version of the .NET Ribbon has been out for a while.
Yeah, but it's beta, not nearly as good as third-party ribbon controls, can't be used in Windows Forms applications, and has missing/broken ribbon control implementations. Plus, the team developing it has other priorities (like finishing .NET 4) that distract them from working on the WPF ribbon. I'm just disappointed that we won't get one with .NET 4.
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I think the UI is stupid. Why do I want the whole program blue? Why wouldn't it, uhm, I dunno, maybe have it match the Windows colors.

Also, I see there is still no solution to WPF's exceptionally poor text rendering (yes, GDI with ClearType looks better, precisely because it snaps to pixel boundaries). Oh well, I guess I can make all the fonts 20pt. No improvements to the C/C++ code editor or IntelliSense either, I see. Oh well, it's not like anyone writes native software anymore, right? It's probably down to a tiny 99% minority.

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Yeah, but it's beta, not nearly as good as third-party ribbon controls, can't be used in Windows Forms applications, and has missing/broken ribbon control implementations. Plus, the team developing it has other priorities (like finishing .NET 4) that distract them from working on the WPF ribbon. I'm just disappointed that we won't get one with .NET 4.

Actually it can be used in a WinForms app. Just like any other WPF control, using ElementHost. But I agree it does suck. Though I think a Ribbon is in the plans for .NET 4, if this poster is to be believed. Here. < It lists "Ribbon" and "RibbonWindow" under System. Windows.Controls

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Also, I see there is still no solution to WPF's exceptionally poor text rendering (yes, GDI with ClearType looks better, precisely because it snaps to pixel boundaries).

Is this seriously still not sorted?!

Shocking, WPF is basically useless imo until this is rectified..

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Is this seriously still not sorted?!

Shocking, WPF is basically useless imo until this is rectified..

Text seems to be rendering pretty sharp for me. Don't know what he's talking about.

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Text seems to be rendering pretty sharp for me. Don't know what he's talking about.

I'm installing 2010 right now, I'll see for myself :)

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Text is clear for me in Visual Studio 2010 with WPF. :) It might be DPI settings or something causing issues for some. I can't say for sure obviously, but it is a fair guess I suppose. :)

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Text seems to be rendering pretty sharp for me. Don't know what he's talking about.

Put it next to a native GDI program and open a menu in both, and see if you can see a difference between them. It's a well-known problem with WPF. It doesn't snap glyphs to pixel boundaries like GDI does, and the result is that you end up with inferior and blurry text, especially with smaller font sizes. This is made worse by the fact that there is no GUI interface to tweak the WPF font smoothing settings, because some people can play with those to at least make it look somewhat better (but still not great). Another huge problem is scrolling text, as their stupid text animation means it can take as much as a second for the text to become (somewhat) clear. Surely you've seen this effect in the properties listview in 2008's WPF editor? WPF can't render aliased text either, which makes it a living nightmare for people who use displays where that looks good and prefer it.

This is not something I'm making up, it is a well known issue, and a total showstopper for adoptions in many cases. Not just that, but poor text quality even makes some people physically sick.

WPF is really not that great a framework. Poor text rendering, overly complicated, difficult to make GUIs that look identical to GDI/User-based ones, extremely high resource use, etc.

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hdood, I whole heartedly agree with you regarding WPF... it just isn't that great!

I am well aware of the text issues that used to be present, but I can't seem to replicate it on Windows 7.. I will package up a test GUI and try it on XP when I get to work tomorrow. It would be really great if the issue could be fixed.. I have a client that we (foolishly?) decided to use WPF with and it has created nothing but issues.. it just doesn't seem as easy to work with as windows forms, plus people notice the font issue, A LOT!

see attached... imo, still looks crap.. (wpf on the right) not seeing any blurring though. perhaps my drop down has too little items?

post-24841-1242861489.png

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see attached... imo, still looks crap.. (wpf on the right) not seeing any blurring though. perhaps my drop down has too little items?

Well, I'd consider right blurry, but if you mean the scrolling issue (ie text animation) it looks like this:

The red arrows point to some of the items that have yet to be properly rendered. Sometimes this takes as much as a second after it stops scrolling. The "OpacityMask" item is fully rendered, but look what even that is like compared to GDI on the right (with ClearType adjusted for my monitor.)

r70m60.png

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Wonder why I've never had the "blurry text" problem? All the computers I've ever seen my apps run on (including XP based laptops) have looked just as good as GDI based text. Also on 7 the excessive memory usage of WPF apps is no longer an issue.

EDIT: @Dr_Asik: No they don't. At least not on my machine.

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Thank you very much for all the information :)

I'm starting a job which includes C# and ASP.NET in June, so I'm interested in updates in version 4!

Edited by Calum
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The ribbon? in a development environment? you ARE joking, right? Precious lines of code !!

My thoughts, exactly!

/OT

With all the added code and features, they still can't make a compiler worth a dam that produces well optimized code.

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With all the added code and features, they still can't make a compiler worth a dam that produces well optimized code.
You mean MSVC? In my experience (compiling chess engine Fruit), it produces faster code than GCC.
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Do fonts in VS2010 code editor really look blurry compared to previous versions?
Yes. The editor uses WPF and indeed the text is a little blurry. I think it looks OK, but I agree with hdood 100%.
EDIT: @Dr_Asik: No they don't. At least not on my machine.
Let's see a screenshot of VS2010 on your machine, because I simply don't believe you.

Also, don't forget about any bitmaps in WPF will look funny depending on where they sit and where your form is on the screen. Using SnapsToDevicePixels helps a little bit, but there are still bitmap artifacts.

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Yes. The editor uses WPF and indeed the text is a little blurry. I think it looks OK, but I agree with hdood 100%.

Let's see a screenshot of VS2010 on your machine, because I simply don't believe you.

Also, don't forget about any bitmaps in WPF will look funny depending on where they sit and where your form is on the screen. Using SnapsToDevicePixels helps a little bit, but there are still bitmap artifacts.

And you honestly think I would lie? Here While I'm at it do you want a screenshot from VS08 as well? >_>

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