Earlier this week, Microsoft confirmed that it would release the beta version of Visual Studio 11 on February 29th, the same day it also plans to launch Windows 8. Now the company has offered more information about Visual Studio 11 (a code name for the program's final title, which will likely be called Visual Studio 2012 when the final version is released).
In two new posts on the official Visual Studio blog site, Microsoft's Monty Hammontree goes over a number of the new changes and features for the software development program. One of the big changes for Visual Studio 11, as mentioned in the first blog post, is the lack of color in the user interface. The new version will allow users to pick from either a light gray or a darker black color, as seen above.
The UI has also simplified the artwork of the program's icons for Visual Studio 11. Hammontree writes:
While we understand that opinions on this new style of iconography may vary, an icon recognition study conducted with 76 participants, 40 existing and 36 new VS users, showed no negative effect in icon recognition rates for either group due to the glyph style transition.
The first blog post also goes over Quick Launch, which is designed to help developers search through the program's list of commands faster.
The second blog post talks about even more new features such as Hubs, created to help developers work on projects with a single window. There have also been improvements on how a developer previews his or her work in Visual Studio 11 and how they can keep track of previous work via the History feature.
Since the blog was updated a number of people have written comments that have not been favorable to the changes in Visual Studio 11's user interface and color designs. The blog posts have gotten an update message which states:
We hear you. There’s a lot of excitement about this release and a lot of passion about colors, designs, styles and icons. Know that we are listening to all your comments here, across social media and we are working hard to make Visual Studio 11 a fast, powerful and feature-rich product. Keep the comments coming, both good and bad. We are reading them all.
Image via Microsoft
58 Comments - Add comment