VS 2005 My things that I don’t like list…

VS 2005 My things that I don’t like list…< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

November 5, 2005

Updated by November 6, 2005

In my opinion VS 2005 is the best IDE ever; still I like to make some comments.

Like to share the following with everyone with the hope that I be clarified or corrected on the presented “My I don’t like list”… I will keep updating the list by adding, modifying or removing issues along the way.

·         The “GenerateMember” property is a bad thing.

I don’t quite see why this property is necessary but to a very few that may like to create controls in where an inner control is not accessible but and only throw the parent controls list.  I bet that a lot of users will spend quite a lot of time fighting with EDI by moving a control declaration out of the “InitializeComponent” method and/or debugging their applications trying to find what is wrong, why it don’t compile, why their visible control is not accessible.

WinForms TabControl default “GenerateMember” is default to “false”.  If this “GenerateMember” property does have anything positive about it, I prefer always to be set to true.  I vote to eradicate it.

·         One of my favorite things that I do really hate is that the “AutoGenerateColumns” is not present in the properties list.  I have been told that this is “by Design”.  Are you insane!  I will really like to hear about the rational behind the decision.

·         Suddenly not all controls properties that may be interesting to manage while designing are shown at design time.  For example, while working on the “ToolStrip” on WinForms the “ImageList” property that was usually available (in previous versions) is no longer in the properties list at design time.  You can still work with it on your code.  This is probably another “by design” decision that I don’t get it.

·         For some reason it was decided that the IDE editor should rearrange/indent the code on insertion and/or while pasting text.  The rational made have been to keep “consistent” code layout.  Still I tried to look for an Editor option to turn off the feature, since consistency doesn’t mean readability since they are two different things.  Hand editing should always prevail over any other methods since a person can better judge how readable a piece of code is.  If there is an option for turning off the text rearrangement I have not find it.  I cast my vote to remove this auto editing thing, and if is inevitable having it, then provide a way to off it and be off as its default value.

·         Changing the grid control column header and row header background color is not obvious.  Actually I haven’t found a way to do it.

·         When you are working with WinForms DataGridView control and will like to update a cell that has lost focused you will extract the value as follows:

String val = myGrid.Rows[RowIndex].Cells[ColIndex].Value.ToString();

Let’s say you update the value by adding or modifying the val string and like to update the cell back that you will do as follows:

myGrid.Rows[RowIndex].Cells[ColIndex].Value = val;

It happens that you will not see the updated value in the grid.  I have tried to get the updated value visible any possible way still it is not displayed back.  My last try involved the use of the “myGrid.UpdateCellValue(…)” method.  I have also tried refreshing the grid, updating the underlying DataTable row field, and alike, still the value is not displayed as updated in the presented scenario and following the above specified sequence of tasks/events.