Visual Basic Blog

A group blog from members of the VB team

IDE - Visual Basic Blog

Visual Basic 2008 Ships!!! (Amanda Silver)

November 19, 2007 Nov 19, 2007 11/19/07
VBTeam
Hooray! Today we’ve finally shipped Visual Studio 2008, previously known as “Orcas”, previously known as some symbol which doesn’t have an ascii representation. We’ve come a long way, but it’s been a great ride. In his blog, Soma mentions many of the flagship features at a high-level that will undoubtedly ...

Refactoring in Action (Lisa Feigenbaum)

November 3, 2007 Nov 3, 2007 11/3/07
Lisa Feigenbaum
Have you downloaded the latest Refactoring tools from Developer Express? There is a free version available on the Visual Basic Developer Center. Once you download, you will discover a number of cool capabilities you can now do in the Visual Basic IDE. When used to the fullest, it can really change the way you code!VB super-user Kim has ...

Customizing Displays in the Debugger for System Types

September 28, 2007 Sep 28, 2007 09/28/07
VBTeam
We've heard feedback from several customers regarding the way certain types are displayed in the Debugger.  Many of the displays exist to maintain the user experience between versions of Visual Studio.  We constantly evaluate if this is the correct choice for a given version of the product.  Starting with VS2008, you don't have ...

XML to Schema Tool for Visual Basic 2008 (Beth Massi)

September 14, 2007 Sep 14, 2007 09/14/07
Beth Massi
This week we posted a new tool called the XML to Schema Tool that allows you to easily import XML and infer schemas. The tool runs when when you add a new item to your VB 9 project and select the XML to Schema new item template (look under My Templates after you install). This allows you to work with XML much easier in Visual Basic 9 by ...

Fun with VB !!!

September 6, 2007 Sep 6, 2007 09/6/07
VBTeam
Who says you can't obfuscate VB code? For fun, I tried writing some VB code which was shaped in the letters 'vb' (that's right, the code itself forms the shape of the letters), where the 'v' and the 'b' are formed from the Visual Studio inifinity logo. In case you're having trouble visualizing that, here's a picture. Because I'm forming the ...

Lambdas, and Take While, and Group By, Oh My!

July 26, 2007 Jul 26, 2007 07/26/07
VBTeam
Hooray! Visual Basic 2008 Beta2 has been released to the wild today to return to its natural habitat – the desktops of our beloved customers. (Please note our smiling GPM's face on that landing page -- he's so happy the Beta is done.) What’s inside? So much that there might be more new features than we released in Beta1, but who’s ...

AmandaS' LINQ talk at VSLive Orlando

May 8, 2007 May 8, 2007 05/8/07
VBTeam
I escaped from Redmond this week to present at VSLive Orlando on LINQ in Visual Studio Orcas. As promised, please find the slides and demos included as an attachment below. As mentioned during the talk – that was intended to be an overview. If you want really want to understand the nitty-gritty details behind what make LINQ possible, be ...

Working with Shortcut Keys (Lisa Feigenbaum)

April 25, 2007 Apr 25, 2007 04/25/07
Lisa Feigenbaum
Since we have so many Orcas posts going up on this blog, I've decided to continue with a few that you can use TODAY in Visual Studio 2005.  This one is about working with shortcut keys...For those of you using the Visual Basic Development Settings, your keyboard scheme is set to Visual Basic 6 by default.  ...

Save Time – Use Keyboard Shortcuts! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

April 24, 2007 Apr 24, 2007 04/24/07
Lisa Feigenbaum
Visual Studio is all about developer productivity. To help developers be more efficient, Visual Studio has built keyboard shortcuts into the product for most of the functions normally found through the user interface – just like CTRL-C for copy.   To help you take advantage of these shortcuts, we’ve created posters that ...