New Web Form designer for Visual Studio “Orcas”

Visual Studio “Orcas” will feature a new Web Form designer codenamed “Quartz” based on FrontPage technologies replacing the one of Visual Studio 2005 codenamed “Trident” based on IE (MSHTML):

Sapphire: New Web Form designer in Visual Studio Orcas
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikhailarkhipov/archive/2007/01/20/sapphire-new-web-form-designer-in-visual-studio-orcas.aspx

If you have tried to make your Visual Studio add-in to work with WebForms or HTML pages, you know how difficult it is. So, I have opened a suggestion in the Microsoft Connect website for feedback:

Add extensibility support for WebForms/HTML forms in VS Orcas
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=254426

You can visit it and add your vote to my suggestion. Hopefully we can have a better extensibility for Webforms/HTML pages in VS Orcas. The February CTP will be the starting point to test it.

MZ-Tools articles series: HOWTO Locate commandbars in international versions of Visual Studio

If you are developing addins for Visual Studio, you should be aware that there are several localized editions (Spanish, German, French, etc.). This article provides info to take into account when locating commandbars by name in your add-in: 

HOWTO: Locate commandbars in international versions of Visual Studio
http://www.mztools.com/articles/2007/MZ002.htm

More tools for the add-in developer

In a previous post I mentioned several tools that are part of my toolset as an add-in developer. In this post I would like to mention Microangelo, an icon editor that I use to create the icons/pictures for the command buttons of my MZ-Tools add-in. Once created there, I copy and paste them in the image editor of Visual Studio to change the background to almost green (R=0, G=254, B=0) that you must use for command pictures as explained here:

HOWTO: Creating custom pictures for Visual Studio .NET add-ins commands, buttons and toolwindows.
http://www.mztools.com/articles/2005/MZ007.htm

I have been using MicroAngelo since almost 10 years ago, when I started working at my current company where we purchased it. I liked it, so years later I purchased a license of version 5.x for my own use on Windows XP and I used it to create the TrueColor icons of the version of my add-in for VS 2005, which was very easy thanks to the tool (I am not very talented for graphics but I got managed to create some gradients). But several weeks ago I got a new laptop (a very nice Sony Vaio SZ3) and I installed Windows Vista, Office 2007, but alas, the capture feature of Microangelo 5.x did not work. Today I have got a new version 6.0 of Microangelo that is compatible and certified for Windows Vista 🙂

Happy New Year (and MVP again)

It has been several weeks since my last post but December 2006 was a quite hectic month, apart from the Cristhmas I got a LASIK operation for myopia on December 1 and I worked hard to get a new build of my MZ-Tools add-in with many optimizations for January 1. So, Happy New Year!

I also got the MVP title one more year on January 2 so the year could not start better…that means my 4th year as MVP, still in the generic “Visual Basic” category since there is no enough people for a “VS extensibility” category. But it doesn’t matter, I am commited to VS extensibility and this year I do plan to write many more mini articles (HOWTO, BUG, etc.) on my web site that I will announce here.