MS Will Release VS Service Packs!

I've blogged about it before, but back in the old days (for Visual Studio versions prior to 7, aka .NET), MS used to release regular service packs for bugs in the development environments. This was back when most languages had their own IDEs (by version 6 they were pretty much integrated, apart from VB). As I've said, regretfully, MS abandoned this when Studio 7 (".NET") came out. Although they've released a few service packs for the .NET Framework, they didn't bother patching the IDE. Oh, there were loads and loads of little "hot fixes", but you had to contact support for those, and there was no real guarantee of quality.

Finally, finally, finally, MS have announced they'll be releasing service packs for Visual Studio 2003, and 2005.

Unfortunately, these won't be available until the middle of next year. I don't understand why the service pack for VS 2003 isn't available until June 2006. I mean, how long has this product been out already? As for VS 2005, there have been worrying rumours of nasty bugs and poor performance. I've got plenty of experience of using the beta versions of the original Visual Studio .NET, as my company at the time made the exciting and frankly foolhardy decision to use beta 1 for a major product development. Since those painful days, I've steered well clear of beta releases of MS dev tools (unless they're quarantined in a VM and I don't have to do any real work with them other than "playing"). So, I think I'll steer well clear of VS2005 RTM until the release of sp 1 sometime in the 1st half of next year.

Ignoring the Express Editions, Visual Studio is an expensive beast. Expensive, and buggy, in my opinion. I've used it every day since the release of beta1 in December 2000 - that's just shy of five years. And I'm still waiting for the cool, efficient and stable dev tool they promised us back in the summer of 2000.

MS Expression

I've talked about XAML / Avalon in previous posts, and how this will be used to generate revolutionary new UIs. MS have come up with previews of 3 new tools to enable this. The product range is known collectively as "Expression", and comprises:

Quartz Web Designer;
Acrylic Graphic Designer;
Sparkle Interactive Designer;

The next version of Visual Studio, codename "Orcas" will replace the current Web Forms designer with Quartz. I'm assuming Sparkle will form the equivalent designer for Windows Forms (some folks are also comparing Sparkle with Flash). Acrylic is a graphic design tool, which you can use in conjunction with both Quartz and Sparkle. If you take the time to read up on these tools, and see what Avalon is capable of, you'll see that there's an exciting time ahead for UI development.

More Evidence for an Apple Tablet

I mentioned in a previous post that it looked like Apple might be considering putting out a Mac with the Tablet form factor. Engadget are reporting that Apple are now looking for a new handwriting recognition engineer, so maybe this idea isn't as far fetched as some were claiming.

I've said before that I think the Tablet is a great idea, and that I really want one. At the moment, they're in a bit of a niche position. Most manufacturers are producing them, with the notable exception of Dell, and they're not really seen currently as anything more than a toy.

The competition from Apple might just be good for the form factor, and encourage the likes of Dell to take Tablet machines seriously.

The Future of MS Platform Apps Development

I'm sure everyone knows by now that the next generation of apps for the Win platform will make use of Xaml (extensible application markup language), which is an Xml dialect used to define UIs - one set of markup will work just as well for thin and thick client apps (see my earlier posts on Xaml and Avalon pt. 1, & pt. 2, now known as Windows Presentation Foundation).

A lot of people recently have been comparing Xaml with Flash, and it's true - you will be able to have real whizzy graphical effects in your apps. Within a few years, the programs you use and develop today will be unrecognisable.

"So," everyone asks when I tell them this, "does that mean I need to become a graphic designer?"

MS have quietly released a preview version of a graphics tool called Acrylic, which apparently now exports to Xaml.

This tool will find its way into the next generation of dev tools from MS (apparently there's also another related tool on the way) - we're talking a year or two down the line once Vista is out - but you can begin to imagine what things will be like.

Some First Impressions on IE7

Robert McLaws has installed IE7 beta1 and has some interesting first impressions; looks like he hates the way tabbed browsing is implemented, and the new UI reorganisation (where the menu is no longer at the top, it's in the middle... see my last post).

Personally, I'm toying with the idea of installing Vista on a VM on a spare machine, but I may wait for beta 2.

Want Info on IE7 Beta1?

Download the technical overview doc here.

Key features:

• Anti-phishing (enhancements to the security status bar to alert users to issues with site certs, maintains a list of known phising sites and warns the user, etc);
• 1-click cleanup of browser history;
• Tabbed browsing! (sigh). Number 1 requested feature. Personally, I think it's overrated. The IE team had to make a lot of changes to the IE codebase to add this; I'm sure I'll learn to love it;
• Toolbar search. Integrated, extensible searching built into the toolbar;
• Improved printing;
• A "Cleaner, Sleeker UI" - they've monkied around with the toolbars; the Back /Forward buttons now sit to the left of the address bar; the stop and refresh buttons have been combined and now sit where the little green "Go" button used to be (i.e., to the right of the address bar); next comes the tabbed browsing tabstrip, finally, the menu (that used to be right at the top) & the toolbar with smaller buttons to maximise screen real estate. Frankly, it looks a little odd... and I've heard that not all the UI enhancements are in beta1... we must wait for beta2 (incidentally, this is also true of Win Vista itself, so I guess they're still working on Aero Glass & we have to wait a little longer to see it);
• RSS Support - discovery & subscription, & more features slated for beta2;
• Not much on developer features, but apparently there's better CSS & transparent png support;

Finally, a lowdown of how all those project codenames have changed:

• "Longhorn" - Windows Vista (apparently MS want us to pronounce this "veesta", but sod that) - actually, I quite like the name, but don't confuse it with Vista Windows, or, er... Vista Windows;
• "Avalon" - Windows Presentation Foundation (yawn);
• "Indigo" - Windows Communication Foundation (yawn, yawn, yawn);
• Direct3D 10 - Windows Graphics Foundation 2.0 (WGF2);
• "ClickOnce" - they were going to give this a swanky new name... trouble is, they couldn't think of anything swankier than "ClickOnce", so that's what it will be called.

Windows Vista, aka "Longhorn"

Apparently the product name of the next version of Windows (project "Longhorn") will be Windows Vista...