Rick Strahl's Web Log

WebLog Posts in Category Visual Studio

No JavaScript IntelliSense in VS 2010 Beta 2? Reset your Settings
October 22, 2009 @ 2:52 pm

When I installed Visual Studio 2010 a couple of days ago I was really disappointed to see that Intellisense failed to work completely in the new install. No workey in .js files, or ASPX pages inside of script blocks. After some back and forth with folks on the ASPInsiders list and the product teams it looks like there is an issue somewhere with the default settings that get set when Visual Studio...

16 comments

Creating Visual Studio Templates from your Web Projects
April 27, 2009 @ 7:38 pm

Visual Studio has the nice capability to create project templates from existing projects and with a little bit of work it's real easy to create a project environment that's ready to roll without having to dig for related components first. This applies to Web projects more than anything for me as I have a fair bit of generic utility code that is project specific and needs to be added to just about all projects. Templates make this real quick and easy. Here's how.

21 comments

I can’t find my Find Dialog in Visual Studio
April 10, 2009 @ 5:00 pm

Ironic ain’t it? I can’t find my Find Dialog in Visual Studio and I can’t use find to find it. Ok funny, but at the time it didn’t seem too funny because I needed to really find something in a rather large JavaScript source file. But when pressing Ctrl-F (or Ctrl-H for Find/Replace) in Visual Studio rather than getting the familiar Find Dialog I got a slight flicker and a whole lotta nothing...

13 comments

Web Application Project generated CodeBehind .designer file not being updated
April 07, 2009 @ 1:18 pm

I've been running into problems with WAP page CodeBehind files (.designer.cs) files not being updated from time to time. Here's how this can happen and a few ways to fix the problem and get on with life.

19 comments

"Variable is assigned but its Value is never used" Warning
February 28, 2009 @ 2:42 am

It’s late, but here’s a little humor for ‘ya. I’ve been noticing recently that I’ve been getting some odd warnings in Visual Studio for variables that are defined and never used. Check out the following screen shot from C# code editor: Notice how the compiler is warning about isSelected not being used, but as you can see just a few lines down it is in fact being used in an assignment. At first I...

29 comments

HTML Mangling with Literal Controls in the <head> tag
October 20, 2008 @ 2:28 am

Ran into an odd problem with Literal controls in the head tag of the document causing HTML to get corrupted today. It appears that literal controls - and only literal controls - are causing some odd designer manglage that can result in broken HTML.

14 comments

LINQ to SQL DBML fails to build or open
October 10, 2008 @ 3:50 am

Arrgh. Today I got back to a LINQ to SQL app that’s been sitting idle for some time. It’s a demo app and as I started the app up and compiled the solution I got: Error 1 Build failed due to validation errors in C:\projects2008\TimeTrakker\TimeTrakkerBusiness\model\TimeTrakker.dbml. Open the file and resolve the issues in the Error List, then try rebuilding the project....

17 comments

ASP.NET Designer Control Problem in VS 2008 SP1
September 18, 2008 @ 4:55 am

I've been running into problems with VS 2008 SP1 where controls appear to be failing frequently with property assignment errors that seem completely unwarranted. Controls work fine on a page, and next thing I know they fail for no apparent reason.

28 comments

Lost (and found) Visual Studio Templates in Web Project
August 27, 2008 @ 7:04 pm

So I just lost all of my project templates in Web projects. I've been working on a small utility page on my site that generates help documentation on the fly. I've been working happily along on this site when all of a sudden when I needed to add a config file to control debugging and authentication on this page/app. could not find a part of the path 'C:\programs\vs2008\ Common...

2 comments

Visual Studio's JavaScript Editor Really needs a Function/Class Viewer!
April 25, 2008 @ 1:17 pm

One thing I really would like to see in Visual Studio's JavaScript support is the ability to see all the functions/classes defined in the code. Right now there's no mechanism for navigating code in the JavaScript editor and while that's not a problem for small bits of code, for more complex code like libraries or truly client driven Web applications the VS editor becomes problematic with its CTRL-F or scroll wheel based search navigation.

16 comments

Grayed out ASP.NET Toolbox Controls? Check your Mouse!
March 15, 2008 @ 3:23 am

Have you run into a problem with the ASP.NET where you can't access toolbox items for add-on controls? You're not the only one. Apparently there's a bug that causes some hardware configurations involving Microsoft Laser mice to cause problems with the idle state that the designer uses to refresh controls and certain designer aspects.

7 comments

Visual Studio Hotfix for Slow Web Forms Editing and Input Focus Issues
February 08, 2008 @ 7:58 pm

Microsoft has just released a hotfix for a number of issues that have been plaguing me for some time in Visual Studio 2008. The issues involved have to do with the visual designer and the HTML code editor and a number of different input focus and slow input situations. You can get the hotfix from here:...

13 comments

Issue: Migrating Web Application Projects between VS 2005 and VS 2008
January 22, 2008 @ 1:26 am

If you move Web Application Projects between Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005 and a machine that doesn't have Visual Studio 2005 installed you will find that the project doesn't load due to a build target difference.

6 comments

Ctrl-S in web.config in Visual Studio closes web.config file
January 04, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

If you've hit a bug in Visual Studio where you hit Ctrl-S/Save while editing a web.config file causes the web.config file to close, you're not alone. Looks like the ADO.NET Entity Tools Designer somehow mucked up the Visual Studio save option for web.config files.

9 comments

Visual Studio and <location> parsing in web.config
January 02, 2008 @ 2:56 pm

So here's a funky Visual Studio behavior: On my root Web site (which is mostly static) I have my web.config set up to handle the root site configuration in a separate <location> element in order not to force the settings of the root site down into the many, many virtual...

6 comments

A number of annoying Visual Studio 2008 ASP.NET realated Bugs
December 26, 2007 @ 1:59 am

I'm pretty happy with running VS 2008, especially since I've retrofitted my laptop with 4gig. But there are also a number of annoying bugs that occur rather frequently. This is especially frustrating because I pointed out a number of these during beta and they didn't get addressed. Let's see which...

42 comments

A few Visual Studio 2008 Web Designer Issues
December 04, 2007 @ 2:12 am

I've been pretty pleased with the improvements in the Visual Studio Web designer. There are a lot of things that make life a lot easier including split view, fast mode switching between the designer and the markup editor and all of the CSS improvements that are accessible on both surfaces. However,...

32 comments

CSS Validation showing up as Errors in Visual Studio 2008
November 23, 2007 @ 11:06 am

Visual Studio 2008 finally allows the ability to mark HTML, CSS validation and JavaScript errors as Warnings rather than as errors that show up in the build error list. But there's a small issue related to CSS errors not properly showing as warnings by default until you reset the settings explicitly.

16 comments

Visual Studio 2008 RTM Installed
November 20, 2007 @ 2:05 pm

I've done a bunch of uninstalls and reinstalls and they've all gone pretty well with a few minor hiccups. The best way I've found to do the uninstall is to: Uninstall the Sql Server Compact 3.5 stuff Uninstall all the .NET 3.5 Compact Framework stuff Uninstall the Visual Studio Web Authoring...

8 comments

Rendering a WPF Container to Bitmap
September 10, 2007 @ 2:07 am

One of WPF's nicer features is its ability to render any visual into a bitmap easily, and so I thought I'd create a simple little tool that would create rounded corner bitmap bars with transparent backgrounds. It's actually quite easy to do, but I ran into a few pitfalls and inconsistencies that make WPF coding oh so much fun.

18 comments

LINQ to SQL and Serialization
September 02, 2007 @ 10:40 pm

LINQ to SQL provides entity objects that can be used easily for object access to data members. But these objects can be difficult to deal with if you need to serialize them in Web Services or in other ways because relationships are often circular. Here's a discussion of things to watch out for and how you can get around the issues.

33 comments

Using Html Help Builder in Visual Studio 2008
August 30, 2007 @ 2:43 pm

Couple of people asked me over the last few days whether the Help Builder Visual Studio integration works with Orcas and the answer is yes. Automatic installation in Visual Studio 2008 will be provided with the next update shortly but there are a few small things that need to get addressed for this...

1 comment

Version Fields and LINQ: Careful of underscores in Field Name
August 28, 2007 @ 4:46 pm

This probably falls into the bonehead category, but this might bite somebody else so I'm writing it up: LINQ to SQL works best when your database tables have version fields that can be used to see change state. So recluctantly I resigned myself to give in to this and decided I'd use a consistent...

1 comment

Dynamic Expressions in Linq to Sql
August 28, 2007 @ 12:43 am

Using LINQ there are two issues that I've been struggling with and both have to do with dynamic query results: Hitting the wall with SQL that can't be expressed via LINQ and using dynamic expressions inside of LINQ queries from within framework level code. As it turns out there are ways that this can be addressed with lower level LINQ methods that provide the abillty to be a bit more flexible in controlling what SQL gets executed and creating dynamic expressions for results.

14 comments

The SQL Data Tools in Orcas
August 27, 2007 @ 4:40 pm

The SQL data tools in Orcas are the first time I've actually looked at the database extensions for Visual Studio. When DataDude was released sometime last year it went straight into the Visual Studio DataBase Edition, but it wasn't part of Team Suite so I never actually had a chance to look at it...

12 comments

Strong Name Validation failed when Debugging ASP.NET on IIS7
August 21, 2007 @ 3:07 pm

Ugh, since I installed a new machine I ran into this error message above earlier. That's a pretty omnious sounding error message which seems to hint at a mis-configuration during installation. The error occurs as soon as you try to debug a Web application against IIS 7... As it turns out the...

4 comments

Open Folder in Windows Explorer in VS 2008
August 17, 2007 @ 4:03 pm

There's a silly little, but very useful addition on the project context menu in Visual Studio 2008 that lets you pop up Explorer in the project's folder easily. Sometimes it's a little thing that makes life a little easier.

9 comments

Multiple Enumeration of LINQ results
August 16, 2007 @ 12:02 am

LINQ result set enumeration can be a little unexpected if you don't pay close attention the returned Enumeration. Because of the way queries are enumerated at enumeration time, not when they are declared can easily result in multiple queries being run against the LINQ data or list source.

7 comments

LINQ to SQL and Disconnected Entities Follow-up
August 15, 2007 @ 12:17 am

Several people have been flogging me for my LINQ and disconnected Entity post, so I thought I should follow up on the issues I've been having. First let me restate Entity issue I raised a couple of days ago, but let me present it in a simpler context with the Northwind database, so you can try...

50 comments

ASP.NET Orcas Designer Customization
August 14, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

I ran into an interesting issue a couple of days ago with the Orcas ASP.NET designer - I had several controls on the page that are marked as display:none (they get activated by AJAX calls) and the designer didn't show them. Now that's accurate rendering <g> - except in this case I didn't want...

2 comments

Web Application Project Conversion on Orcas
July 30, 2007 @ 12:19 am

I'm going once again through a conversion from Stock Projects to a WAP project conversion this time for my Web Store. I've done the conversion once before but returned back to stock projects because of a Visual Web Developer requirement. Recently though development on the store has been a lot...

3 comments

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Installed
July 28, 2007 @ 2:54 am

I'm happy to say that my VS 2008 Beta 1 to Beta 2 update went fairly smooth and I now have Beta 2 running on my dev machine with no problems. I was quite worried that this would be problematic - if you remember updating between betas during VS 2005 it was almost a requirement to pave over Windows...

17 comments

Moving Projects/Solutions between Orcas and Visual Studio 2005
July 26, 2007 @ 8:06 pm

With Orcas supporting multi-targeting it'll be common to work in Orcas with .NET 2.0 projects. But when you take a VS 2005 project/solution and open it in Orcas it wants to update to an Orcas solution and projects. Which is fine if you're working on your own thing, but if you share around projects...

14 comments

Intellisense in ASP.NET Orcas Beta 1 - what works what doesn't
July 19, 2007 @ 1:58 pm

A quick test to see what JavaScript features show up with Intellisense in the new Orcas Intellisense features. Unfortunately it looks like at least in Orcas Beta 1 a number of common JavaScript scenarios either don't produce proper Intellisense or actually break Intellisense altogether.

8 comments

ASP.NET Orcas: Quiet Revolution
July 17, 2007 @ 10:47 am

My monthly Code Magazine Web View Column is up at: http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=070123 This month I talk about what's coming in ASP.NET 3.5 and some of the new framework features that I think will have the biggest effect on day to day development. A good chunk of the editorial...

4 comments

Visual Studio 2008 and ASP.NET 3.x
July 12, 2007 @ 2:39 pm

I've been running Orcas quite a bit since Beta 1 was released in April and overall I'm pretty damn happy with this update to Visual Studio 2008. You may have noticed that I HAVEN'T posted a lot about Orcas issues and that's because overall Visual Studio Orcas and the feature set is working...

19 comments

Properties getting mixed up in VS 2005 ASP.NET Visual Designer
June 11, 2007 @ 7:42 pm

Here's an interesting problem in the ASP.NET designer in VS 2005: I have a custom control that has two properties with similar names. Somehow Visual Studio's designer appears to be getting the properties mixed up when trying to display the properties in the property sheet. Here are the property...

2 comments

Watch out with precompiled ASP.NET 2.0 Applications if you have Orcas installed
May 17, 2007 @ 4:21 pm

Here's a stumper. Today I made a very minor change to my Web Store application. It's basically and administrative tweak to capture spam IP addresses and store them for later optional blocking. The change made didn't touch anything in the rest of the application. The Web Store is my last app that's...

7 comments

Orcas Install Success after all
May 01, 2007 @ 3:12 am

Last week I mentinoned that I couldn't get Orcas installed because of problems with the installer most likely due to a botched uninstall of the previous CTP release. Last night while catching up on my Blog reading I saw that Micrsoft had separately posted the .NET Framework 3.5 beta 1 download and...

6 comments

A Setup Dialog you don't want to see
April 24, 2007 @ 3:01 am

Here's what greeted me today after attempting to install Orcas Beta 1 on my machine: <sigh> I was expecting this to happen. Most likely the issue here is that I had the preview release installed on this box as well and there are likely some left over items that are causing the...

7 comments

Generics in CodeDom vs. Generics with Reflection
April 06, 2007 @ 2:46 pm

In Help Builder's documentation imports from .NET code I have to manage two sets of interfaces: One that imports data using Reflection which is the more thourough mechanism that goes out, parses types and pulls in XML documentation. Getting Generics to work right in that code took a while to get...

2 comments

Using Project Template Export to create a generic WAP Template
March 26, 2007 @ 5:35 am

I have a customer coming out tomorrow for a week long gig and as I was preparing for tomorrow's session I needed to set up new project. Starting up a new project and getting all the pieces into place for a Web application involves a fair amount of setup for me usually as I typically startup with a...

3 comments

System.Argument Exceptions in W3wp.exe and the VS Just-in Time Debugger
March 25, 2007 @ 2:16 pm

I've been noticing that on my server quite frequently I get managed exceptions bubbling up to the Dr. Watson and/or the Visual Studio Just In Time Debugging dialog on the desktop. Now this being a server machine I'm not happy about this happening of course because it clutters the desktop the next...

2 comments

FireFox and the Visual Studio Web Server = Snail’s pace?
January 22, 2007 @ 2:26 pm

Seems like Firefox and the internal Visual Studio Web Server don't work well together with FireFox running dog slow in this combination.

30 comments

Visual Studio 2005 and Intellisense issues revisited on Vista RTM
November 18, 2006 @ 1:57 pm

So now that I have Vista RTM installed I took another look at my Intellisense issues in Visual Studio Web Projects and I’m sad to say that this problem is still with me. At this point I’m running: Windows Vista RTMVisual Studio 2005Visual Studio 2005 SP1 (Beta) I continue to see the...

12 comments

Vista, Visual Studio, new Page and least Privilige - NOT!
October 10, 2006 @ 11:42 pm

Aaarrgh… So I’m really trying this time to give least privilege development in Vista a try, but it’s just like hitting walls everywhere. So here’s a real simple thing: Trying to add a new file to a project and as soon as I do I get a file access issue.

13 comments

SlickRun and Visual Studio 2005 Intellisense under Vista
October 02, 2006 @ 2:35 pm

SlickRun seems to interfere with Visual Studio 2005 Web Projects on Vista causing some issues with Intellisense not working properly.

11 comments

VS 2005 SP1 Beta - no relief for me
October 01, 2006 @ 11:49 pm

So I installed the Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Beta in hopes that some of the issues I’ve reported (here and here and here) on Vista RC1 but this seems to have made little difference. I still see Visual Studio crashing on exit. Intellisense is still hosed in any Web projects and I have to go into...

14 comments

Web Application Projects and Visual Studio under Vista RC1
September 27, 2006 @ 5:13 am

I’ve been working for the last couple of days with some code in Web Application Projects under Vista RC1 and I am having nothing but problems with the Visual Studio Web Designer...

13 comments