What is Visual Studio 2010 going to look like?

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What is Visual Studio 2010 going to look like?

I have heard several podcasters (most recently the guys on DotNetRocks) say that the look and feel of Visual Studio 2010 has been completely redesigned and Visual Studio rewritten in WPF.

I have been watching some demos on channel9 of the Visual Studio 2010 CTP and the only thing that looks different to me is the opening screen.

I read the notice on MSDN, but it doesn't say anything about the look/design of Visual Studio.

Has Microsoft reversed direction on this or are there going to be major changes made to UI of the final product?

+10 A:

I'm guessing 3D with a space theme. You'll be able to "fly through" your code, "orbiting" classes, "shooting down" bugs and "launching" your code.

1800 INFORMATION 2008-12-19 01:10:37

What's the space metaphor for multithreading? I'm excited about this!

Chris Farmer 2008-12-19 01:42:19

That's a meteor storm

1800 INFORMATION 2008-12-19 02:02:20

Cool! I can't wait.

Jim Anderson 2008-12-19 02:06:48

only if i get to wear 3d glasses

dotjoe 2009-01-14 21:38:47

Youu get to wear glasses like Hiro Protagonist wore in Snow Crash. The first step in the installer is to choose an avatar. Your debugging skill is mainly limited by your ability to kill people with a sword.

1800 INFORMATION 2009-01-15 22:58:40

+1 A:

I've heard that its going to have a historical debugger.

Also- this should prob be a wiki

Greg Dean 2008-12-19 01:12:33

+1 A:

Let's pray that they don't dink with anything, visually. My #1 guess is that they'll try and wrap the new office ribbon bar around our necks. ;|

David McGraw 2008-12-19 01:13:46

It's been a few years since VS .Net came out... Maybe they should remap all the key combinations again

1800 INFORMATION 2008-12-19 01:14:49

No, they've said that the ribbon is completely wrong for VS, so I don't think you'll be seeing it.

Travis 2008-12-19 01:16:58

As I said, "Let us pray." They'll find some way to make it work, just for the sake of it. Never say never.

David McGraw 2008-12-19 21:28:51

They could introduce a new type of dock window where any accidental mouse movement re-aranges all your windows, I always enjoy those.

Martin Beckett 2009-04-06 16:19:06

+2 A:

It's way too soon to make guesses about what it will look like: I don't even think that they know what it will look like.

However, from what I've heard, they are in fact rewriting portions to be WPF/C#, but they are not throwing everything out and starting from scratch. Instead, they will be rewriting portions as it makes sense. For example, I saw that they have some new UML tools that definitely look to be done in WPF.

Travis 2008-12-19 01:16:09

No it isn't. The beta is publicly available. It is written in WPF (its obvious from some of the graphics).

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 01:58:34

If it too soon to make guesses about what it will look like, why are podcasters saying it is completely redesigned? Where is this info coming from? I can't find it on Microsoft/MSDN.

Jim Anderson 2008-12-19 02:08:45

Perhaps Lincoln was gay and Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill Kennedy.

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 02:15:25

Well, they've said several times that 1) They're switching to WPF for the GUI and 2) that there have been no big visual changes to VS since VC6 (implying that now it's high time they make some changes), but they haven't said much specifically about what it will look like.

jalf 2008-12-19 02:53:42

I don't think you guys are getting the part where the Visual Studio 2010 CTP, obviously built with WPF, and loaded with new features, is available for download.

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 02:55:46

@Jason. Have you downloaded it? Have you seen the size of it?

Jim Anderson 2008-12-19 03:12:13

+2 A:

Uh, the beta has been available for over a month. I have been playing with Visual Studio 2010 on and off. It is very similar to 2008 in overall design.

You can download it here and see for yourself where they are taking the product:

Download Page at Microsoft.com

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 01:36:22

Historically, haven't they added the new UI goodness later in the game, though? At least with the first VS.NET, it looked a lot like VS6 until the final beta, IIRC.

Chris Farmer 2008-12-19 01:40:11

Really, you are referencing VS 6? That was 10 years ago under a completely different software methodology at MS. Today MS releases betas/CTPs early and often. I have downloaded CTPs for the Orcas extensions, 2008 and other, recent tools. They have been fairly accurate to the final result.

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 01:56:42

That's my point. The CTP looks very similar to 2008 but I keep hearing the UI is completely redesigned.

Jim Anderson 2008-12-19 02:10:08

Well it similar, but there are obvious enhancements and anyone that has worked with WPF immediately recognizes the new visual stuff.

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 02:14:45

2008 was *similar* to 2005, but the details are what make it so much nicer. I see the same level of improvement in 2010.

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 02:16:49

@Jason. If that is the case, that is fine with me. I was just expecting a "revolutionary" new interface. I guess it's still a long way away.

Jim Anderson 2008-12-19 03:13:53

The first beta for VS.NET was released in the summer of 2001, so it wasn't actually 10 years ago! :) I didn't mean to say that was my only data point, but I think the magnitude of the UI diffs has been similar through all the VS releases since then, maybe VS.NET -> 2003 excepted.

Chris Farmer 2008-12-19 03:52:35

@Chris, you said 6 not 7. Visual Studio 6 was release in June of 1998 according to Wikipedia, which jives with my recollection of moving from VB 5 to VB 6. Not trying to harp on the point :-)

Jason Jackson 2008-12-19 15:10:36

Jason, I believe this early demo was done before any serious work had been done on the UI redesign.

FlySwat 2008-12-26 00:52:55

+2 A:

There are a metic ton of videos on Channel9 about VS2010, TFS 2010 and then the PDC 2008 sessions online as well. They are also starting a new series called 10-4 dedicated just to VS2010 - a walk through of sorts.

MotoWilliams 2008-12-19 01:47:50

Yes there are. I have been going through them and I don't see what changes are being referred to.

Jim Anderson 2008-12-19 02:11:41

Highlights from the PDC Keynote #1 on Day 2 (see: PDC website)

Multi-monitor support for the IDE via WPF.
Building classes from test classes.
Toggle TFS bugs over a code segment in Debug mode.
Partial config files for debug, release.
WYSIWYG Silverlight Designer.

mirezus 2009-01-14 16:10:28

Thanks. I'll check it out (although I am having trouble finding where the keynotes are on the PDC site).

Jim Anderson 2009-01-14 17:28:49

Ah. Couldn't find it on the PDC site, but see it now on channel9.

Jim Anderson 2009-01-14 17:32:22

+1 A:

From WPF Wonderland:

Visual Studio 2010 gets WPF facelift

WPF has been out for a couple years. That’s long enough that new releases of Microsoft products are sprouting WPF interfaces.

Last year at PDC Microsoft announced that the code editor in Visual Studio would be re-written in WPF. Microsoft didn’t stop at the code editor though. Today Jason Zander, GM for Visual Studio, revealed the new WPF based IDE.

Jim Anderson 2009-02-25 13:16:01

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What is Visual Studio 2010 going to look like?

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