Sorry to see that auto code reformatting isn't fixed in vs net 2003
Bruce
When will visual studio STOP reformatting my HTML code when I switch to
design view? I find myself spending time thinking about how the editor might
react rather than thinking about my code.
Am I the only one that wants code the way the *developer* formats it over
the seemingly ambiguous VS NET formatting rules?
This should have been one of the *first* things fixed for VS NET 2003!
Hmmm....well, it turned into a mini-rant...but there it is....
Felix Wu [MSFT]
You can disable the Automatic Formatting feature for HTML in
Tools->Options->Text Editor->HTML/XML dialog
Regards,
Felix Wu
=============
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------
>From: "Bruce" <b...@nospamprimissystems.com>
>Subject: Sorry to see that auto code reformatting isn't fixed in vs net
2003
>Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 20:38:14 -0700
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Bruce
my HTML code if I switch to design view...very annoying!
My workaround is the same as VS Net 2002: if VS reformats my code,
use Ctrl-Z to restore my formatting.
Am I missing something else?
Cheers!
"Felix Wu [MSFT]" <fel...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:$$Ej7ahDD...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl...
Felix Wu [MSFT]
I reproduced the behavior you described. You are right, this is an issue
in the IDE and our developers are aware of it, but I cannot guarantee when
it will be fixed. Thank you for reporting this issue.
Regards,
Felix Wu
=============
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------
>From: "Bruce" <b...@nospamprimissystems.com>
>References: <OF5J7CgD...@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl>
<$$Ej7ahDD...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl>
>Subject: Re: Sorry to see that auto code reformatting isn't fixed in vs
net 2003
>Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:15:02 -0700
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Frans Bouma
news:nOVfmXGE...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl:
> Hi Bruce,
>
> I reproduced the behavior you described. You are right, this is an
> issue in the IDE and our developers are aware of it, but I cannot
> guarantee when it will be fixed. Thank you for reporting this issue.
Felix, I wonder one thing: this issue is brought up by a lot of
people in this newsgroup, since it is also present in vs2002, which is more
than 1 year (!) old. Now, how can it be that this issue is STILL not fixed
at all? Is it not a priority of MS or something? The reformatting of code is
for some people that much annoying they do not edit HTML directly in VS.NET
at all, because of the formatting issues. Why isn't this addressed by the
HTML editor team for vs2003? I simply can't believe this was 'not known'
when they developed vs2003 because it was mentioned here a number of times
and I'm sure some of them have also filed bugreports about this.
FB
--
======= You can't sell what's free ====================================
Senior Software Engineer @ Solutions Design : http://www.sd.nl
Get my free, open source .NET software at : http://www.sd.nl/software
=========================================================================
Felix Wu [MSFT]
We are trying our best to provide finest products to our customers, but
some product problems or bugs may take time to be fixed due to their
complexity. For example, in this case, the scope of the required changes
was too large for the developers to correct it without effectively
rewriting the code editor, so I am not able to guarantee when it will be
fixed.
Thanks you for your understanding.
Regards,
Felix Wu
=============
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------
>Subject: Re: Sorry to see that auto code reformatting isn't fixed in vs
net 2003
>From: Frans Bouma <perseu...@xs4all.nl>
>References: <OF5J7CgD...@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl>
<$$Ej7ahDD...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl>
<O2WMXLnD...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>
<nOVfmXGE...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl>
>Organization: Solutions Design
>Message-ID: <Xns936F663A6ADC9p...@207.46.248.16>
>User-Agent: Xnews/5.04.25
>Newsgroups: microsoft.public.vsnet.general
>Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 01:02:41 -0700
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>X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.vsnet.general
Frans Bouma
> Hi Frans,
>
> We are trying our best to provide finest products to our customers, but
> some product problems or bugs may take time to be fixed due to their
> complexity. For example, in this case, the scope of the required changes
> was too large for the developers to correct it without effectively
> rewriting the code editor, so I am not able to guarantee when it will be
> fixed.
Felix, I write software for a living, for a looooong time now.
Allthough you personally can't fix it, you can't sell me the story you
mentioned above. The HTML editor in VS.NET is seriously flawed and has
severe BUGS, which jump up every now and then. The behaviour is also
predictale: insert an <asp:placeholder></asp:placeholder> in your HTML
sourcecode, add some nice layed out html between these 2 tags, jump to
design view and back and the layout has been messed up, especially in
between the asp tags. I didn't change a thing! Sometimes it totally messes
up the sourcecode COMPLETELY.
You HAVE TO switch to the design view to get the declaration in the
code behind page. This isn't done automatically. So adding the <asp> tags
by hand makes you to switch to design view, but that view will most likely
modify your layout, then switch back, press contrl-z (but not twice since
then you also loose your own changes) to get the layout back. Who cooked
this up as an 'easy way to develop webguis' ? Using the design view to
design your webguis isn't working either, since layouting a page with that
is not possible when you use <asp: tags, like the placeholder to enable
parts of html at runtime using code behind pages (or define repeater
templates etc.) so you HAVE TO use the html editor, AND you have to switch
to design view to enable what you just typed in, to get the declarations
in the code behind page. Surely you can type in these declarations by hand
too, but that's extra work we bought the tool for!
Now, I understand that the editor probably is a view in a Model-
Controller-View combination, where the model is the internal
representation of the page object with the HTML structure inside, and the
2 views on this (the code behind editor and the html editor) use a
controller to view this model, and that this controller probably feeds the
model to the html view control after the switch to text from design view,
but what I do not understand is that the layout is not preserved. SOME
layout is preserved, other layout isn't. It's like the layout is re-
invented every time the html code is viewed through the viewer.
The current editor doesn't store code layout correctly, it doesn't
apply correct object insertion into the HTML code. How's that? if I do
this in the C# editor:
if(iVar==0)
{
// paste here some code which was outlined to the far left
// border of the window
}
the C# editor is smart enough to indent it:
if(iVar==0)
{
// pasted code
}
The HTML editor apparantly is not able to do this, because when you
insert an object in design view (you have to do that in design view, it's
a blur to me why, since IF microsoft has implemented the editors
correctly, namely via an MVC pattern, it would make perfectly sense that
when I insert an <asp: > tag in the HTML, the page object is updated) the
layout is messed up in a lot of cases, and the tag is not placed correctly
in the sourcecode.
It is as if the HTML editor isn't aware of the text inside the editor. It
has a simple intellisense option which reads xml definitions and which is
kicked in when you type '<', but that's about it.
A wild guess from my side is that the html editor stores the page
layout like this: (or better: the design view does this)
page
|
+-HTML TEXT BLOCK (literal text, layout is preserved)
+-ASPNET Object (f.e. a placeholder object)
+-HTML TEXT BLOCK (literal text, layout is preserved)
+-ASPNET Object (f.e. a placeholder object)
| |
| +-HTML TEXT BLOCK (literal text, layout is preserved)
+-ASPNET Object (f.e. a repeater object)
+-HTML TEXT BLOCK (literal text, layout is preserved)
etc.
Layout of the ASPNET object RELATED to the HTML blocks above and below it
is NOT preserved in such a model.
You now say the scope of the required changes was too large to
correct it without effectively rewriting the code editor. That tells me
the designer of that editor never had the intention to create an editor
which was more useful than the average html editors released in 1995-1996.
Apparantly the inner workings of the HTML editor are not designed to
handle code-layout persistency. Well, they do in some areas but mess up in
other areas. Which means: if it does in some areas: it bugs in those areas
OR it bugs in the areas where it doesn't mess up the layout. Either way:
it is buggy.
The HTML editor and designer is a major major flaw in the vs.net
package. After a month or 2 after the vs2002 release you at microsoft knew
this. Still, after a YEAR of working on the tool, microsoft is not able to
deliver a BETTER editor, it more or less feeds the SAME editor to the
customers.
What it should have been is a true MVC implementation where HTML
and code behind work seamlessly together, in the end they have to work
seamlessly together, they are a unit, inseparatble. If MS had implemented
it truely via the MVC pattern, you could update the objects on the page in
the HTML editor (i.e.: placing them in the markup) and therefor be able to
define the solution domain you work with in the code behind page (after
all, every <asp: object in the page is declared in the code behind). Now
users have to switch to the design view, which is unusable due to its code
reformatting, to manage the declarations in the code behind in an easy
way, BUT if you then switch to html view, and f.e. remove the <asp: tags
inserted by the design view, the code behind page is not updated. Also if
I place inside a repeater template true databinding tags between strings,
like <a href="mypage.aspx?foo=<%# somedatabindingstatement %>">bla</a> I
can't switch to design view, because it can't handle the statement above.
(which results in: OR manually declare the repeater control (but I bought
a tool for that, vs.net) OR adjust the link in the code behind in an
eventhandler of the repeater control (how nice)).
so: I have to work with the textview to actually get things done, but also
have to switch to designview to get the controls declared, and that even
doesn't work.
In other words: they do not work together. It's a view on the same
page object, but apparantly they work on 2 different page objects,
according to the editors.
The most frustrating thing is: we now know by your statement it
will not be fixed PROPERLY until the next major version of visual studio!
(which isn't arriving for over a year, in 2004). I do not use the HTML
editor every day, but when I use it during projects, it's a burden and
hardly usable, it costs a hell of a lot of time. The editor in vs.net is
NOT a result of endless discussions with end-customers. If you at
microsoft would have talked to even 2 customers of Visual Interdev about
what kind of idiot things an HTML editor should not do, they'd have told
you what visual interdev did to almost every html sourcecode when switched
to design view: reformatting the code, doing things the developer didn't
want, lacking things the developer DID want. However, the html editor in
vs.net is acting almost the same as the HTML editor in visual interdev.
Also you haven't looked at products on the market. Dreamweaver and
Homesite f.e. are forming the combination how the editors should work:
both designwise and textual wise. Still, developers are left in the dark
when purchasing MS' tools for a lot of money. I wouldn't mind if Microsoft
said: "Dreamweaver and Homesite are perhaps good tools, but we're taking
it a step further and make it even more easy to design and develop
webapplications". I'm all for helpful tools and the more helpful the
better. However, the current combination of designer and html text editor
is far from helpful. It doesn't sport script intellisense, it doesn't have
a solid designer which doesn't reformat your code and it doesn't take the
webapplication gui development a step further by using a MVC pattern to
work on a page object with 2 viewers: html and code behind.
I sincerely hope for the vs.net team at microsoft Borland did a
horrible job too in their upcoming .net IDE.
> Thanks you for your understanding.
Sorry, Felix, but I do not understand it. VS.NET 2002, ala, it must
have been rushed to marked, it contains bugs but these get fixed. But if
the same bugs are there in a new version which is released a year after
the initial product, I can only conclude that MS didn't pay attention or
didn't classify bugs which make using the tools impossible to some extend
as 'critical'. I understand that it might be a big effort to create a good
webgui development environment, but I do not see why it should be the
CUSTOMERS problem this is such a big effort? MS has 50,000 employees.
There isn't a group of developers in your organisation which is able to
write that editor which works well for a lot of people? (and mind you:
webgui development is very important in vs.net) Sure there is. It's all
about priorities. Well, I can tell you that MS got their priorities WRONG
this time: the customer isn't at fault here, MS is. MS should put their
act together and deliver a USABLE WORKING product to those people who
payed a lot of money for that product.
But apparantly we have to wait till ANOTHER major release, mid
2004. I don't think I'm in the MS camp then if this kind of 'customer-
nagging' continues, sorry.
FB
>
> Regards,
>
> Felix Wu
> =============
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
> rights.
>
>
--
Mike Moore [MSFT]
I want to acknowledge that this is a very annoying problem (to put it
nicely) that needs to be fixed. Your objection to our failure to fix it in
version 1.1 is being heard. We cannot go back in time to change what we did
or did not do in version 1.1. However, we can try to explain our decision
making process to show that this issue was taken very seriously, but that
there were more things to consider in the larger picture.
Felix and I are contacting several people to research how this decision was
made so we can present the larger picture to you. I know that won't fix the
problem. We are hoping that it will help with understanding that this
decision was given careful consideration.
Meanwhile, we have found some "partial" workarounds which may reduce some
of the difficulty caused by this problem. These are only PARTIAL
workarounds. I hope you find them helpful.
1)
Each time you switch to HTML view, run an "undo".
Most of the unwanted changes to the HTML take place at the moment that you
switch from design view to HTML view. Many of these changes are tracked by
the undo function. Calling undo as the first thing you do upon switching to
HTML view will undo those changes that were tracked by the undo function.
This "undo" partial fix was brought to my attention by RyanG
(gy...@ev1.net) who posted this workaround to the newsgroups.
2)
Save your page before switching to design view.
While you are still in HTML view, save your page. When you later switch
back to HTML view, fewer changes will be made to your code than would have
occurred if you had not saved your page.
---
We will post more information as soon as we can.
Thank you, Mike Moore
Microsoft, ASP.NET
This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--------------------
| >Subject: Re: Sorry to see that auto code reformatting isn't fixed in vs
net 2003
| >From: Frans Bouma <perseu...@xs4all.nl>
| >References: <OF5J7CgD...@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl>
<$$Ej7ahDD...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl>
<O2WMXLnD...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>
<nOVfmXGE...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl>
<Xns936F663A6ADC9p...@207.46.248.16>
<zfXQuysE...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl>
| >Organization: Solutions Design
| >Message-ID: <Xns93727769D6D64p...@207.46.248.16>
| >User-Agent: Xnews/5.04.25
| >Newsgroups: microsoft.public.vsnet.general
| >Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 02:44:04 -0700
| >NNTP-Posting-Host: perseus.xs4all.nl 213.84.90.73
| >Lines: 1
| >Path: cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP08.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl
| >Xref: cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl microsoft.public.vsnet.general:7631
| >X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.vsnet.general
Frans Bouma
news:h8tRJXNF...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl:
> nicely) that needs to be fixed. Your objection to our failure to fix it
> in version 1.1 is being heard. We cannot go back in time to change what
> we did or did not do in version 1.1. However, we can try to explain our
> decision making process to show that this issue was taken very
> seriously, but that there were more things to consider in the larger
> picture.
Thanks a lot, Mike and Felix, for your explanations and your time to
investigate this problem. It makes it easier to understand why the situation
is as it is now.
> Felix and I are contacting several people to research how this decision
> was made so we can present the larger picture to you. I know that won't
> fix the problem. We are hoping that it will help with understanding that
> this decision was given careful consideration.
I'm looking forward it :) Thanks for your effort :)
FB
Mike Moore [MSFT]
SUMMARY
This thread is discussing a problem with the Visual Studio .NET development
environment for ASP.NET. If you type directly into the HTML view of the
ASPX page, sometimes VS will reformat what you have typed. As is shown by
the other posts in this thread, this bug is affecting many people.
We already discussed two "partial" workarounds. These help, but do not fix
the problem. I also wrote that I would try to find out more about why we
did not fix this problem with the release of VS 1.1.
These are the workarounds.
1) Undo
Each time you return to HTML view, immediately run Undo. The formatting
changes mostly take place when you switch from design view to HTML view and
these changes are mostly in a single undo entry. Calling undo then reverses
many of the changes.
2) Save
Saving the ASPX page just prior to switching to design view reduces the
amount of reformatting the next time you switch back to HTML view.
---
Regarding the explanation, I first want to apologize for taking so long to
get back to you all.
I found that the development team did seriously consider this bug. The
first thought was to add an option to turn off the reformatting feature.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be deeply integrated in the code that makes
the editor useful. So, it could not be turned off. Nor could it easily be
fixed. Any changes made to this area of the code would definitely impact
many aspects of the editor.
If they could go back in time and rethink that decision, things might be
otherwise. However, at the time, the development team looked at all the
information they had available and decided that trying to fix this for the
1.1 release would cause more harm than good.
Frans Bouma
> to get back to you all.
>
> I found that the development team did seriously consider this bug. The
> first thought was to add an option to turn off the reformatting feature.
> Unfortunately, it turned out to be deeply integrated in the code that
> makes the editor useful. So, it could not be turned off. Nor could it
> easily be fixed. Any changes made to this area of the code would
> definitely impact many aspects of the editor.
To run the risk to sound very rude: is that the problem of the
customers of Visual studio.NET? I don't think so. THey expect an editor
that works. It's a text-editor, why can't it preserve simple tabcharacters
in the text it holds? All other editors can do that, why can't the HTML do
that?
> If they could go back in time and rethink that decision, things might be
> otherwise. However, at the time, the development team looked at all the
> information they had available and decided that trying to fix this for
> the 1.1 release would cause more harm than good.
I understand that when you make a decision which turns out to be
not the most wisest choice and you have to deal with a deadline, you might
lean to the decision of "we'll fix that later". We're now more than a
year after that first deadline, but still apparantly there was no time to
fix this bug.
Again, I'll probably sound very rude so sorry for that, but the
HTML editor of VS.NET is just that: a HTML editor. Preserving code-layout
between design and html view has always been a burden, especially for MS,
with the frontpage fiascos. If you look at dreamweaver, you know it can be
done. They do it for years. Why can't MS do that? I get the feeling it is
not of that importance. Well. IT IS IMPORTANT. The reason for that is that
you simply CAN'T edit repeater templates f.e. in designview. You have to
do that in HTML view. The problem discussed in this thread then bites you
in the face: the layout of the HTML is horrible so you have to beautify it
yourself or hope that VS.NET will not screw it up later.
Thanks for your time Mike.
FB
> Thank you, Mike Moore
> Microsoft, ASP.NET
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
> rights.
>
>
--
Mike C
issue. Unlike Frans, I do use the HTML Editor every day, and it is a
hassle to deal with. I guess I've gotten somewhat used to dealing with
the editor's bugs that I've forgotten how much better products like
dreamweaver are at dealing with html. It's a shame that a product like
vs.net that can cost over 3 times as much as something like
dreamweaver and not offer comparable "working" features. I understand
that vs.net offers a much more rich development environment overall,
but html editing is pretty straight forward and you've had plenty of
time to get it right!
I don't see why it's neccessary to wait ANOTHER year to fix a bug that
has existed for a year already. Fix it and release a patch/service
pack (something you guys at ms should be pretty familiar with).
While VS.net might currently be the best tool overall for asp.net is
not the only tool, others exist and are improving, and more are
coming. I like vs.net well enough, but frankly if you want to keep my
money (well, my company's money ;)) it would be nice if you address
outstanding and severe issues like this in a timely manner.
Richard Bogle
Design view after the initial draft, when I drag on all the controls I want
into my design. After that I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver.
The same page can be open in both VS .NET and Dreamweaver. With Dreamweaver
I can produce XHTML in a simple design environment that understands .NET !
I have banned my development team from going into the Design View and all
Event Handlers etc. that can be placed in the code behind are handled there.
Don't use the Design View - buy Dreamweaver. Believe me, MS are never to
going to fix this. I think they've lifted reams of code from Front Page and
that was a stunninly bad idea.
Richard,.
"Mike C" <cad...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:4b84777e.0305...@posting.google.com...
Robert Johnson
failure to fix the HTML bug in VS.NET 2003.
This is something that you need to address BEFORE the next version. I read
your explanation in the newsgroups, but I must tell you, it just doesn't cut
it.
It is a KNOWN bug. It has been reported by HUNDREDS of users in the
newsgroups alone. You knew about the bug, and chose to do nothing about it,
because it is too integrated into the code.
That begs the question, WHEN are you going to fix it? Are we going to have
to wait another year for the next version? What about a SERVICE PACK to fix
it? VS.NET has a way to check to see if an update is available.
Interestingly, that NEVER happened with 1.0. Is it going to be any different
with 1.1?
Are you telling me you couldn't right the code to automatically do an undo
when you switch to HTML view if the user doesn't want their code
reformatted. How hard is that?
I paid big bucks for the 2003 Enterprise Architect edition, and I have a
right to expect software that is as bug free as possible, especially when
the previous had a KNOWN serious bug.
I am a big Microsoft supporter, and use lots of MS software throughout our
organization. Your actions (or lack therof) in this case are indefensible.
Make us all proud and issue the FIRST service pack for VS.NET and fix this
bug! (A year is much too long for a bug to survive, two years would be a
crime!)
Robert Johnson
""Mike Moore [MSFT]"" <mic...@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3QVhLBlG...@cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl...
Robert Johnson
right!
To Mike Moore at Microsoft: Are you willing to commit to FINALLY fixing this
bug, or is this just going to be swept under rug and will we just have to
deal with this bug for years to come?
You know this is a serious bug, and it is fixable. (Dreamweaver MX got it
right the very first time!)
When is Microsoft going to fix it? You owe all of us developers a REAL
answer!
Robert
"Richard Bogle" <richar...@edinburgh-software-consultants.co.uk> wrote
in message news:vc9g67n...@corp.supernews.com...