What Would You Change About VB.NET if You Had The Chance? (For Novices and Experts)

This question goes out to Visal Basic.NET novices and the experts.

If you could change something about Visual Basic.NET what would it be?

Novices - You know the things that annoy you right from the start that an expert might have gotten used to and forgotten.

Experts - You have detailed knowlege of the language and know what is lacking and what should be changed.

I am collecting this information to help in the development of LightFusion™. It is a programming lanuage being created by VBF's very own Jacob Roman, Penagate, ChemicalNova and myself (eyeRmonkey). Any and all input you have will help us a lot. :)

I would add a skin property to forms... giving you access to all the images and properties of the GUI... also, I would add more obvious support for window alpha-blending

Alphablending has already been in my check list a long time ago :thumb:

Alpha-Bending = transparent/semi-transparent right? I know it does that, but can it do anything else? I'm not all that familiar with it.

I like the idea of easy skinning. Thanks for the suggestion.

Let's just say it would be nice to have an alpha value that's part of RGBA() in the colors going from 0 - 255 that can make any image/window alphablended. 0 being completely transparent, and 255 being completely opaque. Anywhere in between gives it that ghostly look.

Also, for transparent background for sprites and such, there will be a color key you would select that you would want to be transparent, so it's easy to blend it with the background. No mask is needed then. :)

An inbuilt solution to directX, as in, which makes directX alot easier to deal with

I think it would be good if we offered Alhpabend Masks also though, Jake.

Are you writing all this down? Or should I?

It's all in my head really. Been there for quite awhile.

And they are not called Alphablend masks ;)

I want compile time events to deal with custom attributes. Also a plug into the IDE from within them like the Obsolete attribute in the Framework. I'd also appreciate a better syntax for long text in VB instead of & _. Maybe a single start and end character to signify that the string extended more than one line. Like @This is really long text here...
blah blah blah@

I also want to be able to refer to an object instance that I have in my code from within the designer (IDE) for databinding without having to compile it into a seperate dll or inherit from Component. So if I have a class that I am using in my code called ItemCollection I want to be able to setup databinding to that class even though it has no UI. - This actually might already be possible in 2005 with the BindingSource component but I'm not sure.

I think this topic should be discuss in project communication...or...ok.


Your LightFusion language should have good controls such as autocomplete comboboxes,editable listview,combobox in listview just like datagrid,bolding header text of selected tabpage in tabcontrol,bolding text of buttons when it has focus...etc.. and it should behave like C#.:D

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Originally Posted by Jacob Roman

It's all in my head really. Been there for quite awhile.

And they are not called Alphablend masks ;)

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Things get lost in peoples head. :) I think I might start documenting things in that sense as well.

I didn't mean they were called alphabend masks, I meant we should make something like that, but I realized its not worth the work and too far down the line so nevermind.

Are you wanting ideas for a framework such as .net or ideas for various languages that would be using your new language?

I love the fact that I can learn one language such as vb.net and use the same classes in c# or avr. This would be a great example to follow.

If you've ever seen the Infragistics controls, I think those would be good to have provided as standard. I can provide 'demo's' of those if desired. {clearing my throat}

I appreciate the line continuation of c#, c++, java and when done, a simple semicolon is used to mark 'end of line'. Not sure I like ed's idea of a beginning and end character.

Block commenting is nice and not provided in vb.net but is in c#...although, the comment macro pretty much takes care of that.

Maybe some direct support for html would be nice. Rather than having to use a seperate language (such as asp.net)..Not saying a TON of it but just enough to slap in a little html in some programs without having to use a seperate heavier-weight language.

Would this be open-source or is the goal more enterprise?

Very cool guys!;)

I like semi-colons too but the other guys don't, so we'll see what happens :)

Supporting COM and .NET classes is a great idea and would make LF a valuable programming tool in a workplace that already uses these frameworks. It would vastly help with porting applications to LF too, or just using it alongside .NET, VB6, etc.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys :)

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Originally Posted by Andy

Are you wanting ideas for a framework such as .net or ideas for various languages that would be using your new language?
Any ideas you have

I love the fact that I can learn one language such as vb.net and use the same classes in c# or avr. This would be a great example to follow.

If you've ever seen the Infragistics controls, I think those would be good to have provided as standard. I can provide 'demo's' of those if desired. {clearing my throat}
I have no idea what that is so a demo would be awesome.

I appreciate the line continuation of c#, c++, java and when done, a simple semicolon is used to mark 'end of line'. Not sure I like ed's idea of a beginning and end character.
I am actually pro semi-colon (contrary to what Penagate just said). I think Jake has a somewhat valid point when he says that he wants to reduce typing, but I think semicolons increase readability and allow for mutli-line statements much easier than other ways.

Block commenting is nice and not provided in vb.net but is in c#...although, the comment macro pretty much takes care of that.
Block commenting is a must for LF syntax. :)

Maybe some direct support for html would be nice. Rather than having to use a seperate language (such as asp.net)..Not saying a TON of it but just enough to slap in a little html in some programs without having to use a seperate heavier-weight language.
Thats a good idea thanks. :thumb:

Would this be open-source or is the goal more enterprise?
Open-source as far as I know. I doubt it will get to the point of enterprise. Maybe we could have both?

Very cool guys!;)

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PS - You need to change your avatar. ;)

I like VB .NET to be able to display error/s (if any) as well as an assistance to display the possible solutions to the particular error/s.

vb already has the best error interpretation compared to any other language, i mean it can pickup many errors in realtime even before compiling, and pretty extensive help sections on errors

not sure if vb.net already has this, but full support for PNG images with alpha-transparency would be nice (unlike Internet Explorer...).

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Originally Posted by Phill64

vb already has the best error interpretation compared to any other language, i mean it can pickup many errors in realtime even before compiling, and pretty extensive help sections on errors

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Absolutely :thumb:
And even the c# compiler isnt as smart as the vb.net compiler...C# doesnt show all the errors as you type as vb.net does.What more could you ask for? :)

I would like to have the titlebar itself as a seperate control,so we could apply any kind of themes we want and choose different kinds of 3d titlebars for our application.
The titlebar could also have a property to allow change with windows themes or not allow. :)

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Originally Posted by tr333

not sure if vb.net already has this, but full support for PNG images with alpha-transparency would be nice (unlike Internet Explorer...).

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vb.net already does it very well, you can even draw with alpha colors in the graphics class, very handy.

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Originally Posted by mar_zim

Your LightFusion language should have good controls such as autocomplete comboboxes,editable listview,combobox in listview just like datagrid,bolding header text of selected tabpage in tabcontrol,bolding text of buttons when it has focus...etc

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These are all possible with VB.NET. Just because the .NET Framework doesn't contain controls that already do these things doesn't make it a deficiency of VB.NET. It is important to distinguish between features of the language, features of the IDE and features of any standard class libraries.

i would go myself to better right-to-left support,

not all controls packed with the framework support right to left, the tabbed control is an important example.

also , i would concentrate on solving design issues while inheritance (while that could be a bug and not a language limitation)

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Originally Posted by Phill64

vb already has the best error interpretation compared to any other language, i mean it can pickup many errors in realtime even before compiling, and pretty extensive help sections on errors

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The reason it picks up compile-time errors while coding is because the language is constantly compiling while you code. Not sure why c# doesn't do that. In fact, vb is the only language that does that to my knowlege.

I wish this was included in the ide:

Moved from VB.NET :)

im talking about alphablending like Konfabulator or desktopx... allowing you to draw and move png images with multiple alpha channels freely on the desktop

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Originally Posted by Andy

I wish this was included in the ide:

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It is. It's called a Color Dialog Box and it's located in your tool bar. We worked with them in VB.NET class last term in college.

Yes, you just drop a ColorDialog control on to your form and set the .FullOpen = True to display the advanced options that you posted a picture of.

Actually, I meant for the backcolor of objects like a form or something. The only colors you can pick from are in 3 tabs.

I'd forgotten about the color dialog control too btw...but it's not what i was referring to LOL

:D

If you want a custom color for your form you could always just add the code in the Forms Paint event but a graphic color picker would be a step saver.

There is a scaled down version of the color picker in the IDE. (VS 2003)

1) Select the object you want to change it's color.
2) Click on, say the BackColor in the properties window.
3) Select the "Custom" tab
4) Right click on a blank color box towards the bottom of the palette.
5) A color dialog will display where you can choos a custom color.

That will do!

As a complete noob, I would like to see the following:

1. A little cheaper price. I know that VS is one heck of a product, and I know it must have taken millions of dollars to develop, but the price for anything other than the standard version is just outrageous.

2. Skin support made easy.

3. XP Home support. I know this really is an OS issue, but the fact that I had to modify my computer in order to "trick" it into running IIS is ridiculous. VS costs enough money that it should run all aspects, including ASP, on all current versions of Microsoft OS. To pay a thousand dollars for VS and then have Microsoft try to bully you into spending additional money on an XP Pro upgrade is pathetic.

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1. A little cheaper price. I know that VS is one heck of a product, and I know it must have taken millions of dollars to develop, but the price for anything other than the standard version is just outrageous.

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LightFusion will be free, open source, and made available to everyone.

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2. Skin support made easy.

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I will be using a file format to load any skin you want.

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3. XP Home support. I know this really is an OS issue, but the fact that I had to modify my computer in order to "trick" it into running IIS is ridiculous. VS costs enough money that it should run all aspects, including ASP, on all current versions of Microsoft OS. To pay a thousand dollars for VS and then have Microsoft try to bully you into spending additional money on an XP Pro upgrade is pathetic.

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It will most definitely be XP home supported as well as other Windows OS's.

i suggest you change the array syntax from arr(4) to arr[4]. this reduces confusion over whether somethign is an array or a function. LF will also need a decent random number generator.

it would be nice if vb.net had a 'continue' statement like c#/c/c++ for use within loops.
LF definitely needs this.

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Originally Posted by tr333

it would be nice if vb.net had a 'continue' statement like c#/c/c++ for use within loops.
LF definitely needs this.

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You can substitute that by placing the other code within an If block.

I think a continue statement is nice. It is almost like a label and speggehti code, but sometimes the IF statements get hard to do when you are trying to continue to the next interation of a loop.

I added CONTINUE to our list. Thanks tr333.

Naw, you dont need a Continue statement. Like PG posted, you can handle it with a If statement. :thumb:

Well I suppose. It is sloppy code like I said and it it POSSIBLE with IF statements.

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Originally Posted by tr333

it would be nice if vb.net had a 'continue' statement like c#/c/c++ for use within loops.
LF definitely needs this.

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Agreed. i found it confusing at first when learning Java and C# but it makes so much sense when you think of it.