Visual Studio

Welcome to the Visual Studio UserVoice site. Let us know what you would like to see in future versions of the Visual Studio suite of products. This site is for suggestions and ideas. If you need to file a bug, visit the Visual Studio Connect site: http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio.

ASP.NET Runtime/Web Tooling suggestions have moved! All your ideas, including your votes, have been transferred and are searchable in the ASP.Net Uservoice forum. Please submit any new ASP.NET Runtime/Web Tooling suggestions, or vote on existing suggestions by going to http://aspnet.uservoice.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks – Deon Herbert
Visual Studio Team

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  1. Add .Net Framework v. 4.5 support to Visual Studio 2010

    Since Visual Studio 2010 was originally built to support newer versions/future version of the .Net Framework, .Net 4.5 support should be added to Visual Studio 2010 since Visual Studio 2012 has significantly reduced the usability and productivity of the IDE by discoloring the UI as well as removing critical features such as "Creating Unit Test". Adding .Net 4.5 support to Visual Studio 2010 would allow developers who do not wish to upgrade to Visual Studio 2012 the ability to continue using their favorite IDE with the latest .Net technology.

    188 votes
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      5 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
    • Provide PowerPoint Storyboarding add-in as an individual install

      Provide the option as part of the Visual Studio installation to only choose the PowerPoint storyboarding add-in rather than the entire Visual Studio suite. This would be especially useful for graphic designers that may need tools such as PowerPoint storyboarding add-in and not the full version of Visual Studio.

      85 votes
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        2 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
      • Support for UML State Machine diagrams

        VS2010 is missing support for UML State Machine Diagrams (also known as UML State Machines, or UML State Diagrams).

        We are already using state machines to do code generation, but unfortunately the solution is not built inside VS2010. We even have to manually parse the state machine diagram "dsl" which is not fun. Would be a huge time saver if it was integrated.

        To be honest it does not have to be "UML" but that is the best fit for what is already in VS. We need triggers, guards, entry/exit actions. Nested and orthogonal states would also be useful.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UML_state_machine

        77 votes
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          2 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
        • Save default project(s) in the .sln file

          As per http://stackoverflow.com/questions/694730/why-is-set-as-startup-option-stored-in-the-sou-file-and-not-the-sln-file/1808264#1808264 , store the Startup Project(s) selected in the IDE in the .sln file, but allow them to be overridden by Startup Project(s) stored in the .suo file.

          50 votes
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            4 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
          • Extend T4 code generator to create multiple files from one model with one template.

            Custom code generation becomes more and more important. For example network messages can be described using .xls file (each message field is one Excel cell).

            At the moment T4 cannot be used to gen multiple files from one model with one template.

            In case of networking multiple files must be generated: a class file per message, a switch method for dispatching messages, a parser, an asynch handler of messages and timeouts, ...

            49 votes
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              4 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
            • Include Code Contracts features in all editions of Visual Studio

              Include Code Contracts features in all editions of Visual Studio. Requiring Ultimate edition makes this very useful feature useless when working with others who do not have Visual Studio Ultimate.

              As a side note, I talked this feature up at our company from Spec# to the Code Contracts SDK only to be disappointing when we couldn't adopt it in the end because it was exclusive to higher additions of Visual Studio, we currently use Professional.

              43 votes
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                3 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
              • Allow code clone detection to be run from command line and/or MSBuild

                The new code clone detection feature seems to be very tightly coupled to the project object model exposed by the IDE. This essentially makes it impossible to use within automated builds. Please consider changing the "innards" so that the tool can be used to break an automated build (including builds run outside the IDE) when duplicate code is found.

                39 votes
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                  3 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                • Allow use of DataTestMethod / DataRow in all unit testing projects

                  As I understand it these attributes are limited to use in WinRT/Metro and now with update 2, Windows Phone 8. It would be very helpful to be able to use them in all test projects e.g.

                  [DataTestMethod]
                  [DataRow("a", "b")]
                  [DataRow(" ", "a")]
                  public void TestMathos1(string value1, string value2)
                  {
                  Assert.AreEqual(value1 + value2, string.Concat(value1, value2));
                  }

                  38 votes
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                    0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                  • Create Tasks from a Code Review Comment

                    When doing a team based code review from a Code Review item we would like the ability to directly create a task from a code review comment.

                    This would help ensure that team agreements made during a code review are met and keep track of work created from a code review.

                    35 votes
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                      0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                    • Please provide sorting in the Code Analysis window in Visual Studio 2012

                      Please provide sorting based on file, warning type, etc. in the Code Analysis window in Visual Studio 2012

                      32 votes
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                        1 comment  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                      • Automatically run code coverage after test run

                        In VS 12 you can run tests automatically after build by checking the Test/Test Settings/Run Tests after Build.
                        To see code coverage you have to do that manually afterwards. If a similar setting was done for code coverage Test/Test Settings/Run Code Coverage after Test, and by setting the Code coloring on (showing what code is covered by a test in blue, non-covered in red), we could easily see the covered code while coding, and updating automatically. This will keep the developers focus on the coding, but at the same time include the test and coverage data easily visible.

                        PS: There…

                        30 votes
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                          0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                        • Provide command prompt for v110_xp platform toolset in VS2012

                          Recently, VS2012 Update 1 CTP has been released. I've installed the update and tried to use command prompt to build the 3rd-party library (some 3rd-party library uses its build script, for example, boost).

                          However, the default SDK environment in command prompt is still using WinSDK 8.0.

                          if can, providing the command prompt with the environment same as platform target v110_xp (WinSDK 7.1A) will be better.

                          26 votes
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                            1 comment  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                          • Include Code Contracts featuers in all editions of Visual Studio, requiring Ultimate makes this very useful feature useless when working wit

                            Include Code Contracts features in all editions of Visual Studio. Requiring Ultimate edition makes this very useful feature useless when working with others who do not have Visual Studio Ultimate.

                            As a side note, I talked this feature up at our company from Spec# to the Code Contracts SDK only to be disappointing when we couldn't adopt it in the end because it was exclusive to higher additions of Visual Studio, we currently use Professional.

                            25 votes
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                              0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                            • Dataset Designer Automatic Layout

                              The Dataset Designer becomes a headache when you have dozens, if not more, tables. It is difficult to find the TableAdapter you are looking for unless you already know exactly where it is. Additionally, the Data Source Wizard likes to blow away your current layout and replace it with it's own. The designer needs a better way to organize the tableadapters. Something similar is available in MS ACCESS.

                              23 votes
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                                0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                              • Allow inserting comments with web.config Transform

                                It would be great if there were a way to insert XML comments into the web.config files through Web.Config Transformations.

                                At the top of the web.config files, I like to add notes or comments in XML, so it's easy for a Release Engineer to view the file and quickly verify the web.config is correct.

                                For example, I like to add something like below to the top of the web.config:
                                <!-- ***** -->
                                <!-- Environment: DEV -->
                                <!-- ***** -->

                                23 votes
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                                  0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                                • All testing features starting from the professional edition

                                  Test impact and MTM introduce great testing support for functional and no functional test that it should be available to all developers. The ultimate edition price reduce the opportunity for small/medium company to use this kind of functionalities.

                                  22 votes
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                                    0 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                                  • Provide a nice default mocking library for unit testing

                                    I think there is a need to have a mocking library inside .Net Framework which which quicken us to do a unit testing. As TDD growing, I think it will be handy if there is a default mocking framework comes by default from VS

                                    22 votes
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                                      5 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                                    • 19 votes
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                                        1 comment  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                                      • Add an async-compatible Assert.ThrowsException

                                        Win8 replaced ExpectedExceptionAttribute with Assert.ThrowsException. This is good, but there isn't an equivalent Assert.ThrowsExceptionAsync for async delegates.

                                        Something like this would be fine:

                                        public static async Task ThrowsExceptionAsync<TException>(Func<Task> action, bool allowDerivedTypes = true)
                                        {
                                        try
                                        {
                                        await action();
                                        Assert.Fail("Delegate did not throw expected exception " + typeof(TException).Name + ".");
                                        }
                                        catch (Exception ex)
                                        {
                                        if (allowDerivedTypes && !(ex is TException))
                                        Assert.Fail("Delegate threw exception of type " + ex.GetType().Name + ", but " + typeof(TException).Name + " or a derived type was expected.");
                                        if (!allowDerivedTypes && ex.GetType() != typeof(TException))
                                        Assert.Fail("Delegate threw exception of type " + ex.GetType().Name + ", but "…

                                        18 votes
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                                          1 comment  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
                                        • add "track active item" feature not only in Solution Explorer but also in class View

                                          in "Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > General" you can set "track active item in Solution Explorer". This feature allow you to see always your current location of the editing file within the project.

                                          Same feature would be nice for class view, too.

                                          16 votes
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                                            2 comments  ·  Visual Studio Ultimate  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
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