Provide the ability to do a search of text WITHIN files stored in TFS Source Control in a manner similar to what was previously available through VSS and is also available through Sourcegear Vault 6 (which also uses SQL Server database storage similar to TFS).

"Find in Files - New for Vault 6, the find in files command allows searching for a string of text within text based files stored within the repository. You will be able to find what you want, when you want. As a file’s data will be indexed in its own database, searches will be more efficient than keeping or GETting files to disk and running recursive greps against those files."
http://sourcegear.com/preview/Vault6Preview2.html

It would be great if we could modify both the Attachment name and attachment comments after the attachment has been saved to the bug work item (or other item in TFS). Currently, when I paste an item directly into the Attachments tab, TFS assigns a default, non-unique name, and I can't change comments on the attachment to differentiate between the different attachments (for example, if I paste five screenshots onto a bug work item, the name for every one is "Screenshot.png", which is completely worthless). If I had the ability to edit the file name and comments, this would save a ton of time because I wouldn't have to save each file to my testing machine and then import into TFS - I could paste directly onto the tab and then modify the information as appropriate.

Many currently available libraries,.NET Framework versions and development tools are not compatible with each other. For example, one cannot deploy .NET 4.5 beta side-by-side with .NET 4.0, or there are incompatibilities between certain versions of DevExpress. To allow a developer to work with different configurations, at this moment we have to create different virtual machines containing Visual Studio 2010 and all other frameworks, libraries and tools. We do have a solution at this moment, but sometimes it is a lot of work to maintain all these development environments. Since VS 2010 is already implemented using WPF, would it be possible to package it as an .XBAP that a developer can host on a server and then access it using a web browser? This will increase the developers productivity, since deploying and updating VS 2010 will require a greatly reduced effort. I do not know whether this suggestion can work for VS 2011, however it would be good to have VS 2011 packaged as an .xbap as well.
There is a great chance that this idea will not be considered for implementation. If this happens, will it be possible at least to scaffold an open-source project on CodePlex that will allow a small group of developers to implement this feature?

I've been useing DOM Explorer to understand complex web pages built by other developers. It's been very handy. But while it's a good start, it has a long way to go to help maximize productivity.

One thing that it could be better at would be to allow me to see instantly see the Layout Tab whenever I make a change in one of the other tabs. Instead, I have to constantly flip back and forth between some tab to the Layout tab.

Many of the windows in the VSIDE can be moved around, floated or docked. I feel that it would be nice to be able to see the Layout Tab while making adjustments to CSS inline styles and attributes. This could be accomplished if the developer could move the tab around at grid within the right side of the DOM Explorer window, just like we can in the main VS IDE.

The other suggestion would be that it might be nice to be able to adjust the style directly in the Layout tab. I believe this tab is only an output tab.

Test Automation has not moved on in years from Hybrid frameworks. eg. Keyword Data Driven (KDD) a few players have worked with more advanced frameworks.

I have seen plenty of talk around advanced solutions for Visual Studio one example below.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsautotest/thread/944b33b3-f650-4dd8-a035-c807cbb2aadf

What surprises me is the poor progress in the Coded UI world. After all what we have is a full develoment environment. If something doesn't exist then surely the community would have listened and created advanced features for Coded UI.

But we still seem to have a solution that nothing better than extended Unit Tests.

It is possible to write a script-less 5th generation framework in QTP it has been done. I worked as part of the team that developed the solution. The GUI for that solution was developed in Visual Studio.

In the QTP solution the keywords, Data and objects were evaluated at runtime by the framework code this was then assemble in memory to run as an automated script. This process was invisible to QTP and QC as far as these tools were concerned they were running a full automation script.

The real up-side with this methodology was the reduction of around 95% of the code required to run automation. This 95% is created at run time. The framework allowed for coded components to be called as well along side the script-less parts.

The upside is fast development of automation...

1. simply because the process is faster.
2. Because manual testers can create automated tests.

When checking in files from source control explorer in VS2010 and below, you always got a nice modal check-in dialog box that you could easily choose a subset of files to check in from. It would also show you a subset based on what folder you checked in. Now, check-in simply redirects to the new "pending changes" dialog box. There should be a way to still use the old check-in dialog box.

Note, this suggestion is different from the one that asks to bring back the old pending changes dialog box. I'm talking about bringing back the modal check-in dialog box. It should be an option in tools-options to allow the legacy check-in dialog box and not force the user to always use pending changes (which has its own set of usability problems that I'm not going to get into here).