TextPad...I have never used notepad2 but I cant imagine how it could get any better than textpad!

Hmm...to add to the list

TEI Emacs (great for editing/formatting XML docs if you can't afford one of the decent Windows programs). Also blows all Notepad replacements out of the water

Agent Ransack (fast utility for searching files, much better than Windows search feature)

Cygwin - for when CMD just doesn't cut it

http://www.tei-c.org/Software/tei-emacs/

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

http://cygwin.com/

Hey, I threw together (read beta) this nifty little utility last weekend that might save some of you ASP.NET developers some occasional frustration...

http://3pointoh.com/AboutUs/WhoWeAre/AlexDresko/tabid/149/Default.aspx

Deletes all files and folders within your local VSWebCache folder and optionally shuts down VS.NET before performing the deletions.

Deletes all files and folders within your local "Temporary ASP.NET Files" folder in "%windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework<all versions>\Temporary ASP.NET Files" and optionally restarts the World Wide Web Publishing service in the process.

Clears your browser cache and optionally shuts down all instances of Internet Explorer beforehand.

I also have a tool I use that may be of use to others...

There is a nasty bug with user controls in the VS enviornment, I spent the last 3 months working with MS and they have finally decided to 'not' fix it in VS 2003, but it is fixed in 2005 /sigh.

If you use UserControls or even inherited forms you are subject to the bug when you nest controls in the same assembly.

i.e. you create an address edit control, then drop the address edit control on a person edit control to reuse it, it all behaves as expected until you introduce a compile error.

Once you receive a compile error if the designer is open it will then promptly remove the user control and all control settings from the person control due to the assembly for it no longer being on the disk introducing a very annoying code loss situation.

I have a VSIP that doesn't truly solve the problem but it does change the environment so that it should never happen to you again unless you tell VS that you want to lose code.

It does the following: 1) Changes the default to code view instead of design view for .cs files. 2) Closes all designers on compile 3) Closes all designers when exiting your solution/project 4) Checks for the existence of the assembly containing the .cs file before opening the designer and gives you a dialog to open and possibly lose code or cancel.

If others have run into the nested user control / inherited form bug and want this let me know.

We use reusable user controls extensively and bundle them in a single assembly, otherwise we would need to deploy 400 user controls for one application so it was a very big deal for us.

John

jtgooding wrote:

I also have a tool I use that may be of use to others...

There is a nasty bug with user controls in the VS enviornment, I spent the last 3 months working with MS and they have finally decided to 'not' fix it in VS 2003, but it is fixed in 2005 /sigh.

If you use UserControls or even inherited forms you are subject to the bug when you nest controls in the same assembly.

i.e. you create an address edit control, then drop the address edit control on a person edit control to reuse it, it all behaves as expected until you introduce a compile error.

Once you receive a compile error if the designer is open it will then promptly remove the user control and all control settings from the person control due to the assembly for it no longer being on the disk introducing a very annoying code loss situation.

I have a VSIP that doesn't truly solve the problem but it does change the environment so that it should never happen to you again unless you tell VS that you want to lose code.

It does the following: 1) Changes the default to code view instead of design view for .cs files. 2) Closes all designers on compile 3) Closes all designers when exiting your solution/project 4) Checks for the existence of the assembly containing the .cs file before opening the designer and gives you a dialog to open and possibly lose code or cancel.

If others have run into the nested user control / inherited form bug and want this let me know.

We use reusable user controls extensively and bundle them in a single assembly, otherwise we would need to deploy 400 user controls for one application so it was a very big deal for us.

John

I'd love to have that. I've run into this many times. I've also run into the problem when opening a designer when the controls assembly is in the process of being compiled from a change, or, really, whenever VS decided it would be particularly funny.

I'd appreciate it. My e-mail address is in my profile.

Jeff...

John, sounds like a killer tool for a lot of .NET developers. If you have it somewhere on a public server (or upload it to codeproject.com or something ), I can give it some airtime on weblogs.asp.net

I've also run into the problem when opening a designer when the controls assembly is in the process of being compiled from a change, or, really, whenever VS decided it would be particularly funny.

MS Has a patch for this, I will send it your way, normally you have to call MS and talk to a tech and get them to email it to you, amazingly non of the hot fixes are readily downloadable. /sigh

On a different note, SP1 for VS2003 is due within a few weeks but it won't include the work that MS and I did to reduce this fuggin bug with the VSIP plugin.

I will forward the code to both you and Frans, it's all redistributable other than the hot fix for the file in use bug.

John

jtgooding wrote:

I've also run into the problem when opening a designer when the controls assembly is in the process of being compiled from a change, or, really, whenever VS decided it would be particularly funny.

MS Has a patch for this, I will send it your way, normally you have to call MS and talk to a tech and get them to email it to you, amazingly non of the hot fixes are readily downloadable. /sigh

Yeah, one of the most stupidist things they do, and most of these fixes are so simple... They just don't want to get the support calls apparently...

On a different note, SP1 for VS2003 is due within a few weeks but it won't include the work that MS and I did to reduce this fuggin bug with the VSIP plugin.

Hmm. I'm not allowed to say this, but I heard a way different date.

Frans, did you make this hotfix available? I too would like it if at all possible. For anybody else who has it my email is in my profile.

Geoff.