Really Useful Tools that could be better
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
TFS queries in Visual studio No ability to filter the list down once you've run the query, it would be so easy to add, but you have to rewrite your query or scroll or search. TFS administration in Visual Studio in general, its all over the place and there are few visual clues as to what the heirarchy is. Team Project settings or Team Project Collection Settings? Is the setting under security or group membership? And the Team menu changes depending on which project is selected in Team Explorer. Personally I'd put it all in the Team Explorer window, no Team menu.
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
The world. [edit] some content: I think we have to be careful with your notion: an unfinished product is "great" often because of the vision what it could become, finishing it may de-great it. Log Parser[^] is a great product. It is the poster boy of "unlocking the power of SQL". It lacks, however, the finish of a good UI. All the UI's I found are good at something, but they don't catch the universal, one-language-to-slay-them-all spirit of log parser.
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
Windows Explorer and File Open/Save Dialogs. These are indeed insanely useful. You spend a sheer solid amount of time browsing through your hierachy of folders. Most of the time, for a given task, you work with one or two source folders and one or two destination folders. The file browsers would really gain in user friendliness by remembering the latest paths you used and suggesting them, preferably in a single click. I am not talking about this crappy "Previous locations" list that manages to remember exactly all you don't need and forget the recent and frequently accessed stuff. The intent was there, but the implementation is disastrous.
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Windows Explorer and File Open/Save Dialogs. These are indeed insanely useful. You spend a sheer solid amount of time browsing through your hierachy of folders. Most of the time, for a given task, you work with one or two source folders and one or two destination folders. The file browsers would really gain in user friendliness by remembering the latest paths you used and suggesting them, preferably in a single click. I am not talking about this crappy "Previous locations" list that manages to remember exactly all you don't need and forget the recent and frequently accessed stuff. The intent was there, but the implementation is disastrous.
In the file open dialog you can drag a folder to the "Favourites" section at the left of the dialog, above the Libraries section - these then appear in the list until you remove them
==================================== Transvestites - Roberts in Disguise! ====================================
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In the file open dialog you can drag a folder to the "Favourites" section at the left of the dialog, above the Libraries section - these then appear in the list until you remove them
==================================== Transvestites - Roberts in Disguise! ====================================
Excellent tip, thanks. This is really the kind of feature I was dreaming of, and it was in fromt of my eyes ! Unfortunately, it is not available in older applications (VS2003, VS2005, Windiff, Dependency Walker to name a few of my favorites) :( but I definitely adopt!
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
RedGate SQL Doc. I would love for there to be options of what database elements to include and not to include. I end up cutting a whole bunch of stuff out manually. I am still on Doc 2, so maybe more current versions have this feature, I really don't know.
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
Sysinternals Tools, i would like to be able to filter all grid views, as sometimes looking for something specific could be a nightmare.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Windows Explorer and File Open/Save Dialogs. These are indeed insanely useful. You spend a sheer solid amount of time browsing through your hierachy of folders. Most of the time, for a given task, you work with one or two source folders and one or two destination folders. The file browsers would really gain in user friendliness by remembering the latest paths you used and suggesting them, preferably in a single click. I am not talking about this crappy "Previous locations" list that manages to remember exactly all you don't need and forget the recent and frequently accessed stuff. The intent was there, but the implementation is disastrous.
Put KDE on Windows, and use Dolphin instead of Windows Explorer. It's not perfect, but IMO better.
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Put KDE on Windows, and use Dolphin instead of Windows Explorer. It's not perfect, but IMO better.
Will that have any influence on the browsing dialog boxes in my develoment tools ?
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Day to day I have to use certain tools that are insanely useful, but just missing a couple of things that would make them much more usable. Example: SQL Server Profiler - wildly useful, but no column sorting or 'quick' search (just a box to type in). Any other thoughts on useful tools that don't quite seem finished? Also Windbg - massively powerful, looks like a GCSE project.
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
That's part of the reason I switched to Linux on the desktop - tools. It's not that tools are better, it's that they are smaller, more focused and simpler, and you achieve more complex tasks by combining several of them, and since each brick is very good and polished, the resulting construction is so too. This yields IMO a better user experience for developers and power users - they can perform more complex tasks easier than in Windows.