After downloading and beginning to use VS 2008 Beta 2, I've noticed that I have no way to select multiple objects in the design view and, for example, align the left edges.

Am I missing something?  This was a feature of 2005 I used a lot.

 Is there a new way of doing this?  Some new concept at work?  What's that rationale?  It was great to be able to select a group of controls and drag them one way or the other.

Many thanks,

Mike Thomas 

 

 

Unfortunately, new designer does not support multiple selection (same as Expression Web and earlier FrontPage). This is a popular request so we are considering adding the feature in VS10 (i.e. it will not be in VS 2008).

Generally speaking, positioning controls using CSS layout or tables is preferable way.  

 Many thanks Mikhail, that's too bad, I'd have to think that was a pretty popular feature.

 

Mike Thomas 

Positioning controls using CSS layout or tables is preferable way for who?

Why don't you guys that hate absolute positioning so much just petition the standards group to deprecate it from the HTML spec?

My product extracts UI designs from legacy greenscreen applications, for redesign in VS.

VS2003 works great.  VS2005 is a bit clumsy...VS2008 will be unusable.

All I have to do is force the user to spend an extra hour or more on every screen to define some kind of panel personality layer for groups of fields so they somehow can be rendered in a form dimly familiar to the users.  Today, absolute positioning allows an accurate conversion.  The VS team's prejudice against absolute positioning makes our future with Visual Studio uncertain...

Absolute positioning is still available and functionality actually improved after Beta 2, see here: http://blogs.msdn.com/mikhailarkhipov/archive/2007/09/18/how-to-set-control-to-absolute-positioning-automatically-on-drag-drop.aspx. What is missing is multiple selection, not absolute positioning support. In fact, VS 2008 provides better tools like grid, snap and rulers that didn't exist in 2005.

This has nothing to do with VS team preferences really. The feature was not removed or disabled or anything like this. We simply incorporated new designer that has no common code with the one in VS 2005. New designer is based on former Frontpage as is Expression Web and it never supported multiple selection. We simply didn't have enough time to add the functionality, but we still felt new designer is significantly better in many other areas so tradeoff appeared reasonable. Multiple selection is popular request so it is high on the list for VS 10.

So if you have around 30 controls in the page and you want to set for example one validation group for all, you have to do it one by one, which is not good.  I think multiple selection in design view is very important!!!

This is a major step backwards and typical Microsoft product team myopia.  What a disappointment.  I guess we will have to see what SP1 brings.  As usual.

 

Mikhail Arkhipov (MSFT):

Unfortunately, new designer does not support multiple selection (same as Expression Web and earlier FrontPage). This is a popular request so we are considering adding the feature in VS10 (i.e. it will not be in VS 2008).

Generally speaking, positioning controls using CSS layout or tables is preferable way.  

 

Sorry, this is not planned for SP1. Change is too large to accomodate into SP1. It is planned for VS10.

Oh! I even can't believe it...... it's too sad a news.  it seems I must keep my vs2005 just for this reason......

unbelievable... why Expression Web omiss such an important functionality?

It depends what do you typically use multiple selection for. If you are using it for page layout using absolutely positioned elements (similar to Windows Forms designer) then it is, of course, very convenient. For CSS or table based layout it is less useful. Since generally Expression Web targets professional designers who tend to avoid using  absolutely positioned element for page layout and rather use CSS or tables, multiple selection functionality has never been a high priority feature. Here is a good article on the issues with layouts that are based on absolute positioning: http://www.tyssendesign.com.au/articles/css/absolute-positioning-pitfalls/ Expression designer has been trying to provide better table and CSS tools to help with page layout. Multiple selection, of course, has other uses and we are planning to add it to the designer.

I don't use absolutely position, but I usually face cases like:
there are 10 or more label on the page, I want to change most of their font( except one or two, it's something like title, you know) , so I can't use a general  CSS statement, set each label's 'class' property is worse------they have a 'class' property already .   what's more, the CSS files are public used by many people, I can't change them arbitrarily, so I always set their styles, which seemed easier.

maybe you are right, if well designed, CSS is enough, but most of the developer work for a company, and there are many rules in the company and team, -----even worse , the project is created years ago, and it's not well designed, we can do nothing except accept it.  

I found even more case in these 2 days:

<1>. Set the "CssClass" property of 10 or more controls in one time. (is there a simple way set their cssClass property together in one time?)
<2>. Add a event handler to 10 or more controls.  ( there are 12 linkbutton in my page, each of them redirect to another page, so their event handler is a single function is resonable,I think.)

Oh, thanks for rushing your product to market and excluding simple Windows functions like ctrl+click that exist across just about every windsows app from every vendor since the beginning of time. You didn't have enough time to keep that simple feature. And I can understand why you had to get a product to market and didn't have enough time to add that feature: because all of us MS shops were thinking, "Hmmm I might just switch to the brand-X competitor for visual programming tools that wil compile MS languages." So you just had to beat them to market and leave out BIDS, Ctrl+click selection, and I just can't wait to find the next feature that doesn't exist. Thanks, MS!

Since I am personally responsible for all the development work in VS Web Tools, I feel I need to answer. There is always a tradeoff between shipping product and adding more features. However, multiple selection was not cut because of approaching ship date. We understood that we were losing a feature so we have been trying to obtain feedback since March 2007 when Beta 1 were out. I actually blogged about the feature loss here: http://blogs.msdn.com/mikhailarkhipov/archive/2007/02/26/what-is-not-in-the-vs-orcas-web-designer-compared-to-expression-web.aspx. Perhaps I was not specific enough. Feedback that we've received at the time was not strong at all - perhaps number of customers who tried Beta 1 and Beta 2 was not significant enough. In any case - back then the loss did not seem to be painful. We also hoped that new visual CSS based tools would help with the page layout.

Now, we do want to bring the feature back. We also want to improve layout tools so you can design pages with table or CSS based layout without having to use absolute positioning (in case that is what you need multiple selection for) - if you have suggestions how would you like our tools to help you, please open bugs at Connect. Or contact me directly at mikhaila-at-microsoft-dot-com. Again - we do feel your pain and I am sorry for the feature loss.

Confusion from Seattle.

I have been designing web pages in FrontPage for many years. I was anxious to upgrade to VWD2005 and Expression Web. I was also anxious to get on board with WEB 2.0 design goals.As I listened to the various web design evangelists, including some from Microsoft, I was lead to believe table based layout was a thing of the past and we needed to move forward with new tools. I've picked up a lot of CSS layout and love it, however it seems to me that creating an input form with potentially dozens of labels and text boxes is so much easier in VWD2005 using abs positioning and the layout toolbar than in 2008 using CSS and Tables. I wonder what the purpose of the layout toolbar is anymore. It's still there in 2008.

 

I wasted enormous time trying to make it work. I assumed that it was just hidden somewhere. I searched, googled, read, investigated and stumbled thru 2008 trying not to look like an idiot. After all, I've ctrl/clicked for 20 years now.  I viewed videos from Microsoft and partners trying to find an answer. Most videos available are on 2005 including one from Bob Tabor (who is great) on how to use the very feature that is now gone. I assumed there would be a video somewhere showing the differences between 2005 and 2008 express editions. Something that would tells us of the vision behind these feature decisions and a recommended path forward. If it exists i cannot find it. I guess maybe there wasn't time in the development cycle to produce current educational material either.

 

I take a lot of flack from my peers for being faithful to Microsoft. I've been a supporter not a basher. But this product looks like it was put together with gaffer tape and glue. I find myself reconsidering my decision to abandon LAMP as a web environment.

Kerry