SUGGESTED FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

It is possible to make suggestion re VB to Microsoft. Historically, programming developing tools have greatly improved, but have generally (at any point in time) been a lot less powerful than they could have been.

Here is a few features I would like to see:

(1) More generated code.
Currently, creating an event procedure or manually creating a procedure (by typing Sub subname or Function funname) generates the corresponding End Sub/End Function.

This could easily be applied to:
If ... Then
pressing Enter could generate blank line + End If and move cursor to blank line and tabs it.

For .... Enter -> blank line + Next

Do ... Enter -> blank line + Loop

Select Case ..Enter -> Case + blank line + End Select

With ...Enter -> blank line + End With

There may be others.

More code generation could happen within the same line.
eg. Dim ... space-> As
For ... space-> = ...space-> To

(2) A mechanism for seeing which properties are default and which aren't and which properties are readonly or not (perhaps a different background colour in the Properties form.)

(3) A specialised clipboard, in which blocks of text could be added or removed from, rather than the standard clipboard in which you can only deal with one block at a time. I remember this feature was in Borland C++ for DOS, and it worked very well. (recent Windows versions with multiple clipboards now are somewhat similar)

(4) There is bug in which Print is not shown as a method of the PictureBox (when it is.)

(5) The menu item "Run with Full Compile" could be renamed to "Run after Full Syntax Check" which more accurately describes what it does (especially since version 5 it is possible to compile to machine code).

(6) There are 3 modes: Design, Break and Run. In Design and Run modes the title bar is blue, while in Break mode it is gray. Different colours could be used for Design and Run modes, just making it a fraction quicker for users to see which mode their in.

(7) Pressing a function key could automatically indent the entire code in a module (saving heaps of time).

(8) Some default properties of controls could be altered to be more intuitive. For example, Style of Command button could be set to graphical (so its easier to change the colour.) Commondialog1.ShowFont could automatically set the Flags etc. , there are many possibilities here.

(9) There are omissions in the help.

(10) Obsolete keywords could be placed in a separate section, as one step towards simplifying the language.

If you like any of the above suggestions or have some of your own you can suggest a VB enhancement directly to Microsoft. (When I rediscover the link, I'll put it in.)

If you have a suggestion you would like to add, just fill in the form.

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