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Please use the new Visual Studio Feedback Center: it rocks

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Until recently, there were various methods of sending us, the Visual Studio team, feedback. However, almost all of that feedback never made it to us, the developers. It went somewhere I am sure, but not to us. I am pleased to say that has now changed.

There is now the MSDN Product Feedback Center, which internally is known as LadyBug. It is almost impossible to find this by browsing our web site (I know, I just tried for ten minutes), so please add the link to your Favorites.

The reasons this is so much better than anything we've had previously are:

  • We get to see the feedback, within minutes of a report being added, in our real live bug database
  • We can contact you to get more information
  • Others can see already reported issues, and vote on them to help increase the visibility of the issue and increase the chances of a fix

An example is here. The report was that Filter By was missing from the breakpoint window. I couldn't repro this on my machine, so I asked if this was C# Express. It was not, so I experimented a bit more and discovered that the C# Profile disabled this menu item (I run with the C++ Profile with VC2 keystrokes). I posted a work-around and we have a real bug in our real bug database that will ensure we fix this before release.

You can add Suggestions via Ladybug as well as bug reports. Although it is unlikely that many suggestions will make it into the VS 2005 product (as we are at beta 1 now and beta means feature complete), the fact you can make them and we can see them will really help when planning the next version. In addition other people can add their Vote to your suggestions too.

Ladybug also shows Top 10 lists, so you can see what is the most popular bug or suggestion. This is great for us and for you.

I urge you to browse the site and try it out if you are using any of the VS 2005 pre-release versions.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2004
    Please don't ship VS Studio/Web Express without being able to set absolute positioning as the default for dropping controls on the form.


    Why take a step backwards?
  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2004
    Darin, please use the Feedback Center to get this feedback to the right folks.
  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2004
    MSDN Product Feedback Center...
  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2004
    I have a hard time understanding how the rating system works. I posted 25 bugs/suggestions in the database on 7/31, but when I see the latest entries I can only find 5 of them, the ones I marked as 5. The search is limited to 100 entries, and it only shows the bugs with the most votes.

    Since I can't find them, that means that the other people will not see them either. If they can't see them, they can't vote on them, and I need 2 votes before the item is even reviewed by MS.

    If a bug is rated 1 by 6 people it will have higher rating than a bug rated as 5 by 1 person. So the only way my entries can have a chance of being seen is to mark them as 5s, which hardy makes any sense. Some of them are not critical showstopper bugs.

    Am I missing something? How is a bug supposed to be reviewed by other people if the latest bugs have less priority over old bugs with more votes?
  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2004
    Thanks Ivo, I fwed your comment to an expert on Ladybug and got the following additional info:

    Work is ongoing to improve the rating system.

    There is already a bug about only showing the top 100, you can vote on it if you like at http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackid=40388ed1-8234-411d-968d-0698649e1499


    The "2 vote minimum" is not true: we see them as soon as they are entered regardless of votes.

    Ladybug doesn't do a great job of highlighting the most recent issues: that is being worked on.

    In terms of getting to the top of the list, they are looking at fixing the Top 10 issue so it doesn't favor older issues.

    Thanks for the great feedback Ivo: the right folks are working on it.
  • Anonymous
    August 23, 2004
    Sure, just make it stop requiring a passport registration.
  • Anonymous
    August 25, 2004
    asdf: why is this a problem? The site requires some kind of registration else it will degrade into the dross than most public newsgroups are. Requiring registration also means we have a way to contact customers to get more information.

    As it is an MS site, the fact it uses Passport for its authentication shouldn't be a surprise. Thank goodness is all I say: I dont need yet another user/pwd combo to remember.

    For example this blog has no authentication, so I have no way of contacting you. Anyone can post anything, and I can't get back in touch with you via any other way than this blog. I guess you like being anonymous, in which case the Feedback Center wont be of any help to you. Your loss IMHO.

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2007
    I'd love to leave feedback but it seems you need 'permission' to do so...
  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2007
    The comment has been removed