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 Suggestion List not always automatic
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Oct 30 2004 :  11:25:21 AM  Show Profile
Maybe I missed something along the way. I've been using Visual Assist for about 3 or 4 years now and can't live without it.

It seems that somewhere along the way, I started having problems where, if I typed the name of a variable and put a period after it, I don't always get a suggestion list. I can force it by typing ctrl-alt-space, but it used to be automatic all the time.

BTW, the help in the Options (if you hover over "Display suggestion lists and accept with:" on the Suggestions page) says to use ctrl-space to bring up the list, but I can only use ctrl-space if the suggestion list is already up, in which case it gives me all possibilities instead of a narrowed list. I'm not sure how I happened upon ctrl-alt-space

But, the thing is, I ALWAYS want the suggestion list to pop up. Am I missing a setting somewhere? BTW, I'm running VAX 10.0.1274.0

Thanks.

Pete

P.S. I didn't really complete my thought from the first paragraph, so I came back to edit this. I started using VA a few years back at an old company. After I left them, I bought my own license. Recently my current employer purchase a license of Resharper for me, and after using it for about a month, I removed it and came back to VAX. Resharper has some cool features and it would be nice to see you guys add some of those (Refactor/Rename is actually the one I used the most), but Resharper also has some serious problems, the most serious being that it turns VS.NET (at least on my machine) into a total slug, which made it unusable for me. Also, as long as it remains incompatible with VAX, I won't use it. VAX is simply superior.

Keep up the great work.

Edited by - pdavis68 on Oct 30 2004 11:31:01 AM

support
Whole Tomato Software

5566 Posts

Posted - Oct 30 2004 :  1:29:31 PM  Show Profile
Suggestion lists appear as you type. They contain only guesses. Icons are question marks.

Member listbboxes appear when you type -> or dot. Assuming VA X knows the definition of you symbol, the members listbox should always appear.

Perhaps the completion listbox does not appear for a particular symbol, or type of symbol. Might this be the case?

What IDE do you use? If VC++ 6.0, make sure you disable the four statement completion options in Tools|Options|Editor.

One last suggestion for now, try build a newer beta.
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ivan
Ketchup Master

Russia
75 Posts

Posted - Oct 30 2004 :  5:06:42 PM  Show Profile
VA X sometimes behaves that way on my PC. Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure out what causes the issue or how to reproduce it.

Sometimes when I type a dot no listbox appear. When I type a part of a member name after the dot, no listbox appear. Pressing ctrl+space still completes the name (or pops up a listbox if there's an ambiguity), but I'm more used to using tab to do that.

When it happens, I get no listboxes until I restart the IDE.

Using the latest beta build on VS 2003, 'get content from default intellisense' is off. (Going slightly off-topic: Microsoft spells IntelliSense with a capital 'S', VA's options dialog doesn't)

The good thing about the issue is that it used to happen much more often in the earlier builds (and with the earlier builds sometimes restarting the IDE wasn't enough - I had to reinstall VA to get things back to normal)
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Oct 30 2004 :  6:21:45 PM  Show Profile
For me, restarting the IDE doesn't help.

I'm running VS.NET 2003. C# is my primary development language.

Sounds like Ivan and I have exactly the same problem.

The problem appears random. Unfortunately, restarting the IDE doesn't always work.

Sorry, I didn't realize there was a difference between the member listbox and the suggestion list. But it's the member listbox that isn't showing up. Usually ctrl-alt-space will make it show up, but I would say it shows up automatically about 50% of the time, which is very frustrating.

The problem has existed for at least the last 2 versions of VAX that I've used, but I can't remember what those version numbers are, sorry. I realize that might help narrow down the source of the problem.

Pete
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support
Whole Tomato Software

5566 Posts

Posted - Oct 30 2004 :  6:32:29 PM  Show Profile
Obviously, clues are going to help us debug the problem. We cannot reproduce it ourselves.

Does speed of typing make a difference?
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ivan
Ketchup Master

Russia
75 Posts

Posted - Oct 30 2004 :  10:43:42 PM  Show Profile
I code in C++, so it's not language-dependent.

Unfortunately, as I said, there's little I know about this issue... except maybe for the following:

1. For me it seems to never happen while I'm working in the IDE - it only happens after I switch back to the IDE from some other program (any program, it seems).

2. *Maybe* it happens more often during/after CPU-intensive tasks. (I have no idea whether or not this is relevant, or whether VA has anything to do with it, but sometimes I notice that when some program is using a lot of CPU resources, devenv.exe's CPU usage also goes high.) I'm on WinXP SP2 (happened before SP2 as well), HT-enabled CPU. I'm just guessing here, but could it be that VA chokes while waiting for some sort of message/response from the IDE?

3. Speed of typing doesn't make any difference.

Edited by - ivan on Oct 30 2004 10:48:57 PM
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Oct 31 2004 :  12:18:14 AM  Show Profile
Well, as I said earlier, restarting VS.NET doesn't help me. What can I say. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Actually, when I said it works about 50% of the time, that may have been ont he high side. Now that I'm really paying attention to it, it really seems to be more like 25% of the time.

It also seems that it works better for certain classes/variables/whatever, than others. But there's no reason one would be known and another unknown. I mean, in the code, the two can be right next to each other, and both be more or less identical in visibility. But if I use one it works and the other won't. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to which ones work and which ones don't. And like I said, ctrl-alt-space (and also ctrl-space, at times) bring up a valid listbox for me, though.

Pete Davis
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Oct 31 2004 :  12:21:45 AM  Show Profile
Oh, and a few additions based on some stuff Ivan said. CPU usage doesn't seem to matter on mine. Some variables work, others don't. Speed of typing makes no difference.

Maybe I can be clearer on this aspect. If a certain variable/class/whatever works, it will always work. If another doesn't work, it never works for that variable/class/whatever.

Maybe Ivan and I have two different versions of the same problem, or maybe we have two different problems. Our symptoms while similar, are clearly showing some differences.

Pete
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Nov 01 2004 :  12:27:21 PM  Show Profile
BTW, I tried the latest beta version and the problem still exists. It exists with the general release as well.
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feline
Whole Tomato Software

United Kingdom
19014 Posts

Posted - Nov 01 2004 :  6:20:12 PM  Show Profile
for what its worth i normally end up with 20 or 30 open programs all at once on my work machine, .NET 2003 with VAX being one of them. i do a lot of alt tabbing between the windows, and i have never noticed this problem.

pdavis68, does this tend to fail on templates? this would at least make some sense.

ivan, do you run any "odd" programs or utilities? i know that ObjectBar by Stardock has an odd interaction bug with .NET 2003. if you are running something none of the rest of us are using, it would explain why we aren't seeing this.

zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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ivan
Ketchup Master

Russia
75 Posts

Posted - Nov 01 2004 :  6:58:18 PM  Show Profile
No, I don't think I run any programs that could be considered 'odd' (not even IE or Outlook) ;)

Apparently our problems are different - (apart from other differences) for me it either works or does not, for Pete it works for some symbols. Plus, I can't reproduce it. Plus, nobody else seems to be having this problem. Plus, as I said, it's not really bothering me that much with the recent builds. So I don't really want the developers to waste their time on trying to find a fix for my particular case - for all I know it could be caused by phases of the Moon or sunspots. Pete's one looks more promising (as far as I understand it's much more annoying, too)
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support
Whole Tomato Software

5566 Posts

Posted - Nov 01 2004 :  7:14:00 PM  Show Profile
quote:
Maybe I can be clearer on this aspect. If a certain variable/class/whatever works, it will always work. If another doesn't work, it never works for that variable/class/whatever.


Is there something in common in the definitions of the symbols that do/do not work?

Can you post a small screen shot to help explain the problem? Perhaps of a symbol in which VA X did not help (include the text caret), and of a symbol for which it did help.
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Nov 02 2004 :  11:13:26 AM  Show Profile
Sorry, I couldn't figure out how the image attachment worked, so I've placed two jpgs on my web site.

The first is:

http://www.petedavis.net/images/vax1.jpg

This is the one that doesn't work. As you can see, 'pd' is a property descriptor.

The second is:

http://www.petedavis.net/images/vax2.jpg

This one works. 'dt' is a DataTable. What I should have done is demonstrated that 'dr', a DataRow, used right above it, didn't work.

I made a point of finding two that are both from the framework to demonstrate that it's independent of whether it's something defined in my code or something defined in the framework.

In both cases, the code compiles, so all the references and using statements are there.

I sure hope you guys can figure this one out.


Edited by - pdavis68 on Nov 02 2004 11:13:55 AM
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Stephen
Tomato Guru

United Kingdom
781 Posts

Posted - Nov 02 2004 :  12:46:11 PM  Show Profile
There seems to be a red underlined space in the first picture. I wonder if a trailing space can confuse it. Is there a space there, and if you delete it does the problem go away?

Stephen Turner
ClickTracks http://www.clicktracks.com/
Winner: ClickZ's Best Web Analytics Tool 2003 & 2004
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pdavis68
New Member

7 Posts

Posted - Nov 02 2004 :  1:30:37 PM  Show Profile
No, there isn't a space there, and sometimes when it works, the red underlying in the space afterwards is there as well (just verified that), so I don't think that's an indicator, but that was very observant.

Pete
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Stephen
Tomato Guru

United Kingdom
781 Posts

Posted - Nov 02 2004 :  2:05:35 PM  Show Profile
I bet it's some sort of clue though.

Stephen Turner
ClickTracks http://www.clicktracks.com/
Winner: ClickZ's Best Web Analytics Tool 2003 & 2004
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feline
Whole Tomato Software

United Kingdom
19014 Posts

Posted - Nov 03 2004 :  11:05:02 AM  Show Profile
i have often seen a red underline after a dot in C#. as far as i can tell the IDE is flagging a syntax error. of course, given my near total ignorance of C# i could be quite wrong about this

zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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support
Whole Tomato Software

5566 Posts

Posted - Nov 03 2004 :  11:08:23 AM  Show Profile
A couple of things:
1. Code is C# and MS does its own underlining in C# files. Stray underline of a space is fairly common, whether from MS or VA X, and doesn't indicate much. We believe ME is just telling you what you've written won't compile, which in this case is correct. You can't end a symbol with only a dot.

2. The list you see with the question mark is a suggestion list. In this case, it is not a list of members. Suggestions appear sometimes; not others. They appear when VA X has a reasonable idea of what you are typing next. In one image, VA X does not have a guess to offer; in the other it does.

http://www.wholetomato.com/products/features/suggestion.html?more=yes

3. Normally, a "members listbox" appears when you type -> or dot. You do not get a members listbox in either of your examples. You should.

Is "Auto list members" enabled in Tools|Options|Text Editor|C#|General?

We are not certain what build you have, other than "the latest." The last few builds included many improvements for C#. Try build 1283 when it's posted today.
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