ViEmu Blog

After a long time with reduced activity on the ViEmu front, we have finally been able set aside some time to work on it again. We plan to dedicate a lot of time over the next two months to prepare a much needed new version of the ViEmus, on all editions. We don’t have a specific date for the release, but the end of May would be a likely target.

Here are the main areas we want to address:

• Improve compatibility with the most used VS plug-ins (Resharper and Visual Assist), and also with the latest VS service packs. We are always working on this, but since VS and especially R# and VAX are moving targets, there’s no way to avoid playing catch-up!
• Support for some much-requested vi/vim features, such as support for confirmation option ‘c’ in the :s substitute command, Ctrl-N and Ctrl-P filescan autocompletion (complete looking around for words around the cursor, etc…), and maybe some others (quick-wins or low-hanging-fruit, that is, features that don’t require too much work but that can be very beneficial
• Possibly, VS11 support. We are unsure of how much effort this is, we did some early research and it didn’t seem straightforward at all, so we may need to do a 3.0 without this, and add VS11 support afterwards.

Since the vi/vim core is common among all the ViEmus, features like ‘:s///c’ support and filescan-autocompletion will work on all of them. Others of course are app-specific (mainly the VS-related ones).

We have already started working on this, but in any case, we would be very happy to listen to your suggestions for features, and try to incorporate them in the next release, or even in this one if they are doable in the alotted time. So, feel free to post your suggestions below.

And thanks for your patience! Software takes a lot of time and effort, and life has that way of getting in the way…

The previous ViEmu/VS release seems to have solved all stability issues, so here we go with a new release including a couple of small but missed improvements:

• System Caret set to not blinking is now honored by ViEmu
• Fixed a bug in the timer for ambiguous mappings that did not restart the timer correctly after keypresses

It will require valid support as of January 14. You can get it here:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-2.5.14.vsix

Hope you enjoy it!

We have finally built and tested a new version of ViEmu/VS2010, which should be a really good and solid new version that will hopefully last as the “stable” version for some time. Performance, compatibility with third-party-apps, etc… we have made sure this version can be used by ViEmu users for a long time to come. Here is the link:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-2.5.13.vsix

Main improvement is a highly enhanced incremental search: we included the highlight marker, and made it 6 times faster! We found out the hard way that C++ object creating in .NET (C++/CLI) is incredibly much slower than in native C++. Our coding style is often based on abstract templates and uses classes for powerful abstractions, passing them by value – rather than passing a “pointer to text buffer” we pass a “text buffer”abstraction that can be just a buffer pointer, or a couple of data items, etc… this is great for abstraction, and not a performance issue in most sane implementations of C++, but it is a problem in C++/CLI. Oh well. We did something to avoid hitting this point, and now things are much faster.

And here is the detailed change log:

• Added a setting ‘Automatic visual range from VS Selection’, active by default. This setting enables/disables the ViEmu behavior that automatically enters visual mode when a Visual Studio selection is detected.
• Added a visual marker for incremental search, whose color can be modified through the Fonts & Colors dialog.
• Fixed a bug when changing the keyboard layout in the middle of a ViEmu/VS session.
• Entrian Search add-in should now be compatible with ViEmu.
• Optimizations to the incremental search: it should now perform up to 6 times faster than before.
• Some small improvements for selection/visual range behavior.
• Fixed a bug where ViEmu settings window would not have its parent correctly set, leading to unwanted behavior when switching apps.

Let us know how it works for you!

It turns out the last 2.5.9 had a few glitches. We decided to fix them quickly, as they were important. Here is the list of fixes:

• Fixed Visual Studio lockup on replace command when replacing with an empty string.
• Fixed some motions that didn’t work when the ‘Windows-like wordwrap navigation’ setting was active.
• ReSharper should now not add a closing ‘”)]} while in normal mode when ‘Auto-insert pair brackets, parentheses and quotes’ option is on.
• The ‘multiple Esc presses needed to return to normal mode’ with ReSharper and ViEmu should now be alleviated.
• Added code to enhance general application stability

And here is the link to download it:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-2.5.10.vsix

We hope to have this be the stable version of ViEmu/VS2010 for some time. Hope you like it!

So, we had to address a few remaining issues to call this a “high-quality” ViEmu/VS2010. We’ve been doing just that, and the release is ready.

[Update – if you want the latest, please see 2.5.10: http://www.viemu.com/blog/2010/10/21/viemuvs2010-2510-with-a-few-more-fixes/]

The main missing thing, and most requested one, was making ViEmu use VS’s selection to handle visual mode. This option was present in ViEmu/VS “Classic”, but the previous ViEmu/VS2010 still didn’t offer it. This option allows ViEmu to interoperate much better with other VS add-ins or even internal VS functionality, as these expect text to be selected using VS-Selection. Of course, this feature also allows to use ViEmu to delete a range selected by other means: just select a region with, say, the mouse, and press ‘d’. The improved interoperability comes at the expense of more faithful vim visual range emulation: VS’s selection just doesn’t allow some of the exotic things that vim’s visual range does (cursor in the middle, etc..). For many people, this is a great trade-off.

And the second most-requested feature was improving the perfomance, and oh boy have we improved in that regard! Isaac, the lead dev of ViEmu/VS2010, has used the new edit-batching APIs inVS2010, and now many operations are blazingly fast. In some (if not all) cases, ViEmu/VS2010 is faster than ViEmu/VS “Classic”.

We’ve also fixed some bugs, improved compatibility with other 3rd party tools, etc… so here is the detailed change log:

• Implemented remaining ViEmu settings, including ‘Use VS Selection for visual mode’, implemented.
• Performance improvements, specially for cut/paste and search&replace operations.
• ViEmu enters visual mode automatically when an external VS selection is made.
• ViEmu provides a MEF service that exposes the same functions that the ViEmu “Classic” did.
• ViEmu caret shows now correct size and position when Windows DPI settings are changed.
• ViEmu caret should not appear anymore when opening a file while ViEmu is disabled.
• ViEmu caret blinking time is now read from the system’s settings.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some Visual Studio commands from being executed through the :vsc ex command.
• Fixed a bug that caused Visual Studio package projects to not be created correctly through the VS New Project Wizard.
• Fixed an incompatibility bug with Visual Assist that caused the insertion of }])'” in normal/visual mode when the Visual Assist option ‘Insert () and closing })]'”‘ was checked.
• Added the ‘Use adornments for hlsearch and visual range’ setting: Text adorments have been used until now for visual range and highlight search markers. These adornments render behind the text and preserve syntax highlight of the text marked, and thus don’t allow for text foreground color modification. If this setting is unchecked, the text itself of the hlsearch or visual range will be modified, and the foreground color selected in ‘Fonts and Colors’ will affect the foreground text color.

You need valid support as of October 12, 2010 for this to work fine. If you bought ViEmu/VS before October 12, 2009, head over to http://www.symnum.com/customer-area to renew your support for one year for a hopefully-very-reasonable $29.

And here is the link to download it:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-2.5.9.vsix

And be sure to let us know how it works for you!

We have prepared and uploaded a new version of ViEmu/VS2010, addressing the important issue of third-party add-in compatibility. Our effort has gone to make ViEmu behave as best as possible with the two most popular third-party add-ins: Whole Tomato’s Visual Assist, and JetBrains’ Resharper. It’s still not perfect, but it should provide a much better experience. Here’s the list of things (there are also a couple of bugfixes thrown in for good):

• vaxesc option support (to make Esc both close down the Visual Assist drop down and exit insert mode)
• Visual Assist suggestions disabled in normal mode (this was a tough nut to crack)
• Resharper’s Rename command is detected and ViEmu auto-enters insert mode
• ViEmu’s ‘.’ command now works correctly even if Visual Assist is configured to convert it to ‘->’ in some cases
• ViEmu’s “Default to Windows clipboard” option should now work just fine
• License detection code now works with temporary licenses (we sometimes send them out manually, to extend trials, etc…)

Here is a link to download it:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-2.5.7.vsix

You will need your support up to date as of August 9. As always, renew it if necessary at the customer area: http://www.symnum.com/customer-area.

Let us know how it works!

We decided it was necessary, and we have addressed the performance issues with hlsearch before the official release. This new version, RC2, works fast for scrolling even in my lowly but lovely Asus EEE PC 1005. It should fly on anything else. Search/replace may still be slow, we’ll address that in a future version.

Download here:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-RC2.vsix

If nothing acts up, this will become the official ViEmu 2.5 for VS2010 in a couple of days. All feedback is welcome.

You can download the ViEmu/VS2010 Release Candidate 1 here:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-RC1.vsix

We are trying to get this out of the door and start the upgrade process for everyone, even if there are a few things that we will address in version 2.6 (this one will be numbered 2.5.5).

Things addressed in this release:

• Ctrl-Backspace/Ctrl-Delete delete whole words in insert mode
• Block visual mode works fine with $
• Better support for more types of files (html, aspx)
• Fixed a bug that caused the ViEmu caret to appear in random places
• Fixed crash when setting keybindings in non-US, localized VS versions
• License key processing more reliable, button to remove license from settings window
• Several other minor bugfixes

Apart from these there are a few things which we know are not fully ok, but we have left them for 2.6, due out in the next few weeks. The current version is more than usable for many customers. Here are the limitations in this release:

• Compatibility with other 3rd party add-ons is not fully supported. If you are using Visual Assist, Resharper,  PowerGUI or others, you may experience usability issues.
• Performance is sometimes poor, especially with hlsearch and search/replace
• Some settings like “‘Use VS selection for visual mode” or “Ignore Caps Lock state in normal mode” are still non-functional

We plan to address these issues in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, if you find some problem that would make this RC1 a bad “first official non-beta” release for a standard installation of Visual Studio, let us know, so that we can address it for the final version or in an RC2.

If everything goes well, we’ll release this officially next week and start to allow upgrading existing licenses via the customer area.

This is the latest beta, which will work for everyone until next week (when we’ll hopefully have a Release Candidate rather than a beta!):

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta8.vsix

Main changes in this release:

• Settings dialog
• Documentation
• Timeout support for ambiguous multiple-key mappings
• gj/gk now supported
• Fixed: dd on the last line would delete two lines
• Several other bugfixes

Pending things for RC are: bug-fixes and better recognizing of license key even if it has been garbled over email. Performance and compatibility with other 3rd party add-ins will be addressed after the official release.

By the way, I checked it and realized the settings dialog is really ugly on Windows XP with classic look.  Oh my, WPF. We’ll try to do something about it.

So, we had to hurry this a bit since the beta 6 period will expire tomorrow:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta7.vsix

We left out the settings window (which is half-done now but not included in this release) and the new documentation. Hopefully by next wee. Anyway, here is the list of thing we improved (quite a few):

• Fixed: When the cursor is on a collapsed section, Shift-Y hangs the IDE.
• Fixed bugs related to selections and collapsed regions.
• Fixed: With the cursor on the same line as a collapsed section, ‘o’ doesn’t insert a line below the expanded section, but instead above it, without the cursor moving down a line, effectively staying on the same line as the collapsed section.
• zR now does ‘ToggleAllOutlining’.
• Fixed: sometimes VS caret regained visibility in views.
• Fixed bug&exception when doing v$x (did nothing or throwed an exception). It also happened with any other command after v$.
• Fixed an exception in Output/Find Result/… windows related to refering to different snapshots when doing hlsearch.
• Added viemu undo markers to ‘create/destroy fold’ actions.
• Extended trial period to 9/7/2010

Again, all feedback is welcome. We expect a Beta8 by next week which should already feel like an RC. We’ll leave the performance issues for a revision shortly after the RC.