ViEmu Blog

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.

Beta 6 is now ready. This will work even after the “expiry” of the built-in trial period for some more time, as the beta proceeds:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta6.vsix

This is closer to the Release Candidate, hopefully ready in a few days. Here are the main changes:

• Folding/outlines/wordwrap support (pending gj/gk)
• Added commands for all key combinations. Now you can map Ctrl-Shift-Alt-Underscore, etc… you also need to go to Tools|Options|Environment|Keyboard and assign the keypress to ViEmu.KeypressCtrlShiftAltUnderscore for VS to route it.
• End-of-trial-period and license-related messages hopefully fixed

Now we’re off to doing the settings window, the docs, and finishing the remaining little glitches, to try and get to RC1 quickly. After that, the first official release. And after that, we’ll concentrate on all issues when interacting with other popular third-party add-ons, for a new release afterwards.

Please keep the feedback coming.

This version addresses the main issues in Beta 4, mainly the “massive-undo” bug that could cause ‘u’ to undo a long chain of edits. It should be much closer to release quality (pending docs, settings dialog and a few more features):

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta5.vsix

Change log:

• Undo/Redo grouping fixed. ViEmu would undo a lot actions some times, now it won’t.
• Ctrl-] (Go To Definition) working.
• Ctrl+Left/Right now work as expected in insert mode.
• Shift+CursorKey now works as expected, moving cursor and extending VS selection. Pending to make it work in command mode (ViEmu-VS selection integration).
• Fixed caret shape not reflecting ViEmu mode when switching views.
• ‘Ctrl-R + char’ now works in input mode (paste from clipboards).
• Fixed the exception thrown when trying to copy text from VS2008 to VS2010 through viemu y/p commands. Text can now be copied normally.
• HLSearch now updates correctly when scrolling or changing views.
• Added ‘Enter License Key’ to ViEmu menu.

We want to get out of beta and release properly as soon as possible, hopefully in very few weeks. “Official release” means not having serious bugs, but we might delay some still-important features to a later release, such as better keyinding management or even folding/regions support. Work on these will start without delay right after the release, but it’s important for us to get to “official” release and finalize all important pieces.

All feedback is welcome.

PS: In case you’re curious, the “massive-undo” is caused by the internal ViEmu undo-grouping mechanism failing to close in some cases, and thus becoming inactive and grouping too many actions together. We now close the undo group on the editor’s lose/gain focus, as we did in ViEmu “Classic”, and this fixes the problem.

Here is Beta 4:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta4.vsix

Changes:

• Fixes accumulative slowdown  in insert mode
• Fixes operation of undo/redo in some cases (not sure it’s all of them though)
• Initial rough version of hlsearch support

This version is a bit rough, especially hlsearch, but I wanted to release a version without the slowdown, and see if our different handling of undo/redo would fix the difficult-to-reproduce undo problem. So it wouldn’t be worse than Beta3 in any case.
Thanks for your feedback!

The new ViEmu 2.5 has been available for a while, but I still haven’t emailed all existing customers about it. I wanted to make sure the new customer area was properly tested, that there was usable ViEmu/VS2010 beta, and that the license-key system transition would be as smooth as possible.

Fixing one last minor-but-annoying problem, I have uploaded the new 2.5.4 version of all the ViEmus to the main site. The main fix is that it didn’t properly recognize licenses that had had extra spaces tacked on to the end some or all lines. This seems to happen often with some email clients and gateways out there, so the issue was coming up repeatedly. The new release fixes this minor niggle. So, apart from this, this version is functionally equivalent to the previous one, no real need to reinstall if you have 2.5.3 working fine. There is also a Codekana 1.5.4 release with the same change.

We have also prepared ViEmu/VS2010 Beta 3, with this last fix in license-key recognition, and also adding the functionality to recognize Ctrl-[ as Escape, which several users have requested. Given the new input processing mechanism in ViEmu/VS2010, we had to reimplement this. Here is the link to install the new beta:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta3.vsix

Once you install it (no need to uninstall previous betas first), you may have to use the “ViEmu->Set Keybindings” to assign the correct command to the Ctrl-[ keybinding. If you want to do it manually to avoid other keybinding changes, you can go to Tools|Options|ViEmu and assign the command “ViEmu.ViEmuCtrl[” to keypress Ctrl-[. Let us know how it works for you.

Finally, I have also added a links to the customer area to the navigation bar at the top, and an article explaining the new licensing system and the reanoning behind it: http://www.viemu.com/new-licensing-system.html.

If all goes well, I will email every customer tomorrow with an announcement of the new available releases, and hopefully it won’t be a support nightmare!

Once the rubber hits the road things start coming up. So we rolled our sleeves up and started fixing the most glaring issues. Here is a new build of ViEmu/VS2010:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta2.vsix

No need to uninstall Beta 1 before installing this one.

Addressed issues:

• Fixed “Out of Memory” Exception in the Solution Explorer Window. It was due to showing the Welcome dialog too early in the VS/WPF start-up process.
• _viemurc loading could crash and leave ViEmu unloaded
• Rare, seemingly-random caret-related exceptions in the background (although they could come to the foreground at times)
• Removed “read-only” attribute from VS files/buffers (not in the file system), required for ex commands and sometimes normal mode keys to work
• Corrected a few typos in informational messages

We will keep looking into the other issues and prepare new releases. We hope that ViEmu/VS2010 will be “good” in a few weeks, and really “great” in a few months.

Keep the feedback coming!

So, finally, here it is. It’s a bit rough on the edges but it should be usable:

http://www.viemu.com/ViEmuVS2010-Beta1.vsix

Download it, double-click on the file, and you should be good to go. It will show up in the next session of Visual Studio. It will offer to reassign keybindings to ViEmu, if you want to restore them afterwards, you will need to use VS’s “Reset Settings

Known issues:

• No hlsearch (yet)
• No folding/wordwrap support
• Coexistence with Visual Assist is so-so
• No Settings dialog available
• Documentation isn’t updated
• Ambiguous multiple-key mapping processing doesn’t automatically time out

These other features will be implemented in a few weeks (our estimation of how long it will take). There are no known actual show-stoppers, if there are any, let us know and we will try to fix it ASAP to allow you to use it.

They used to say that the good thing of moving from VHS to DVDs allowed you to buy all your movie collection all over again. The good thing about re-implementing ViEmu in the new VS architecture, using managed code and .NET instead of native code and COM is that we get to re-implement all features again and re-fix all problems with other 3rd party editions.

This beta uses the new license-key system, you can go to http://www.symnum.com/customer-area and use the password-recovery mechanism to get your new-style license key (use the email address you used for your purchase ). The beta will work all licenses bought during the last year, and it will work in trial mode for 30 days in all other cases. If you buy ViEmu/VS now from the online store, the license you get will be valid for both ViEmu/VS “Classic”and for ViEmu/VS2010.

In a few days we will have the mechanism in place for customers who bought ViEmu/VS a year or more ago to buy the upgrade. This upgrade will also include one more year of full support and free upgrades, for both ViEmu/VS “Classic” and ViEmu/VS2010. The price will be US $29. We feel it will be great value for money at that pricepoint, and we hope upgrading won’t be too steep for anyone.

All feedback is welcome.

The new ViEmu 2.5, for all of VS, SQL Server and Word&Outlook, is ready for download:

http://www.symnum.com/latest.html

(Symnum Systems is the new incorporated name of the old NGEDIT Software, be ready for a full phase-out of the old name everywhere.)

Before anything else: this version doesn’t support VS2010 yet, but we’re working on it, and I hope to have a beta available in 3-4 weeks. Watch out here for news, or follow me on Twitter. I know we’re somewhat late with this, moving from native C++ and COM to managed C++/CLI and .NET has been quite a challenge. The good news is that the new integration will allow awesome new functionality in future versions of ViEmu and Codekana. ViEmu/VS2010 will be free for those who bought ViEmu/VS less than a year before it, and it will carry a small support-period-extension fee for those who bought before that.

The main new features are multiple-key-chord mappings and Ctrl-A/Ctrl-X.

Multiple-key-chord mappings allow mapping a sequence of keys:

  :nmap c_ ct_

And when you type c_, ViEmu will process ct_. Of course, the most difficult  part is that when you type just ‘c’ ViEmu has to wait and see if what comes next is an underscore, or something else, and decide what to do. That is, ambiguity arises. And to be fully compatible with vim, this wait has to timeout configurably, etc… which ViEmu does.

I am not that much  of a user of these mappings, but some people have serious power configured in their .vimrc’s using this functionality, and they will now be able to bring it to ViEmu.

Ctrl-A/Ctrl-X on the other hand are in principle very simple commands: they increment/decrement the number where the cursor is. Actually, the implementation is a nightmare, as they work with decimal, octal, hexadecimal and on single alphabetic characters, and there are a lot of complex rules controlling how they work. I thought this would be simpler than the multiple-key-chord mappings feature, and it turned out to require much, much more work. In any case, there it is for you to enjoy in this new version. Let me know if some edge case is not handled correctly.

I’m doing a pre-release before the official release, because this release incorporates the new license-key system, and I want to roll things out slowly to test everything. The link above has all the information on how to obtain the new-style license key. If there is any problem, just get in touch with me via email or using any of the support forms.

I’ve just updated the store page announcing the new student pricing (50% off), and the new educational and non-profit organization pricing (25% off). The discounts were 20% and 10% before. Especially for students, and given the current general financial climate, I’ve come to think a price of $49 makes much more sense. Hope it will be well received!

I had already been giving this larger discount to students and non-profits for some time, so I doubt anybody feels unfairly treated with this change. If you do, be sure to get in touch and I’ll see how we can fix that.