hubFS: THE place for F#

Hi,

As noted here F# can be used with the newly released Visual Studio Shell.

Just download then install the Visual Studio Shell (integrated) redistributable then install F# and hey presto - intellisense, debugging ... all for free.  Sweet!

Cheers,

Andy

Andyman:

Just download then install the Visual Studio Shell (integrated) redistributable then install F# and hey presto - intellisense, debugging ... all for free.  Sweet!

Wow! That turned my head around a couple of times. 

There is more information about this here.  I was wondering about the license conditions and there doesn't seem to be any limitation on redistribution.  This is a much nicer approach than any I would have thought of.  A very nice move to expand the appeal of the Visual Studio SDK.

So you can use the (integrated) version, which hooks into an existing Visual Studio 2008 or above, if present, or the (isolated) version which is for a standalone setup that will run alongside any other Visual Studio 2008 including the Express Editions (just like another Express Edition).  That is very cool.  It certainly saves rolling your own IDE on the Windows platform.  [I assume that the (integrated) version is needed for F# because it installs as a plug-in and you need that to work.  All very interesting.]

This may be a stupid question but is the Shell the GUI in which the F# compiler plugs in resulting in an IDE ? Or is the shell a tool to build standalone IDEs with VS2008 ?

Thanks

The Visual Studio Shell is a stripped down version of Visual Studio without the builtin programming languages (C#, VB.Net, ...) but with full plugin support. You can use it together with the F# VS plugin to get a full F# IDE.

You could also build your own IDE on top of the Visual Studio APIs and then distribute it as a plugin for Visual Studio (Shell), though you might need a license for that.

Can someone that has used both the Shell version and the non-Express version of the Visual Studio comment on if the fomer provides the identical F# code editing experience as the latter?  I am asking this because I found that the VS mode screenshots from the F#.wiki didn't match to what I saw in my Shell mode.

Another question related to text highlighting.  In this example:

let site1 = ("www.cnn.com",10)

let site2 = ("news.bbc.com",5)

let site3 = ("www.msnbc.com",4)

let sites = (site1,site2,site3)

When I highlighted the word "site1" on the first line, i was expecting to see all appearances of "site1" highlighted as well.  This did not happen in my VS Shell.  Is this a feature missing from the VS mode or is this something impossible to be done to the F# code? 

Thanks.

da

"Can someone that has used both the Shell version and the non-Express version of the Visual Studio comment on if the fomer provides the identical F# code editing experience as the latter?  I am asking this because I found that the VS mode screenshots from the F#.wiki didn't match to what I saw in my Shell mode."

Hi.

I dont know if I'm missing something, but I can tell you that I have changed from using Visual Studio Proffesional with the F# addin to just the VS Shell. I haven't noticed any difference Editing F# code. I could even use the emacs.vsk file with it.

Sorry that my question borders on triviality.  I just started to relearn VS since the last time I used it 9 years ago.  So given this example taken from the VS screenshot at the end of chapter 2 in Don's book (the draft version from his blog):

open System.Windows.Forms

let textB = new RichTextBox();;

testB.Dock <- DockStyle.Fill;;

I wish I could copy-n-paste the screenshot here.  Anyway, in Don's example, the expressions such as "System.Windows.Forms", "RichTextBox", "Doc" and "DockSytel.Fill" are all shown in blue color while the "textB" is in black.  To me, this syntax coloring is a great programming aid.  But they are all displayed in the default black color as "textB" in my VS editor.  I have the most recent F# distribution.  How can I configure the editor to display the same screenshot as Don's? 

Thanks.

da