So the next version of the Profile Manager add-in is taking form, and I will proberly soon release it in a beta, like 4-8 weeks from now, depending on how much work i have at actual work.

Alot of stuff has been going on, most of all the entire architecture has changed, or rather it now has an actualy architecture with integration, logic, model and presentation tiers ect.

Im making this post to give a heads up on the new user interface additions, consider it a rough lineout though, I’m not intirely done with it all yet.

Startup Dialog

When Visual Studio starts up, a dialog enables one to change the current profile before Visual Studio loads.

Depending on use this can be usefull so that windows arent misplaced when going from a dual-screen to a single-screen environment, in my own case this is when I log on my workstation at work from home through remote desktop, since dual-sceen isn’t supported for us there.

Management Interface

The management interface has been extended greatly to support for all the changes to the Profile concept, as such both Layouts (what profiles was before) and contexts are managable from the same interface as profiles are, also a page for general setings is added.

The basic look and feel is the same for all pages, below is the Context page shown in both an edit and view state.

The same look and feel is applied to the Profiles page, but editing profiles is by far more complex since they bind contexts, layouts ect. together.

Ease of use

This all implies advanced usage, but this might not be what fits to all needs, maybe you just want a simple and easy way to switch the layout of windows, the same way as v0.2 worked.

But because of the new functions, things aint so easy anymore, however to simplify the lifecycle of profiles it will be posible to link newly saved layouts directly to a profile that will be given the same name. This happens if the “Link to new Profile” is checked off.

Obviously this can’t be selected of one just wishes to overwrite an old layout. So the checkbox is disabled of an already existing layout is choosen.

Thats it for now, a short heads up, and I hope to be done with it soon, and maybe also have a prober installer this time.