[MonoDevelop] Native support for VS2005 Projects in Monodevelop

[Charlie Poole]

Hi All,

> > Yeah, the current situation is a bit confusing. Here is a proposal 
> > that would simplify it from the user point of view: remove 
> the "Import 
> > VS2003 project" option from the File menu, and instead add 
> a new file 
> > VS2003 format in the file open dialog.
> > 
> > When the user tries to open a VS2003 project a warning 
> message box is 
> > shown which says that the project file format is old and 
> needs to be 
> > saved in a new file format (which could be either the 
> native MD format 
> > or VS2005 format). I haven't tried, but I guess that VS2005 
> would do 
> > the same if you try to open a VS2003 project.
> 
> I like that suggestion.

Reading this, I thought of a different model...

Image manipulation programs let you open various formats and
save in various formats. The use-friendly approach in that
setting is to default the save to the same format in which
you opened. This isn't universally done - I worked for a 
software vendor whose product kept insisting on saving things
in it's own proprietary format - but it's definitely more
convenient for most users.

Note that some changes to the image - increasing
the color depth, for example - might make it impossible
to save in the original format. This could be true for
projects as well. In that case, it's nice to warn the user 
at the point the change is being made, rather than waiting 
till a lot of work has been done and it's time to do the save.

I'm pretty sure such an approach could work for projects as well.

Charlie