26 bugs in the interface and localization of Visual Studio 2010 Rus

Frankly, I was somewhat surprised when I read in the announcement of the contest of articles about Visual Studio 2010 Rus that "... articles with an overview of software errors or errors in translating the interface into Russian" are also allowed to participate in it. Is it really possible to write a critical article that will fall into the competition and will pretend to something?

Well, let's try!


I have to say right away: I consider Visual Studio a very good, high-quality product, with very few bugs. This is my daily work tool for almost ten years and I do not know any other IDE of such power. But, as they say, "Plato is my friend, but the truth is more expensive!". Go.

Bug number 1. Installation

1. So, we download the studio , put it, and immediately, during the installation process, we enjoy this window:


On the face, the size of the buttons is not observed for the localized labels. You can understand that “Restart now” is shorter than “Restart now” by 9 characters (almost 2 times), and MSDN recommendations advise you to reserve 30% of the button width for localization needs. But anyway, a mistake. And this window appears at least twice during installation.

Bugs No. 2-12. Settings window

We put the studio, run, climb the first thing in the settings (I always do that). Here we have something to see:


The inscription is cut off and an ellipsis is inserted, although the text would fit completely on the label (see the red text with a similar inscription).


Some dropboxes with a choice of Boolean expressions in English, some in Russian. And we are not talking about the settings of any third-party plug-ins or, say, different programming languages. Everything is the basic functionality of the IDE.


Overlay checkboxes. Guilty, I think, is the second checkbox, which occupies only one line in the English version.


Strictly speaking, this is not a bug. Just bewilderment on why it was impossible to make the left list 5-6 pixels wider, getting rid of scrolling. Moreover, this can be done by reducing the width of the right list (in both the Russian and English versions, the length of the phrases allows this to be done).


As many as 2 bugs - the incorrect transfer of the word "byte" (surprise! It turns out the word "byte" can be transferred at all!) And the imposition of the checkbox on the button.


And again 2 bugs - different alignment of two-line labels relative to the checkbox (in the center and on the top line) on the same tab and different sizes of combo boxes with exactly the same content.


Extra scroll elements. Why you need a vertical one is not clear at all (there is nothing below the checkbox “Position directives ...”), why you need a horizontal one you can still guess (the word “compiler” does not fit), but, firstly, after removing the scroll, it almost fits, and secondly, I can formulate this checkbox with 3 different shorter phrases.


When you open tabs, similar to that shown in the screenshot, the position of the horizontal scroll slider automatically jumps to the middle of the scroll bar. Thus, you always have to move it to the left to read the name of the checkbox or change its position. There are a lot of such tabs.

Bugs No. 13-16. Menu

It is not clear why there are no three dots near the item "Publish Project_name". After all, a dialog box opens. I thought it was that an external utility was launched (then the ellipsis was not set), but no - this is part of the shell. I also thought that this was a wizard, and not an ordinary dialogue, but there are dots next to other wizards (for example, import and export settings). And I don’t understand why “Run code analysis ON Project_name” and not “Run code analysis FOR Project_name”.


Of the three similar actions in the project context menu, two are called a verb and one is called a noun. And even more strange is that in the main menu of the program all three are verbs (see screenshot above). How did it happen? I also did not understand why, of all the keys in the hotkeys, only ENTER and SPACE were translated. All Alt, Ctrl, Tab, Ins, Esc, etc. remained by themselves, all keyboard shortcuts remained with Latin letters, but the space and input were translated into Russian. I didn’t think it was a bug, just wondering why it happened.


This is not a bug at all, but a stupid nitpicking. And there is nothing to read this paragraph. But I’ll write it anyway :). There are two sub-items in the menu item that are hung on the Alt + P hot keys. See two letters "P" underlined? It would seem that you can ignore such a trifle at all, but I can already see the surprise of hotkey fans and can figure out the scenario of some automatic build / testing that stumbled on duplicate hotkeys. Moreover, in this case, free letters on which one could hang up the item are quite enough.

Bugs No. 17-19. Performance Wizard

Answers to the same question are given in 3 completely different forms. Two points answer the question “What will happen?”, One - to the question “What is doing?” And one to the question “What needs to be done?”. Ugly. In addition, pay attention to the inscription “Page 1 of 3 ”in the window title. It would seem that everything is fine. Click "Next" and see already:

2 of 4! Moreover, we return to the previous page:

And here already 1 of 4! Nothing is permanent in this world!


The Performance Wizard suddenly became some kind of mysterious “Performance Explorer”. In the same dialogue.

Bug number 20. reference

Here's what the help page looks like, opening in my last Firefox from the “Help” item in the main menu of the program:

What do the characters instead of letters appear not only on this page and not only in Firefox.

Bugs No. 21-22. Solution Browser Window

First, why is it a “Solution Explorer” and not a “Solution Explorer”? After all, it is always one in him. Yes, and in the English version the word "Solution" in the singular. Secondly, why are “projects: 0”, “projects: 1”, “projects: 2”, and not “1 project”, “2 projects”, etc. The English version does not hesitate to add the plural: “1 project”, “2 projects” and even “Empty solution”. Just do not talk about the complexity of the Russian language - this is just one if, which was already written in the English version of the studio.

Bug number 23. Project Properties Window

In places, pleasing to the eye, the correct translation takes on a slightly southern cast of pronunciation and the “Active Configuration” turns into the “Active Configuration” and the “Active Platform” into the “Active Platform”. Wah, daraga, you panim what a bug!

Bugs No. 24-25. Software Quality Improvement Program

Programs for improving the quality of software with the whole look of its dialog box are trying to explain to the user how much these improvements are really necessary and how it is difficult to do without it, the user. After all, the labels on groupboxes will climb in the dialogs, and the lines of leading cannot stand. In general, well, you can’t choose “No, I won’t participate”!

Bug number 26. Utilities Help

It was somewhat strange against the background of a fully localized studio and utilli, the output of console files and error messages, help for the studio, a very large part of MSDN, etc. see the localization of the help utility in the state "and the horse was not lying." Well, how so? After all, those utilities - one, two and all. And each has 3 pages of information. A trifle in essence, but the feeling of integrity and completeness of the product spoiled.


I wish good luck to all users and developers of Visual Studio 2010 Rus, let all these little things not spoil your impression of a generally excellent product.

Upd. In the comments quite often the thought flickers about the uselessness of the Russian version of the studio. Like, the pros perfectly understand the English and the Russian version will only confuse them. As a counterargument, I would like to tell a story from life.
I once worked as a teacher of computer science at school + and taught in-depth courses there. Computer science in it began from the 5th grade. These are children 11-12 years old. These are children who began to learn English only in the same year. So, if the programs we studied had a Russian interface, it was quite simple for the children. On the fly, children learned the concepts of files, folders, easily understood what “open”, “save”, etc. Used these words in colloquial speech and dialogues among themselves. They understood, what is it about. If the program was only in English, then everything of which it consists was perceived as some kind of magic. Children memorized the names of buttons and often incorrectly wrote / pronounced them. Work with the program turned into “shamanism” in the spirit of “pressing a button with such shortcuts, then with such”. Talking with children about the program was simply unrealistic.
So for such children, such localization initiatives are just a celebration. And, if you suddenly thought something like “what for a goat button accordion?” (In the sense of why the 11-year-old children’s studio), then you are mistaken. Children at this age are already good at reading, counting, writing, they know the basic arithmetic operations, and yet, let's be honest, nothing else is needed to write a very large class of programs.