Microsoft! Please let the pain come to an end!

I have a website that sells a peice of software. My client wants to keep 90 seperate little pages, one for each little "feature" of the program. This is the perfect application for using a "web template", and store all these features into a database.

So, Lets set up the database first.

Piece of cake, right? so now, I need to get 90 of these pop-up windows into the datafields...

So I design a form for editing the data...

I can run the form, it shows my empty data table. I add a row and enter the small data, and then I cut/paste the feature window text into the "Feature Text" column.

Oh no! it only accepts the FIRST LINE of text! BUT WAIT! this is a "text" type, it should just KNOW that we want to put free-form text in here. Ok, so now I want to go into the properties of the FEATURE TEXT column and set Multiline to True.

What's this? There IS NO multiline property! Ok now lets hit the trusty F1 key.

After waiting an horribly long time, I search for Multiline Text Fields and nothing that comes back is relevant to what I'm trying to do.

Just to make the point come home a little better, I could solve this problem with Oracle and Delphi WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO WRITE A PROGRAM! PL/SQL developer allows me to pop open a window on a CLOB (text) field and cut/paste/edit/whatever. This whole project would take about 15 minutes. BUT IN VISUAL STUDIO IT SEEMS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE!

Please, Microsoft! We beg you! Buy a copy of PL/SQL Developer and MAKE SQL SERVER WORK LIKE THAT!

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Update: There IS a way... I will update on Friday! (Not this Friday, but "A" Friday)

Oracle Options Missing from Visual Studio 2008 Express

Can someone please explain to me why the Oracle database connections are missing from the Visual Studio 2008 Express editions? Is this another iteration of "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run?"

Or do I need to cough up blood to get Oracle fully supported in my development environment?

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The rumor mill has it that the Oracle options are not included in the Express edition. I found this on several user forums, but I can't find any reference to it on the Microsoft site.

Hey Microsoft, what other options are missing from the express editions? Can I get a list?

Too Much

is anyone other than me tired of typing stuff like

System.Web.Lunch.Sandwich.Ham.Swiss.Rye myFood = new System.Web.Lunch.Sandwich.Ham.Swiss.Rye();

or

using Women;
girlFriend GirlFriend = new girlFriend();

Is it just me or is that way too much? No, really, I think we need the object type in there more times, just so the compiler really knows what's going on.

girlFriend GirlFriend = new girlFriend(girlFriend.girlFriend.create(girlFriend)) ;

There.

AAAAAAAH!

I found this great site that *almost* seemed to discuss what I want...

http://quickstarts.asp.net/QuickStartv20/aspnet/doc/pages/pages.aspx#serverctrls

But don't bother going there unless you want to do everything in Visual BASIC!

God Damn, Microsoft!

Microsoft, your Help is Crap!

Ok, I want to use asp.net to build a simple email form that send me an email whenever someone wants to contact me from my website. I figured that after all the easy-login stuff on the toolbar, there would be some kind of ready-made gizmo.

There isn't

Furthermore, when you use the trusty F1, and type asp email form tutorial or simple form tutorial, you get nothing but totally irrelevant crap from the results screen.

So I googled it and ALL the results fall into one of 2 categories.

1. downloadable components
2. vb.net

What the hell?

So here I am writing like 300 lines of code, and I know it HAS TO BE easier than this... why is it any harder than this?

smtp.send(
 mailmessage(
  request.querystrings("to").tostring(),
  request.querystrings("from").tostring(),
  request.querystrings("subject").tostring(),
  request.querystrings("body").tostring()
 )
)

Why, indeed?