AprilR's WebLog

Feedback:

As you said we want the fastest possible way from F1 -> reading some small relevant examples of how to use a class in the .net framework or how to use some keyword in the language. But I get a little scared you wont reach that goal when you start talking about a wpf based reader and the other advanced stuff.

Install Turbo Pascal 7 (It's free now) from http://www.simonhuggins.com/courses/progbegin/pascal/download/tp70.exe and try pressing Ctrl+f1 when on a word. That's the speed thats needed to not break flow. It's also a great example of a simple, to the point writing style for help with example snippets.

To reach that speed you can not go web based or wpf based. I would suggest two different styles/readers.

A) One for reading code documentation, super fast, pure text, one index file for each language and one for the BCL (small enough to keep in memory) a win32 reader with off line updates (you don't search for updates when pressing f1 but by selecting update help from the menu or something)

B) Another for reading longer articles and product documentation (this one can be wpf - webbased - dynamic updates). The first one could perhaps have links to the second.

I think a lot of the problems with the implementation of today comes from trying to merge language and framework  documentation and all other documentation, they are different things with different requirements.

English is not my first language, but as you said, code examples anyone can read, so the need for localizing A isn't as big as for B.

A is the most important, and also easiest to write, code and localize. Perhaps by separating the two we could also get a fix sooner than in a few years.