AprilR's WebLog : Help

Fixing your VS 2010 Beta 2 help

AprilR — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:53:00 GMT

If you are experiencing problems with your Beta 2 help, you may need to repair it, especially if you had a prior tech preview installed.

The Help 3 team blogs tells you how to fix it:

http://blogs.msdn.com/help3team/archive/2009/10/21/how-to-repair-a-help-viewer-help-3-beta-2-installation.aspx

Good luck!

AprilR

Visual Studio Library Experience News

AprilR — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:48:00 GMT

Kim Wolk, the new Product Unit Manager for the online and offline Visual Studio help experience, has started a blog. You can get a good look under the hood and follow the developments in this area here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/kwolk

Enjoy~

AprilR

Fun C++ history

AprilR — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:11:00 GMT

Rico Mariani has quite simply become one of my favorite people, professionally and personally. Not long after I first met him, as we started working on the problem of fixing Visual Studio help, about a year ago, I would describe him to people as the "Energizer Bunny" and the Master of Analogy. His energy and confidence are contagious. His technical chops are top notch, in depth and breadth, and even at this great company, not often matched. His ability to talk straight is refreshing. He'll call anybody's BS, no matter who is in the room when he does it. I've seen him seize moments to inspire people, and push people when they aren't pushing themselves hard enough (met with mixed reactions, depending on his tactics, my only minor criticism which I have to mention lest this become a complete suck-up post ;)). He's one of the few people that I have seen master rapid context switching between the tactical and the strategic. At the same time, Rico isn't one of these engineers that unhealthfully dedicates their entire 24/7 life to code. He's a husband and father, and has hobbies that make great use of his creativity and gregarious nature (I'll let him disclose those!).

All of this said to point you to a group of recent posts about his long history with Visual Studio and dev tools in general. I thought I'd highlight this one post that includes some fun C++ history:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ricom/archive/2009/10/06/my-history-of-visual-studio-part-2.aspx

Enjoy~

AprilR

Moving on again!

AprilR — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:10:00 GMT

Hey there blog readers :) Just a quick post to let you know that I am moving again - this time to Microsoft Surface

I have been in our Developer Division for 11 years; I have had a great time working on the development of Microsoft Help 3.0, and unforgettable times working on the Visual C++ team. I've enjoyed communicating with all of you over these past few years, too!

But, I am definitely ready to take on a new challenge. I'll be utilizing my project management skills and exploring application of recently learned skills from the UW Bothell MBA program in tackling a new product, business and customer base.

SO, if you want to keep up with the latest on Help 3, make sure you subscribe to the Help 3 team blog and if you use Twitter, follow @Help3! Soon we will be posting a great guide about the new "platform."

If you want to keep up with Visual C++, you probably already know about the C++ Team Blog.

Thanks for all of your comments and support. I hope you follow me to the new world of Surface, too!

April

Impact VS10 - Memorial Day Weekend Challenge

AprilR — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:59:00 GMT

The word is out - and so far, customer feedback is extremely positive about the MSDN low-bandwidth view. But what about you? You should have a say, too. So my challenge to you this weekend is to take a moment to check it out if you haven't already and then cast your vote!

A - LOVE IT AND WILL ALWAYS USE IT!

B - It's OK, I'll use it when I'm on a slow or expensive connection

C - YUCK I CANNOT USE THIS.

Post your VOTE here - comment that you are in bucket A, B or C. Get your friends to vote. And, if you have them, make suggestions on what to include/not include/change for the offline help view in the next VS10 pre-release.

C'mon, bring it on! You have three days to take 5 minutes to shape the product help experience in the Visual Studio 2010 product.

- AprilR

Help 3 is getting its Social on

AprilR — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:15:00 GMT

In case you missed it below - the help 3 team is keeping you up to date and providing resources for help 3 through modern means:

Twitter - Follow @help3!

Join the MVPs on Facebook - there is a Help 3 page and a Help 3 group - there are also groups for Visual Studio 2010

And, all new! Watch the new Help3 blog for a first post tonight! http://blogs.msdn.com/help3team

Enjoy!

- aprilr

Early Parts of Help3 come to life in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1!

AprilR — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:09:00 GMT

Soma has announced the release of the first Beta of the next version of Visual Studio is available to MSDN subscribers. In this release, you will see that product documentation is only available online. While you are using that, do us a favor and try the new low-band view! It's clean, simple and FAST! Check it out and give us your feedback - simply visit the MSDN library, or take your favorite short cut, Live Search or MSDN Search to get there, and click on the 'switch on lowbandwidth view' link.

April

Help3 @ WritersUA

AprilR — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:55:00 GMT

Monday I presented the latest news on Microsoft Help 3.0 at the 2009 Software User Assistance conference hosted by WritersUA! We've made a lot of progress and many design decisions and changes since PDC back in October. We had originally expected to be ready Visual Studio's next Beta release, but now we plan to show off our bits in Beta 2. Over the next month I'll be writing several posts about the ins and outs of Help3 and at the end of April I will be back on Channel9 with some demos and any updates.

As our team has grown, and we've been getting MVPs and VSIP partners up to speed, so you'll be able to keep up with Help 3 in a couple of new ways:

A new Facebook Help 3 page run by our beloved Microsoft Help MVPS -

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=70197449895

On Twitter - Search on #Help3 or follow me, Lirpa, or Help3

- April

Help 3 @ the PDC

AprilR — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:55:00 GMT

When I last wrote, we had just kicked off our user group tour and the team was just getting going. Since then, we have staffed all but one position, vetted an architecture and decided on the 'v1.0' set of features for our new help platform. We also created rich prototypes - nearly end to end. I've been talking to internal and external customers and partners and everyone agrees - this is going to be cool. We've been able to keep our design simple and straightforward and used existing technology where we could. So, when can you see it and when can you learn more!?!? Well, I'm using this post to both kick off a series of informational posts and to let you know that myself and a few others will be at the PDC next month! You'll find us at the Windows SDK and MSDN Library booth. We will also be looking for your feedback there - the first couple hundred responders to our live survey will get some cool swag. Hope to meet you there!

Stay tuned!

April

Help Team User Group Rounds Kick-off in L.A.

AprilR — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:39:00 GMT

As you may have seen or heard by now, there is a new team dedicated to improving the help experience in Visual Studio. If you already know that then hopefully you also know that we realize that including you in the planning process is important! I will begin talking with various user groups on the west coast starting later this month. I will find a way to work with other user groups around the country as well, but I'm starting off with the fine developers nearby. I will be in L.A. on March 20th at the Micrsoft offices downtown at 7pm to talk with the L.A. .NET Users group. User group members will need to RSVP to me in order to attend.

Other planned stops (dates, places TBD):

San Jose, CA
Portland, OR
Burnaby, BC
Vancouver, BC
Washington State:

Bellevue
Bellingham
Olympia
Redmond
Spokane

- AprilR

Hear More on Channel 9

AprilR — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:19:00 GMT

If you haven't already discovered Channel9, you have been missing out! There are tons of informative, and in some cases funny, videos about all sorts of developer-y things! Make sure to stop and look around when you go. That Channel 9 guy has been all around the world!

It also just so happens that you can hear me talk about the exciting future of help.

aprilr

Help is Getting Help - The Long Overdue Makeover for Visual Studio and MSDN Help

AprilR — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:28:00 GMT

We heard you, and if you heard a loud cry of joy from the Pacific Northwest around the middle of December, you may have heard me!

I'm thrilled to report that Microsoft's Server and Tools Business has decided to invest in significantly improving the Developer and ITPro help experience over the upcoming years! A new small team of engineers will soon be on the job of raising the bar for the experience of installing, using and updating documentation for Visual Studio, MSDN and other products! What's at the top of the priority list? Making your F1 and search experience fast and relevant. Once we solve that we hope to offer you a simple viewer and update model to keep you in the know and highly productive.

What say you!? What is important to you? What would you like to see? Remember that question I posed to you nearly a year ago - what is your dream assistance scenario!?!?!? After we fix F1 and search, what is most important to you?

If we nail Search, do you still need the Index? Will intellitype in the search box do or do you really want that separate window?

Keep your eye on my blog, because we'll be looking to you for feedback on our many ideas and plans for improving your ability to get the answers you need - FAST.

aprilr

How to Provide Feedback on VS and .NET Framework Documentation

AprilR — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:38:00 GMT

Kathleen provides good information about ways to give feedback on the documentation:

http://blogs.msdn.com/kathleen/archive/2007/10/11/wanted-feedback-on-visual-studio-content.aspx

April

April Wan Kenobi Update

AprilR — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:12:00 GMT

What's this, you ask? Well, check out:

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/08/08/visual-c-futures.aspx#4432520

Thanks Jan :D

I want to tell you that because of your comments, dear readers, not only here but on Soma's blog, I think we are getting some traction in rallying the troops to improve the VS help experience! You are making a difference.

I don't have many details for you yet, but stay tuned for questions and ideas that we'll need you to answer and review to help us know whether or not we are on the right track! Here are some themes:

- Fix search - the current local help engine is terrible here and we need to improve, and while MSDN online is constantly improving, we can do more

- Continue to provide local-to-the-box help, don't rely on the online story alone

- Improve F1 - figure out what the heck is going wrong with so many of the calls that you don't get what you need!

- Provide a more modern and performant UI to browse and navigate the help content - and bring back my favorite features!

Let me know what you think.

April

Check out MSDN's lab!

AprilR — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:51:00 GMT

You might not have discovered it, so I'll point it out. Here is a video of Jeremiah Andrick talking about MSDN Search and what we are trying to do to improve it. He even shows you a demo of the development site, which you have access to (http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com), and points out some of the features his group is working on.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/episode.aspx?xml=episodes/en/20060601MSDNJA/manifest.xml

Enjoy!

April