MSDN Instant Answers

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Nocturns2 — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 22:48:53 GMT

I think it's terrific!!

Thank you!

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Moutasem al-awa — Tue, 17 May 2011 20:28:38 GMT

This is a must have feature and different frameworks are offering the same, One of the best examples is JQuery documentation where you have usage example for everything.

Thanks and keep it up

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Ray Stevens — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:41:57 GMT

Sorry for the last comment. I was on the "ScriptFree" version of the MSDN page; no wonder the Library page seemed so useless and frustrating to me. Maybe you should have the ScriptFree version fixed so it is the "AlmostScriptFree" version so it has all the needed functionality and might even be somewhat usefull.

re: MSDN Instant Answers

RayStevens — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:34:17 GMT

Ther is NO SEARCH TEXT BOX ANYWHERE on the MSDN Libray page so it doesn't work at all!!!

re: MSDN Instant Answers

bblake — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:06:56 GMT

It would be more useful if the naming were a consistent fully qualified name. For example, when you search Hashtable, it comes up "Hashtable Class". If you type instead File, it comes up "System.IO.File" or dictionary comes back with "System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary". Other classes do not return anything all except general search results. For example, type in console or foreach or directory and only generic search results come back. If they can make this consistent, THEN it will be useful. As it is, it's usefulness is limited.

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Ted — Tue, 17 May 2011 14:50:52 GMT

I search help

1. intellisense

2. google usenet groups - narrows scope to .net language groups, no ads, no registration, no removed pages...

3. F1 - local msdn

4. Msdn on the web

5. The web

It would really help to see the output from sample code in text format. Many of the .net examples show how to call a framework method but do not show the output.

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Ted — Tue, 17 May 2011 14:47:31 GMT

We also prefer a locally installed copy of MSDN.

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Iwanna — Mon, 16 May 2011 08:21:32 GMT

A "copy snippet to clipboard" button.

re: MSDN Instant Answers

CameronS - MSFT — Sun, 15 May 2011 00:41:10 GMT

Awesome feedback Joe! Thanks for that. I'm passing this right along to the MSDN team...

re: MSDN Instant Answers

Joe White — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:45:15 GMT

Very nice! Simple overview, and it gives all the basics: namespace, assembly, C# and VB declarations. I'm skeptical of "common methods/properties", though -- four methods will never be enough to give the flavor of an entire class, and who's to define what's common? Perhaps an overview of the constructors would be more valuable.

Since this is tied in with search, the one big thing I'd like added is... a better search. I'd like to be able to search for "wpf control" (without quotes) and get the docs for the WPF version of System.Windows.Controls.Control, or "silverlight control" and get the docs for the Silverlight version of System.Windows.Controls.Control. Neither of those will currently bring up the actual docs for the Control class -- in fact, including the word "wpf" or "silverlight" actually ensures that the class docs *won't* appear in the search results. I can search for "control", but that will get the WinForms and WebForms stuff mixed in too. The new search will bring up instant search for "listbox", but it's the WinForms version, with no apparent way to get the WPF version instead (the WPF version is in the search results, but there's no instant-search result for it).