VS SDK Tweaks TOC

Last night I was watching the fireworks over Lake Sammamish, less than two miles from the Microsoft corporate campus. My thoughts were of of the many things that the U.S. has done around the globe to make this world a better place. As a retired soldier, I view the 4th of July as a period of renewal, not just a celebration of the birthday of the United States. Happy Independance day citizens!

The VSIP team has made a commitment to recast the VSIP documents and has just released the first technical preview of the Visual Studio SDK. Allen Denver, the Dev lead, was the first to blog about it in his VSIP Musings site. In a continuing search for ways to improve this 30,000 topic doc set and address the evolving diversity and number of customers, the VSXue team is starting from scratch with the TOC. Walkthroughs, How-tos, and samples will reign supreme. We have a lot of work to do in the coming months to get the SDK to a point where the new infrastructure will be mostly in place, but I think you'll agree it has been worth the wait.

So here is a peak at the emerging (read draft) TOC:

Visual Studio SDK

• What’s New
• Roadmap
• Support and Test

Visual Studio Integration

Essentials

What's New

Architecture

Features (or Technologies)

Core Scenarios

Package

Walk Throughs

Samples

(repeated thru-out…)

Project Systems

Project Flavor (subtypes)

Language

Editor

Tool Window

Commands

Tool Window UI

     Property Pages

     Options Page

Setup and Deployment

               Advanced Scenarios

                        Data Extensibility

                        Debugger

                        Source Control

DSL Tools

System Definition Model

Essentials

What’s New

Architecture

Tasks

Walkthroughs

Samples

Team Foundation Client Services

XML Designer

Reference

     Core

     Extended

Help Integration

     Etc.

TF Server Integration

     Etc.

VS Tools for Applications

     Etc.

VSTools for Office

     Etc.

Licensable Tools

     PPE

Those of you who have been using the original VSIP TOC should notice a big difference. The primary method of discoverability is still accomplished using the SEARCH and INDEX functionality. These mechanisms are still available. But for customers who use the TOC to walk through the documentation, we hope that this will enable you to find what you are looking for when it comes to customizing the Visual Studio IDE (workspace).

Here's the location of the VS SDK download.  Try this out and provide feedback as you see fit.  Use the VS Extensibility Forum (my favorite) or the MSDN Product Feedback Center to submit your observations or recommendations.