Inside MSDN and TechNet

Announcing MSDN Code Search Preview - http://msdn.krugle.com/

MSDN Code Search Preview combines the samples from MSDN Code Gallery, CodePlex content, and MSDN Library. 

How to Use MSDN Code Search Preview:

MSDN Code Search Preview is accessible through MSDN Search as a “filter” when using site search.  Just type your code search query and click the “Code Search” button next to the search bar to optimize your experience for code search and find code samples from MSDN Code Gallery, CodePlex content, and MSDN Library: 

Masthead search and Site search is by default scoped to search MSDN (if you're on the MSDN site) and TechNet (if you're on the TechNet site) as well as a number of other relevant sites. Masthead search is the search box on any MSDN or TechNet page. Site search is our actual search page: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Search or http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Search.

Masthead search:
1. Go to MSDN home: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
2. Search for 'asp.net' (no quotes); the search URL is: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/search/en-us/?query=asp.net
3. Under the search box in the Refine by source: section you should see a link for 'Library Documentation and Articles (x)'
-Clicking the link will rerun your search limited to the Library
-Clicking the 'x' will rerun the search excluding the Library

Forums search:
1. Go to MSDN Forums: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/categories
2. In the 'Search Forums' search box search for 'system.xml' (no quotes); don't use the masthead search box. The search URL is: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Search/en-US/?Refinement=112&query=system.xml&rq=&rn=
-This search is scoped to only Forums
3. In the 'Current Refinements' you will see 'Forums (x)' and 'Remove all'
-Clicking either of these will rerun your search with our default scope which will include MSDN and Technet.

Cheers.

Anand..

Launching low bandwidth (loband) V1 and new IDE view!

The Library Experience (LEX) team is proud to announce the release of low bandwidth (loband) Version 1.0 and a new IDE (dev10ide) view! Please check-out http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system(loband).aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system(dev10ide).aspx.

Scott Hanselman from MSDN team recently blogged about MSDN/Technet/Expression library loband experience at http://www.hanselman.com/blog/LowBandwidthViewAndOtherHiddenAndFutureFeaturesOfMSDN.aspx. Microsoft MVP John Galloway posted details on the loband feature of library at http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2008/08/30/msdn-low-bandwidth-bookmarklet.aspx.

Based on your feedback on the above posts we have launched a new version of loband experience for our Library with the following improvments:

Launching low bandwidth (loband) Beta for long haul!

The Library Experience (LEX) team is proud to announce the release of low bandwidth (loband) Beta! Please check-out http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library(loband). Mary Lee from VB team and Beth Massi from VS Community team recently blogged about MSDN/Technet/Expression library loband experience. Microsoft MVP John Galloway posted details on the loband feature of library at http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2008/08/30/msdn-low-bandwidth-bookmarklet.aspx.

Based on your feedback on the above posts we have launched a beta version of new loband experience fo our Library.

Mechanics behind loband experience:

Loband pages allow no script and are designed to improve page load performance for our long haul international users.  We currently support the following views in the library to change the presentation for different devices:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library(loband)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library(ide)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library(pda)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library(robot)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library(printer) 

For the loband view we use a cookie and for the Help viewer (ide) and other views we rely on the user agent.  Our current logic is to honor the user agent string over the cookie setting. Loband is High Value for Long Haul due to the following improvments:

1. Simpler Layout: Loband view replaces the navigation tree view on the left with a simpler layout.
2. Smaller Page Weight: With no scripts and controls we have trimmed the loband version page weight by 80%.
3. Faster Page Load: Less than 1 second load in most regions across the world compared to 3 to 7 seconds for a high bandwidth view.
4. Improved Navigation for API documentation: I have screen shots below for System.xml page as an example for the improved navigation.
5. Discoverability for non-english users: I have screen shots below for Japanese pages of System.xml with discoverability features.
6. Feedback Link: We have added "feedback" link on the loband pages to get your input for future improvements.

The following System.xml pages provide the new TOC navigation for API pages:

• Navigate to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml(loband).aspx in your browser 

• Click on NameTable Class link on the TOC. The Class page TOC is displayed between MSDN Home and System.xml Namespace TOC for improved navigation.

Launched! Subscriptions Manage/My Account User Interface

The Library Experience (LEX) team is proud to announce the release of the updated Subscriptions Benefits Portal Manage/My Account user interface.  In addition to the user interface changes, the notion of subscription super-setting is now introduced.   Super-setting allows users with more than one subscription to see their entire product download and product key entitlements without the notion of a default subscription.  Ultimately, this makes benefit access more intuitive and reduces customer confusion with multiple accounts. 

Additions to the Manage Page include the following:

Account Information

·         Subscription

·         Program

·         Channel

·         Subscription Status (Active, Expired)

Customer information

·         Ship to Country

Support Contacts (via PASCO)

·         Retail and/or Volume License support information determined from account settings

·         Regional support information determined from account settings

To view the page, click on one of the following:

MSDN - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/manage/default.aspx

TechNet - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/manage/default.aspx

You must have an MSDN/TechNet subscription associated with your Windows Live Id to view the page.

Anand..

MIX 09 - MSDN has a new look!

CodePlex is Two!

New MSDN,TechNet and Expressions Subscriptions UX Re-Launched

We have taken a bunch of your feedback and last night we updated the UX for downloads for MSDN, TechNet and Expression subscriptions.

You can read the entire update post from Chris Deluca who leads the development team for the Subscriptions site and platform @ http://blogs.msdn.com/msdnsubscriptions/archive/2008/07/30/new-and-improved-subscriber-download-ui-is-live.aspx

Please add your feedback and comments to Chris's post, we want to hear from you!

Check it out @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx 

Here is the update list of features...

The following list summarizes the features and improvements in the new UI in this release:

·         The “twitchy” fly-out menu with the strange mouse behavior is gone.  RIP.

·         The product list is categorized. This was the most commonly requested organization structure. 

·         The table of contents has been flattened from three levels to two so finding products will be easier. 

·         The list of products can be narrowed easily by using the search filter. 

·         You can find products by using the filtered search or by browsing the table of contents. 

·         You can now search on part of a product name, e.g. “2007,” or on the name of an edition, e.g. “Ultimate” (as in Windows Vista Ultimate or Microsoft Office Ultimate).

·         If a file contains more than one product edition, the names of the editions are listed in plain view. 

·         File downloading, key related tasks, and product information are provided on the same page so you will no longer have to navigate from one page where you search for a product to another where you download files and claim keys. And if you encounter an error on the site, you’ll no longer be taken to a separate error page.

·         File downloading, key related tasks, and relevant information can be seen in a single row so you’ll no longer have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find product keys.

·         Download sizes are displayed prominently so you can see how big the file is before you initiate the download.

·         You can now sort product files by the date they were updated, or by their availability based on your subscription level. 

·         The site will “remember” your last settings for media type, e.g. “DVD,” and architecture, e.g. “x86.”  If no files match your settings, the site will automatically suggest less-restrictive settings.

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for the MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure and Services Team

New Subscriber Downloads Mock-ups

We want your feedback!

Check out the new Mockups for the MSDN Subscriber Site for the interface for managing your subscription and downloads with MSDN.

We value your feedback and you can interact with team directly @ http://blogs.msdn.com/msdnsubscriptions/pages/more-info-please.aspx

Thanks in Advance,

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for the MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure and Services Team

MSDN: "The Highlander" and there will be only one!

Building and evolving the MSDN site is a challenge. I am not stating this to try to impress you with a “gee that is hard" vibe, but to acknowledge that when you run systems and sites that have histories that span multi-year life cycles (decades wrt MSDN <g/>), you have a whole different responsibility to the people who depend worldwide on what you do. Even the simplest, flip decision can have impact on the productivity of people who make their living supporting, implementing, writing applications and defending your efforts. We take this responsibility very seriously and it is imperative that we make the best decisions to keep developers minimally impacted by things we do on MSDN in the Library and still move productivity forward.

We set out on journey to re-build MSDN (and now TechNet and Expression as we have on-boarded their businesses to our platform) as a data driven system that could scale to the large amount of documents that we knew it would house over time. These plans pushed us faster than we even imagined as Visual Studio became a juggernaut of release candidates, community technical previews and beta's with each documentation release needing us to be more flexible and performant. Today the MSDN system houses around 11 million documents in SQL Server.

We started the new system to release with Visual Studio 2005 and it has progressed a great deal in that time. I will blog on that in another post. One of the persistent issues that was hanging out there and bugged you and really bugged me, was the continued existence of the classic MSDN cluster that housed a mixed bag of older, localized library content and other disparate sites that had not been orginally prioritized to migrate to the new system when we built MSDN2. The good news is that we applied some folks from the team who are really good at being persistent and they managed to work with the teams and get all the content migrated and off the old system. Yesterday we shut off the old cluster and today we finished the collapse of the URL into just http://MSDN.Microsoft.com!

Now all URL’s point to the same site and same content.

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/
• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/
• http://www.msdn.com/

My apologies for the time it took to finish this and I look forward to your feedback. 

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for the MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure and Services Team

New Controls and the Wiki Annotation Editor

The Telerik Editor is now implemented as the Wiki Annotation Editor across the MSDN and TechNet libraries. You can see a sample by clicking here...

Here is the our release status…

Community Content: Telerik Editor (replaces inline custom editor)

This work involved moving the new Telerik Prometheus HTML editor (see www.telerik.com for more details) into MTPS rendering and using it to replace the custom inline editor for Community Content.  In addition to a great WYSIWYG editing experience, all of our controls have been updated to improve page load performance and we have added support for the MTPS Code snippet control which will provide users a similar code markup and syntax highlighting that library pages currently enjoy as well as the "copy code" functionality.  We also gave a new clean look and feel to the Community Content controls.

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for the MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure and Services Team

Upcoming "Friends of MSDN/TechNet Library Garage" Event in Bellevue, WA

Please head on over and join the "Friends of the MSDN Library" facebook group as we will be sending out invitations shortly!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16125221070

We are hosting a Feedback and Garage event on Thursday, July 31st in Bellevue to show the latest design comps and updates to make the MSDN Library fresh and more productive.

We will focus on...

---------------------------------- 

• Quality of Service - Our measurements and architecture changes to improve the speed and caching of the MSDN Library around the world. 
• Library 3.0 - New design comps and presentation on the next generation of the MSDN Library 
• Services - We will show the thinking on the RESTian model for integration services for MSDN. We will show Package This! and a prototype caching application for Technical Documentation.
• MSDN WorkPlace - Our new system for submission of articles from the Community into MSDN and TechNet

 And more...

• Food!
• Swag!
• Beer!

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for the MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure and Services Team

New Package This! - Supports Community Content

You can take it with you!

The new 1.3 version of version of Package This! Now supports exporting Community Content to .hxs and .chm files. It is  also simplified into a single .exe.

You can download from CodePlex @ http://www.codeplex.com/packagethis/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=12172

Package This is a GUI tool written in C# for creating help files (.chm and .hxs) from the content obtained from the MSDN Library or the TechNet Library via the MSDN Content Service. You select the content you want from the table of contents, build a help file, and use the content offline. You are making personalized ebooks of MSDN or TechNet content. Both help file formats also give full text search and keyword search.

The Community Content feed is @ http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/community-edits(rss).aspx

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for the MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure and Services Team

Interested in Helping us Shape the Next Version of the MSDN Library?

We have put a facebook group together to aggregate together the folks who want to work with us to provide feedback, usability and ideas for the next generation of the MSDN Library. We call this project Library 3.0 and we will be organizing events and presentations from this group to bring us together on the project. My goal is build quorum of members over the next months with kickoff’s in late May for the first events.

Join the “Friends of the MSDN Library” Group on facebook : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16125221070

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure Team

Invitation to MVP's attending the MVP Summit - Come Hear About our New Community Content System

Hello MVP's!

I invite you to attend our session on our brand new edge-based system and tools that supports the direct contribution of MVP Articles and Technical Documents to MSDN and TechNet Libraries.

TITLE: Help - MVP Publishing Opportunities on MSDN with WorkPlace
BR389
WHEN: Wednesday, April 16, 9:00 - 10:30
SPEAKERS: Steve Butler, Larry Jordan

Come hear about the new WorkPlace project that will transform your MVP relationship with MSDN. The leaders of MSDN will be showing the prototype of an upcoming capability for MSDN that will support MVP publishing into the MSDN Library and other cool features to enable your influence and customer impact for the Developer Audience on MSDN.

• RSVP though our facebook event:  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10425053871
• Join the MSDN Group on facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15930920331
• Add MSDN to you LinkedIn profile:  http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/38395/3A04480F886E

Swag shots for the talk...

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure Team

New Forums 3.0 Launches

Sam makes note on the new Forums 3.0 software launched for the Community 1.0 platform. Lots of hard work here, check it out.

Larry W Jordan Jr - Product Unit Manager for MSDN and TechNet Infrastructure Team