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The new MSDN web site

When I was searching for some MSDN links for Whidbey stuff in http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/library last night, I was redirected to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/default.aspx.

I am really impressed by the new site.

Now you can use "http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/<namespace>.aspx" to get the documents for a particular namespace. For example, I reference System.Reflection quite a lot. So I type http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/System.Reflection.aspx, all the documents for classes under System.Reflection are right there.

This is what MSDN team called "URL aliases".

Aliases also works for classes. To look for documentation of System.Reflection.Assembly class, I will simply type http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/System.Reflection.Assembly.aspx.

This is superb work done by MSDN team!

<Update> I can't believe this. It actually works with properties and methods as well. Like http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/System.Reflection.Assembly.FullName.aspx. This is too good to be true.</update>

Published Monday, September 13, 2004 11:16 PM by junfeng
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Comments

# New MSDN web site for Visual Studio 2005 Beta

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:26 AM by Without you around

# Updated MSDN Site...This is Good Stuff

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 4:45 AM by protected virtual void jayBlog {

# Updated MSDN Site...Nice

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 5:00 AM by protected virtual void jayBlog {

# re: The new MSDN web site

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 2:38 AM by Teucer
I made an observation.

Goto the Class Library page - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/d11h6832.aspx

and then click the System.Collections link. It takes you to an error page.

but use the URL Alias feature it takes you to the right location :)

# New MSDN = REALLY cool

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 9:52 AM by .net DElirium

# re: The new MSDN web site

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 8:23 AM by Chris Sells
The .aspx suffix is optional, i.e. the following works just as well:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/System.Reflection.Assembly.FullName

# MSDN redesign

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:22 PM by Random .NET Ramblings

# re: The new MSDN web site

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 9:27 AM by Tim
The URL alias mechanism is a new feature we added for this early release of our new online infrastructure. It's designed to work for every managed API page, but it isn't fully implemented yet. Here are some observations:

It will work for namespaces as long as they have a '.' in them. So it won't work for the System, Microsoft, etc. namespaces. This is a bug that will be fixed.

It should work for all class names. It will work for *SOME* property and method names. We tried to get all of them working, but ran into some issues, so we had to drop some for this early release. The plan is to make it work for all fields/properties/methods, including overloads. Note that you have to reference the member on it's defining type. Inherited members are not exposed with an alias on the derived type unless they are overridden. This is simply the nature of the doc structure.

You can also get to the list of methods, properties, fields or all members, but appending the appropriate value, like this:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/System.Reflection.Assembly_Members

As Chris noted, the .aspx is optional.

Finally, the database behind this is not yet optimized for this sort of access. That will happen in a future release. So be patient if alias resolution takes a little longer than short id based lookups.

Finally, note one other feature. The URL's you navigate to use short ids instead of file paths. This is the first concrete step toward keeping API URLs stable over time.

Enjoy. :-)

Tim Ewald
MSDN Program Manager Lead

# re: The new MSDN web site

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 10:16 AM by Sean Gephardt
A lot of great work was done by Tim and his team on this version of MSDN. I hope everyone digs the improvements! I know I enjoyed putting the UI together!

# MSDN2 Library URLs

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 9:07 AM by XML-BLOG
Tim Ewald and company are doing a wonderful job of overhauling the MSDN website. One benefit we can see right away is in accessing the documentation for the BCL. The news broke over at Junfeng Zhng's blog. See the comments for all the details, but suffice it to say that...

# re: The new MSDN web site

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 6:08 AM by Christian Romney
Any chance we'll see some sample code for the HttpModule (assuming that's how you did it)? :)

# MSDN Alpha Available

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 1:32 PM by CraigBlog

# re: The new MSDN web site

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 2:28 PM by dotnetjunkie
Tim, can you PLEASE elaborate on how this URL aliasing system was done?
I'm sure many asp.net developers would be interested in seeing an article/sample about this! (and I definitely want to implement it in my sites!)

# MSDN2

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 8:24 PM by O Blog do Cruz

# MSDN2

Thursday, September 16, 2004 1:43 PM by Dave Donaldson's Blog

# MSDN2

Thursday, September 16, 2004 1:43 PM by Dave Donaldson's Blog

# re: The new MSDN web site

Thursday, September 16, 2004 4:05 PM by Michael TUrner
This is pretty sweet. Good job on making things easier. I know I'll be using it. One knock though on the interface; I'd like to see it work better in Mozilla Firefox. Keep up the good work.

# MSDN2

Friday, September 17, 2004 3:30 AM by Stefan Bodewig
Junfeng Zhang points to a beta of an overhaul of MSDN. I've been accessing the .NET class library docs at MSDN quite a bit over the past weeks and always thought it was rather hard to navigate - in particular when compared to the Javadocs I was used

# re: The new MSDN web site

Tuesday, September 21, 2004 12:33 AM by Christophe Pichaud
Great and beautiful.
The old-devmentor men are back !

Christophe Pichaud - CPi21 LLC.

# MSDN just keeps getting better - smart urls!

Wednesday, September 22, 2004 9:38 AM by Eric Nelson

# re: The new MSDN web site

Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:08 PM by Nick Parker
Just to let you know, I have recently written an IE toolbar add-in that will allow you to type your .NET namespace into it and you will be redirected to the new MSDN documentation. You can read about it here:

http://www.codeproject.com/tools/netnamespace.asp

-Nick Parker

# re: The new MSDN web site

Thursday, September 30, 2004 9:42 PM by Junfeng Zhang
Great!

This did inspire some good uses of it:)

# Junfeng Zhang s Windows Programming Notes The new MSDN web site | Paid Surveys

Friday, May 29, 2009 12:12 PM by Junfeng Zhang s Windows Programming Notes The new MSDN web site | Paid Surveys

PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=junfeng-zhang-s-windows-programming-notes-the-new-msdn-web-site

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