Kathleen's Weblog

Documentation Feedback at PDC

I’m at PDC in Los Angeles this week, collecting feedback about the Visual Studio and .NET Framework documentation. Between handing out surveys, I’m interviewing customers about how they find the help they need. So far, just about everyone I’ve talked to is using the Visual Studio/.NET Framework documentation in the MSDN Library; but how they get there may differ.  The biggest improvement request is for us to include more code examples in our documentation. 

Do you agree? Do you have other feedback about the documentation that you’d like to share with us?  Talk to me at PDC, or take the online Visual Studio and .NET Framework Content Survey

--Kathleen

Lists in F#

In this video interview, Gordon Hogenson explains lists in F# and demos the functionality. You can also learn more in the topic Lists (F#).

See the video: Lists in F#

--Kathleen

New MSDN Library Views

I  interviewed Mark D’Urso, a Senior Development Lead on the Library Experience team, about the new views available in the MSDN Library:

• Lightweight view

• ScriptFree view

• Classic view

Watch the video:  New MSDN Library Views

--Kathleen

Microsoft Help Viewer - New Help System in Visual Studio 2010

I recently interviewed Ryan Linton, a Senior Program Manager on the Library Experience team, about the new Help system in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.  He demonstrates the new browser-based Help viewer, and how you can update content locally.

Watch the video:  Microsoft Help Viewer

--Kathleen

Discriminated Unions in F#

In this video interview, Gordon Hogenson explains discriminated unions in F# and demos the functionality. You can also learn more in the topic Discriminated Unions (F#)

See the video: Discriminated Unions in F#

--Kathleen

Creating a Web Part for SharePoint by Using a Designer

In Part II of my interview with Norm Estabrook, he shows us how to create a Web Part using Visual Studio. This demo is based on his Help topic: Walkthrough: Creating a Web Part for SharePoint by Using a Designer.

See the video: Creating a Web Part Using Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

--Kathleen

Embedding Type Information from Microsoft Office Assemblies

Mick Alberts, a technical editor on the Visual Studio User Education team, created a video demo about embedding type information into an application that uses Automation objects from Microsoft Office. This video is based on a Visual Studio Help topic.

Take a look at the video: Embedding Type Information from Microsoft Office Assemblies

I’ll be posting more video demos based on Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 documentation over the next several weeks. If you haven’t already done so, please give us feedback on the documentation by taking the Visual Studio and .NET Framework Content Survey

--Kathleen

Creating an External List in SharePoint by Using Business Data

With the release of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, I continue showing you new features by interviewing writers on User Education team.  Since I’m at the SharePoint conference, it seems fitting to start out with a SharePoint demo.

In this video, Norm Estrabrook shows you how to create an external list in SharePoint. Following the steps in his Help topic, Norm first creates a model for the BDC service that returns information about contacts in a sample database; then he shows you how to create the external list in SharePoint and display the contacts.

See the Video:  Creating an External List in SharePoint by Using Business Data

--Kathleen

Visual Studio and .NET Framework Content Survey

Help us improve the developer documentation by taking the Visual Studio and .NET Framework Content Survey.  This survey will give us a better understanding of the type of applications you are developing as well as how you use Help and how we can improve it. The survey takes only 10 minutes, and we appreciate your feedback!

--Kathleen

Named and Optional Arguments in Office Development Using C#

In this video demo, I show you how to add text to a document and then convert it to a table, without using all sixteen parameters that are possible with the ConvertToTable method. 

See the Video: How to Use Named and Optional Arguments in Office Programming (C#)

You can learn more in the overview of this feature, or follow along step-by-step.

--Kathleen

Binding WPF Controls to an Entity Data Model

As a continuation of featuring data binding in WPF, this is part 2 of an interview with McLean Schofield, a programming writer on the Visual Studio User Education team. In this interview, he demonstrates the steps in his Help topic on how to bind WPF controls to an entity data model.

See the Video: Binding WPF Controls to an Entity Data Model

--Kathleen

Lambda Expressions in C++

This week’s featured topic is Lambda Expressions in C++.  I interviewed Thomas Petchel, a programming writer on the Visual Studio User Education team, who describes the new Lambda Expressions in C++ and demonstrates how to use them instead of using function pointers and function objects.

See the Video:  Lambda Expressions in C++

--Kathleen

Video: Copying a Document to the End User Computer after a ClickOnce Installation

This week, I’m featuring the topic Walkthrough: Copying a document to the end user computer after a ClickOnce Installation of an Office solution. As a continuation of an earlier interview, programming writer Mary Lee demonstrates how to deploy an Office solution and implement a post-deployment action that copies a document to the end user's desktop.

See Video: Copying a Document to the End User Computer after a ClickOnce Installation

--Kathleen

Video: Active Patterns (F#)

As a continuation of featuring patterns in F#, this is part 2 of an interview with programming writer, Gordon Hogenson. In this interview he describes Active Patterns, which can be used to customize and extend F#’s pattern matching capabilities. 

See the Video: Active Patterns

--Kathleen

Video: Using Patterns and Match Expressions in F#

This week, I’m featuring the topics: Patterns and Match Expressions.  I interviewed Gordon Hogenson, a programming writer on the Visual Studio User Education team, who walks us through some of standard patterns in F#, and he also explains the use of the match expression to control branching based on patterns in data.

See the Video: Patterns and Match Expressions in F#

--Kathleen