New help system for 2010 is suck! That team sucks! SP1 is not good too

Question

The worst product I have ever used! document explorer is worse than chm. And now, you make me have to use the worst product in the world! ____ you all, the help system team! See my relpy for sp1

Answer 1

Don't mince words. Tell us how you really feel ;-)

Answer 2

Hi Anonymous12965,

Maybe you're interested to try H3Viewer?

http://blog.meidianto.com/2010/05/10/vs2010-tips-4-h3viewer-alternative-visual-studio-2010-help-viewer/

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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
Ferry Meidianto | My Blog

Answer 3

Hi Anonymous12965,

I am moving this thread from Base "Visual Studio Setup and Installation" forum to the "Developer Documentation and Help System" forum, since the issue is related to Visual Studio documentation. There are more documentation experts in the "Developer Documentation and Help System" forum.

Thank.

Best regards,
Yichun Chen
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact [e-mail]

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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
Welcome to the All-In-One Code Framework! If you have any feedback, please tell us.

Answer 4

I think the alternative Ferry mentioned is beautiful and there are also some extensions for Help system out there such as HelpViewerKeywordIndex: http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/news/helpviewerkeywordindexvs2010ext

Hope it help.

Thanks.

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Figo Fei
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum
If you have any feedback on our support, please contact [e-mail] 

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 5

I agree.  This is VERY disappointing.  I use Google to find MSDN content, now I have to use it along with other tools to use help.  Does anyone at Microsoft understand how bad this is or care?

Answer 6

Absolutely agree that this new msdn online help is horrid.  I won't go into details because it is obvious there is no priority here - if this group does not care why should I?

Answer 7

Hmm. "the group" is not careing? Who is the group? I think most people really cared. And I remember the blog posting (I think it was the time of beta 1) when someone of the development team wrote something and there was pages of comments about how ____ it is. (I came to that page because i started searching on the net because the help was really bad!)

And then I saw the comment of Rob. Something like "Heya - I had a look at this system and played around and here you find my small tool".  At least I have something like that in my memories.

That way I learned, that the Help System is not that bad.

Ok, you are unlucky. You do not want to go into detail. OK for me. But you cannot expect any help from us. You can give Microsoft names like mad. But I fear that neither Microsaoft not we are really interested in that.

So: What problems do oyu have? Did you try the solutions? Did they fit your needs or what is missing? Heya - People are very active in this forum (e.g. Rob!) so come on. Tell him, what is that bad. I am sure that he is really open for any suggestions!

And the old system was better? I don't think so. It was the ____ for me. I used it on a Siemens Fujitsu H270 - so a Notebook but not a bad one. And the worst thing that could happen was "press F1 in Visual Studio" => "ARGH .. OK ... I go and grab a coffee ... hmm ... still not responding ... ok ... I go to a colleague and talk to them .... ohh ... still not responding ... I take some fresh air .... AHH ... Finally Visual Studio is back to life and MSDN is open." Ok, it wasn't that bad but sitting about 5 minutes around with a locked Visual Studio is ____ when you want to do some work!

In my eyes, H3Viewer is a great thing. My colleague used it, too but he switched now to some other tool that is "more lightweight" ... (Sorry, I do not remember. It is also in this Visual Studio Gallery)

So yes: I expected such a tool from Microsoft. Giving us such a simple webpage is notm what I would name a "good job". But the backend system seems to be improved! (Much better than the old one, but I am not an expert. I just read some pages on Robs site and with the information from him, it seems to be a step in the right direction.)

And I remember all these MSDn Library Downloads in the past. Another point, where the development went into the right direction: Simply download upgrades through the net!

But that was just me 2 cent. So maybe you just start a new thread in here with problems that you have and what you have tried to far. So maybe we cen help you a little.

With kind regards,

Konrad

Answer 8

Sorry Konrad -- by group I mean the MSFT group which is probably User Education or somewhere in msdn.

The forum contributors, such you yourself, are great!

Paul

Answer 9

Hi Paul,

I wasn't offended or so. I agree that it is a shame that 3rd party tools are required for a "good user experience" with the help system, but with these help tools, it seems to be quite good for me. So if you have problems with the help system, there might be a big chance, that someone could help you.

(My last answer was quite long. Sometimes I simply tend to chat a little bit. Esp when I remember some nice experiences in the past... I hope people forgive me. I think I am far from beeing the oldest in here but I fear that I am also far far away from beeing the youngest. And men tend to tell stories when they get old :) And sorry - my daughter is still to young to give me grand childs whom I could tell stories all day - what a pity for the MSDN forum :) )

With kind regards,

Konrad

Edit: Removed at least some spelling mistakes ...

Answer 10

I tried H3Viewer and the Power Tools Extensions. Neither of them respond to the F1 key - that is, Help always opens in new tab in the browser, which is very irritating. There is obviously something wrong with the native Help when the first thing everyone does is install a 3rd-party tool to make it work.

Answer 11

When you start H3Viewer with administrative rights, you could make it the default browser. Inside the Options Menu you find the topic "Set Default Viewer for MS HV 1.0".

In there I find a lot of options (and I set it to H3Viewer, because that is my prefered help viewer). I am still using the version 43 (shame on me!) but I think that this point will not be very different to version 59. But I will install the latest version now and check that.

But keep in mind: You have to start it with administrative rights to set the default browser because a key in the registry must be set (So it is a system wide setting! SOmething that is also not that nice. In my eyes it should be a user setting.)

If you wantt o do it manually; The Registry Key is HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Help\v1.0\HelpViewerProgID.

And regarding your large sentence: Yes, I agree fully on it. The frontend is a shame as it comes out of the box.

I hope that helped a little.

With kind regards,

Konrad

 

Answer 12

To add to Kondra's helpful advice...

Yes use the H3Viewer Options menu to set the default viewer for HV 1.0. Read the popup directions carefully. They will tell you that you must restart MS Help Agent (Windows taskbar tray app), before you can see the changes. I don't think you will need to restart VS 2010.

If you get stuck please let us know.

Rob

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Rob Chandler http://Helpware.net

Answer 13

 

The Visual Studio “Help” team have been hard at work over the last several months since Visual Studio 2010 was released. Over the beta period prior to release and since the release, we have had a significant amount of feedback driving for a more familiar Help experience to what we shipped in previous versions of Visual Studio. To that end, we have been developing an offline client help viewer - similar in some respects to Document Explorer (Dexplore.exe) that shipped with previous versions of Visual Studio.

 

Jeff Braaten, Director of Program Management for the Library Experience team which owns the Visual Studio Help Experience, has drafted some blog posts that both tell the story of how we got to where we are today and highlight some of the changes that you should expect to see in SP1. Part 1 offers a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of our new help system. Part 2 is an overview of the help experience delivered with Visual Studio 2010. Part 3 offers a sneak preview of changes coming to the help experience in Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

 

Paul O’Rear, a Program Manager that owns the Partner Engagement story for the Library Experience team, has also drafted a blog post that outlines what the impact is for Visual Studio Industry Partners (VSIP).

 

In addition, both blogs point to a short video that Paul recorded which demonstrates the new features in the Help viewer that you can expect in SP1.

 

As always, the Library Experience team would very much welcome your feedback. You can feel free to send feedback via the Help Feedback alias ([e-mail]), or to simply leave comments on the various blog posts.

 

We look forward to hearing from you!

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Paul O'Rear Library Experience (LEX) Microsoft Corporation http://blogs.msdn.com/TheHelpGuy

Answer 14

Thanks for providing this info.

As you folks go through this effort bear in mind that content is king. 

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RTX NET Developer Network http://rtxdn.inscriber.com/

Answer 15

Thanks for providing this info.

As you folks go through this effort bear in mind that content is king. 

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RTX NET Developer Network http://rtxdn.inscriber.com/

To the info Paul presented:

If we get results like "Results for 1-10 of about 25170 for...", it means we have to move through 2500 pages. This is because there is no way to filter through the results or sort them by date or anything else. Content is non-existent if you can't find it.

The problem that prompted the anonymous response is that there shouldn't have been a need for someone to develop a 3rd-party help viewer in the first place. If you didn't have the resources to develop a replacement for the previous version that the average person would conside "an upgrade", then you shouldn't have dumped the previous version. I can't see how the management team would think that a totally featureless system (read no table of contents, no index, no filtering) would be an improvement.

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Ed

Answer 16

Let's all move on.

This is great news Paul. I like the viewer.

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 17

I love this thread. I used VS 2010 for a quick project to decide if I want to "upgrade" from 2008 or not... When I was done, I quickly googled "visual studio 2010 help sucks". I tend to do this with things that really annoy me. Usually it's a fruitless exercise. In this case however it landed me squarely on this page. Love the keyword index extension. I will, however, wait for SP1 to move my team to the new version.

Answer 18

If you have a Visual Studio 2010 product installed, you can now install the Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta, which includes a new client Help viewer in place of the browser based experience that was shipped at VS 2010 RTM. For more specific information about how to install the beta and some Help viewer related details, please see the following blog post:

Test-drive the SP1 local Help Viewer

Let us know what you think!

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Paul O'Rear Library Experience (LEX) Microsoft Corporation http://blogs.msdn.com/TheHelpGuy

Answer 19

I don't really think a lot of people will care whether or not a new viewer has been created, or even that we will no longer have to deal with VS hijacking our browsers to display help. The bottom line is that the experience won't be that different from that of H3Viewer, and for a lot of us, the big gripe is the loss of an internal help viewer within the Visual Studio 2010 IDE. HelpViewerKeywordIndex helps with this somewhat, but there is still no workaround for displaying context based help (a la F1) within the IDE. Quite frankly, unless something was added at the last minute that hasn't been communicated outside of Microsoft, these SP1 changes won't change that.

 

My biggest frustration with the Visual Studio 2010 help system is having to needlessly switch between two different applications when it shouldn't be necessary. I work on a very large (single) monitor, so all that task switching is very disruptive to my work (and no, "just buy another monitor" isn't a valid response). If this had never been a feature of Visual Studio, that would be one thing, but this was something that has been in every version of Visual Studio since 2002, and in giving us one feature, Microsoft took away about 5 more. Quite frankly, more than anything else, I am very disappointed with Microsoft over this; I expected more from them. If they want to innovate and improve, fine, I get that, and I completely understand. But they shouldn't have released it until were ready to provide the solution without degrading the existing user experience. To do so (especially with how much was lost) just makes the whole solution look sloppy and rushed, regardless of how much of an overall improvement it may be technically. As much as I hated the dreaded "Merging Indexes" and 2 GB installations, I would have much rather had to deal with DExplorer for at least one more version if it meant I could have gotten a more baked solution later. At the very least, it was a familiar experience.

 

And the thing that I really don't understand? Since Visual Studio contains an embedded Web Browser, and the new help system was built to display in a browser, why wasn't it possible to just redirect the URL to Visual Studio? I mean, if I copy and paste the URL from the browser into Visual Studio, it displays the page just fine. So, it makes this whole business of having to use an external viewer appear even more unnecessary.

Answer 20

Hi Roy,

Hmm, what am I missing? In my Visual Studios I always had the MSDN Library as seperate application that started when pressing F1.

There was an setting to have the help INSIDE Visual Studio? I have missed that setting all the time (which mybe could have solved my issues regardings starttime of this crappy MSDN Library Application (And Visual Studio not responding till it was started!).

With kind regards,

Konrad

Answer 21

Yes in the past there was an option to embedded help or show as a separate window.

I can understand Roy's frustration when the tools of your trade keep continuously changing. We are getting to a stage in Software evolution where companies need to be more careful when changing UX. Users don't tolerate this well any more.

My own preference is help in a separate window. But there will be many users who miss embedded help.

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 22

Hi Rob,

I never saw this embedded help in the past. So I am just wondering if that would have been the solution to my problem in the past: The MSDN Library needed a long time (multiple minutes!) to start up and in this time Visual Studio didn't respond. And each Visual Studio instance started it's own MSDN Library ...  That was something that really annoyed me in the past.

But I think I does not matter. The chance is very low, that I will ever install an older version of Visual Studio again.

Thank you for the clarification and I can understand this view, too (even if it was new to me after all the years with Visual Studio ...)

With kind regards,

Konrad

Answer 23

I almost forget I posted a thread here. I'm using online msdn with classic type these month.

I'm very glad to see the improvemences in sp1. I'll try it once Microsoft put it on msdn.

Every team would be hard at work in its projects. But that's doesn't mean I would pay money for VS and expect to get a mess. Although we'll get a good enought version after months, who pay for these months?

And windows sdk changes to the suck help system too. Good job, ms vs help team!

Answer 24

Got here by googling "Visual Studio 2010 help sucks".

Because it does.

What the heck were they thinking?

 

Answer 25

You did get SP1? With SP1 Microsoft fixed this "issue".

With kind regards,

Konrad

Answer 26

sp1 is not good too. I've installed all topics and make them updated. But I'm very disappoint for sp1

1. Where is web development? I wanna see cscript. This collection missed many content. I've to google it and get it from ms website.

2. Index slow, very slow. Every time you open index, you have to want for a few seconds. Is index created on every time I click?

3. Meaningless search result.

 

I'm very disappoint for vs 2010 help system and sp1.

All that the the help dev team need to do are DONING NOTHING. But the team mess things up.

Answer 27

And there are many mistakes in online document. The quality of msdn library is not as good as about ten years ago

Answer 28

It is really sad that the help system has degressed to what it currently is.  WinHelp32 was probably the best help system of all, with the best reference text, and all of the changes over the past 10+ years have done nothing but go down hill.  Microsoft needs to choose a system and stick with it.  Adding features, not rewritting the entire system and starting from scratch.  It takes at least 4 years for Microsoft to give us the help functionality that we had, when they change the system.

We were going to use VS 2010 for our current development projects, but as of today, we have decided to throw everything away and go back to VS 2008.  If the local help system mirrored the content of the Online MSDN Library, and worked with the context sensative help system, we would have stuck with it.  But, the local help system doesn't resemble the Online MSDN Library in any way.  If you ever get to that point, give us a buzz.  Until then, VS 2010 is nothing more than a paper weight on my desktop.

Answer 29

The WORST Help system. The search SUCKS!!!! It is amazing microsoft did not fix it even after so manu complaints. Do they really listen to customer???

Googling .net is much better than searching in 2010 help system.

Answer 30

Hi Svjrr
So that's not all that helpful. Could you actually list what you think are issues with the help?
I'd like to hear what you think "sucks". Given that VS SP1 is pretty much now a standard help system.

Personally I'm very happy with the choices.
The SP1 viewer is very good. If I don't like that I can use H3Viewer community offering.
And if still no joy finding the info I want I can flip to Google or Bing.

Also Help Viewer 1.0 is after all a first release and will be improved over time.
But it will only improve if people send in intelligent constructive reports to http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio 

Thanks
Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 31

 Terrible thing you change to a new version and the most important feature you need at this point is the help.

So I had the experience that  I installed inside a VM the old 2005 and use the help there. Sorry but this is typical for Microsoft introduce new not usable features and after several years when the features are useable find new not working things. Due to my Job I have to use 2010 but private I don't change to it.

Answer 32

Hi Bodger

Can you list things that you are unhappy with. I thought SP1 addressed most issues?

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 33

Hi,

I'm not Bobger or Bodger, but pretty close :)

Let me list the issues (I'm using local help that I downloaded):

1. I can find CreateWindow in the index.  But when I click sync with TOC, it is not found.  It seems like the Contents tree does not have that branch:  "Windows Application UI Development".  The fact that there is no error message is equivalent to saying:  "I won't do what you asked me to and I won't bother to tell you why."  The RTM browser help had good treeview but no index.  The SP1 help has index but a broken tree.

2. Let's say I goto help for printf, I notice that help mentions using _tprintf instead.  I select _tprintf and right click to copy the text so I can paste it into Visual Studio.  BUT, there is NO Copy command on the context menu so I can't copy the text.  There is a "View Source" command, because the developer of the Help Viewer thought I'm probably going to be very interested in viewing the HTML of the help page as opposed to trying get information from the help viewer into my source code.  I can try to do CTRL + C, but that does not always work - it depends on which pane has focus.

3. The back button on the Microsoft Explorer mouse works everywhere, EXCEPT on the content pane (or should I say pain).  So, if I want to go back, I need to move the mouse cursor to the left over the tree view and click the back button, but I can't do it over the contents that I'm viewing, scrolling, selecting, etc.

4.  Help viewer leaves multiple garbage files in the temp folder.  They number of files keeps growing and I have to clean them up once in a while.

5. Why is there a message balloon popping up when I view help?  Why is there an icon in the notification area?  Why is a "server" necessary for a help viewer?

6.  Help in Visual Studio 2008 was much better.  Why rewrite something that works?  Helping add-on vendors is a very poor reason to rewrite something.  The only things that needed improvement were:

 a) Add ability to create custom filters (So I could exclude Windows CE documention when searching Windows XP documention).  This used to be a feature in Visual C++ 4 or 5.  When this was taken out I was upset because the loss of this feature was a result of a rewrite too.

b) Try to fix the search feature

Answer 34

Bodger can you please post a report to http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio

It's important we get this kind of intelligent useful feedback to Microsoft.

My comments... 

1. TOC Sync - There is a fundamental problem that still needs to be addressed. 
    Here the pool of pages may contain different versions of the same page. But the TOC only has
    the VS 2010 version. Also some collections (.mshc help) do not dock into the main TOC because
    their root topic, parents into a topic that is not contained in the current TOC.

   Note that the H3Viewer will always Sync because it will add it in if not found.

2.  No text Copy command. Good point. Personally I've never had a problem Ctrl+C picking up the text.

3. Mouse Back button - Good MS need to hear this. Note: H3Viewer does support the Extra Mouse buttons.

4. No temp files clean up -- Good point.

5. Tray icon and popup -- Unusual implementation but it works. The server starts up and allows any browser to view help.
    Now that SP1 has gone back to a standard viewer so maybe this will change?

6. There were many other fundamental problems.
    - Merge was length and locked up the VS UI.
    - Help code was integrated into VS code. Now it's separate.
    - Help code was c++ now its C# so easier to maintain and more secure.
    - etc.

It will continue evolve especially if we get this type of report posted to connect.

Thanks!
Rob 

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 35

It will continue evolve especially if we get this type of report posted to connect.

 

Hey Rob,

I have to completely disagree here.  I am still waiting for a reply from Paul O'Rear (2 weeks late now), but the help system has done nothing but devolve over the past 13+ years.  The content has progressively gotten worse.  Features are continuosly, and slowly, taken away over time.  I have posted several different issues, of different types, on the Connect site, but the help issues still rename, unresolved.

Sincerely,
Bill

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Bill Bosacker's Blog @ http://www.openSourceC.org/

Answer 36

Hi Bill
You could try Paul again. I think he was on leave recently. I know he's very busy at present.

Here is my personally view...

Microsoft got all our feedback over the last decade+. All those complaints about the poor state of VS 200x Help. And I agree the complaints were valid. MS tried to fix VS 200x help, but the experience did seem to get worse instead of better. Fundamental problems such as the search experience and VS UI lock-ups during help merge were not fixed to customers satisfaction (but not for the lack of trying).

Around late 2007, early 2008 April Reagan submitted a proposal to Bill Gates and the Execs for funding to do a new help system. She cited all our numinous complaints (printed many of them out) and put forward that case for a new help project.

The project was approved and they started assembling a team. They went down a few avenues and eventually settled on a plan of attack. Those of us (external to MS) who were privy to these plans were satisfied with the new direction. Performance + Simplicity. The team were asked to commit to the VS 2010 release.

As you know 14 months ago (RTM) the VS 2010 help 1.0 release was met with mixed reactions. In fact many (eg this thread) were very vocal in showing their disappointment.  

So we often do need to make timely decisions without running everything past the customer, and version 1.0 releases are often not entirely satisfactory. 

Anyway to Microsoft's credit they worked hard to rectify the problems (this time working with customers and partners) and in March 2011 we saw the release Help Viewer 1.1.  It probably addressed 95% of the issues raised?

 

IMHO This new help system has made good progress since it's release only 14 months ago.

I know that they "do" listen to users. There is still some work to go (eg. Filters and C++ F1), but given that Google and Bing offer an excellent alternative I'm not going to let myself get upset if the new help is not 100% yet.

There is a saying "Rome wasn't built in a day". That's certainly true with complex software. The audience here should understand that!

I would ask that those who have allowed themselves to get worked up over the new help, step back and take a big breath. It's still progressing. Your requests and bug reports are being noted.

And like all things, if enough customers request a certain feature it will eventually be implemented. So keep posting suggestions. 

But sending abuse to Paul and the rest of the team (some have) is absolutely fruitless. Like all people they response much better if you leave out the death threats.  :-)

Rob

 

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 37

Rob,

Thank you very much for creating H3Viewer.  I like how you handle the creation of orphan TOC entries.  You mention that Microsoft rectified the problems with offline Help Viewer 1.1.  I think you're the one that rectified the problem.

Bogdan

 

Answer 38

Hey Rob,

I fully understand what you are saying, and where you are coming from, but it is nothing more than an excuse for Microsoft to release "for sale" products to the public that are no where near production quality.  It is now more than a year since VS 2010 was released and functionality wise it is still in an early beta state.  As developers, we pay Microsoft thousands of dollars annually to use their tools.  Does it seem right that we pay them thousands of dollars to beta test those tools?

The release of VS 2010 was a terrible mistake.  They should have just fixed the bugs in the VS 2008 UI, and upgraded it to support .NET 4.0, while at the same time working on VS 2012 (my new name for VS 2010).  As I stated in a blog post of mine, "VS 2010 is the Windows Vista of developer tools".  It was released way to early, in a semi-functional state, and touts features that are nice on the surface, but they are only window dressing.  They in no way make up for the functionality that is missing or malfunctioning.

Take it easy,
Bill

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Bill Bosacker's Blog @ http://www.openSourceC.org/

Answer 39

Thanks for explaining. Hopefully VS.Next will solve your problems (like Windows 7 solved Vista's problems).

For what I need VS 2010 works ok.

Cheers
Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 40

Thanks Bogdan

Glad someone finds H3Viewer useful.

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 41

Hi Anonymous12965,

Maybe you're interested to try H3Viewer?

http://blog.meidianto.com/2010/05/10/vs2010-tips-4-h3viewer-alternative-visual-studio-2010-help-viewer/

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Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
Ferry Meidianto | My Blog

All well and good but the MS Help Library Agent still starts and then STILL remains in the system tray! #

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? does it need to persist in the tray????????????????? 

Answer 42

 

The Visual Studio “Help” team have been hard at work over the last several months since Visual Studio 2010 was released. Over the beta period prior to release and since the release, we have had a significant amount of feedback driving for a more familiar Help experience to what we shipped in previous versions of Visual Studio. To that end, we have been developing an offline client help viewer - similar in some respects to Document Explorer (Dexplore.exe) that shipped with previous versions of Visual Studio.

 

Jeff Braaten, Director of Program Management for the Library Experience team which owns the Visual Studio Help Experience, has drafted some blog posts that both tell the story of how we got to where we are today and highlight some of the changes that you should expect to see in SP1. Part 1 offers a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of our new help system. Part 2 is an overview of the help experience delivered with Visual Studio 2010. Part 3 offers a sneak preview of changes coming to the help experience in Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

 

Paul O’Rear, a Program Manager that owns the Partner Engagement story for the Library Experience team, has also drafted a blog post that outlines what the impact is for Visual Studio Industry Partners (VSIP).

 

In addition, both blogs point to a short video that Paul recorded which demonstrates the new features in the Help viewer that you can expect in SP1.

 

As always, the Library Experience team would very much welcome your feedback. You can feel free to send feedback via the Help Feedback alias ([e-mail]), or to simply leave comments on the various blog posts.

 

We look forward to hearing from you!

---

Paul O'Rear Library Experience (LEX) Microsoft Corporation http://blogs.msdn.com/TheHelpGuy

Why does the ms Help Library Agent persist in the system tray when finished with? Please I would love to hear a valid reason for it. I could understand if there was an option for those wanting it to persist (whatever for I have no idea), I can understand why it would persist while vs2010 is still running... but afterwards? There should be an option to close the Help Lib Assistant when vs2010 closes.

MS apps are so bad for adding un-necessary services and "cr*p" to them that I have had to resort in writing "Starter" apps for them e.g. the starter app starts vs2010 and monitors the exe, if it doesn't find it then it shuts down all the associated services and apps (cr*p) and then shuts itself down.

I sometimes think MS are attempting to slow PC's down as much as possible for the pure hell of it. It seems like the chip producers (Intel etc) make faster and faster chips and MS find it a challange to slow it down to a crawl.

Answer 43

Thanks for providing this info.

As you folks go through this effort bear in mind that content is king. 

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RTX NET Developer Network http://rtxdn.inscriber.com/

Only if you can find the relevant content and you don't get so p*ssed off looking that you are forced to use another development platform.

Answer 44

Let's all move on.

This is great news Paul. I like the viewer.

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

I am guessing you don't do any development with vs2010 then?

Answer 45

The MS Help Library Agent has to start because that is the component which provides the help. The viewer is just a viewer of content that the Agent provides.

And it keeps running because it is a simple small app and the startup simply delays the development work. Compare it to a Webserver: The webserver cannot know if another request is comming soon or not. So shutting down the agent will cause trouble (or at least a lot of delays).

With kind regards,

Konrad

Answer 46

It is really sad that the help system has degressed to what it currently is.  WinHelp32 was probably the best help system of all, with the best reference text, and all of the changes over the past 10+ years have done nothing but go down hill.  Microsoft needs to choose a system and stick with it.  Adding features, not rewritting the entire system and starting from scratch.  It takes at least 4 years for Microsoft to give us the help functionality that we had, when they change the system.

We were going to use VS 2010 for our current development projects, but as of today, we have decided to throw everything away and go back to VS 2008.  If the local help system mirrored the content of the Online MSDN Library, and worked with the context sensative help system, we would have stuck with it.  But, the local help system doesn't resemble the Online MSDN Library in any way.  If you ever get to that point, give us a buzz.  Until then, VS 2010 is nothing more than a paper weight on my desktop.

 

Exactly, I couldn't agree more.

Answer 47

Hmm. Rob is not just using VS 2010 - he even provided us a great tool called H3Viewer (which was already available when the Beta2 was out ... or even at Beta1? Did I miss your tool at that time Rob?).

I can understand a lot critism. But I even used the help system offline successfully without SP1 (with H3Viewer of course). Yes, it can still be improved. But rating it as unuseable is simply to harsh and thousands of developers proove that it can be used.

I don't want to miss VS 2010 / .Net 4.0 - there are so many improvements I do not want to miss.

Just my 2 cent.

Konrad

Answer 48

Hmm. Rob is not just using VS 2010 - he even provided us a great tool called H3Viewer (which was already available when the Beta2 was out ... or even at Beta1? Did I miss your tool at that time Rob?).

I can understand a lot critism. But I even used the help system offline successfully without SP1 (with H3Viewer of course). Yes, it can still be improved. But rating it as unuseable is simply to harsh and thousands of developers proove that it can be used.

I don't want to miss VS 2010 / .Net 4.0 - there are so many improvements I do not want to miss.

Just my 2 cent.

Konrad

Konrad,

I responded to your reponse on another thread, but your statement above verifies the fact that you are only using a very small portion of VS and the help system.  Either that, or you just haven't noticed that more than 90% of the help pages have vanashed.  Absolutely none of the Web Development files are available offline.  A fact confirmed by Paul O'Rear.  The viewer itself is not the current issue, as it works pretty much like the H3Viewer now.  It is the contents of the MSDN Library that has been compromised and is of great concern.

Good day,
Bill

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Bill Bosacker's Blog @ http://www.openSourceC.org/

Answer 49

Bill,

please read the thread. This thread covers the Help Viewer. Paul talks about tne new viewer. Rob likes the new viewer ...

Nothing is said about the content and how much content is missing and how much content is available. That point is mentioned now by you and I never doubted it. And I also hope that Microsoft will release more and more documentation over the time and I start the Help Library Manager quite often just to check for updates / new packages to install.

But that is some other point. If you or Rimsey1 complain about that I would even agree. (Or I would try to help a little with package this which is - as you know - not a so good working solution!)

And my answeres are always a little like the original post. If others like to use the word idiot or states that some people are brainless or so, then parts of that may influence my answer, too ... Sorry, but I am just a human beeing.

Konrad

 

Answer 50

Moved my latest thoughts to the end of the page for easier viewing and continued chat.

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 51

Hey Rob,

That is pretty much how the old help system was setup, and I agree that it made much more sense than what we currently have.  The original MSDN Library was basically a bunch of independant books bound together in one repository.  On a side note for those of us who need or want to download the entire library, like we used to be able to, it would be nice if there was an update system in place (like Windows Update) that would automatically check for updates on a schedule that is configurable (i.e. weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc.), with the same options as Windows Update.

Thanks,
Bill

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Bill Bosacker's Blog @ http://www.openSourceC.org/

Answer 52

Enjoying our little chats. I just submitted the following to the help team (anyone can submit ideas via connect or directly to the LEX team PMs).

IMHO I think MSDN Library has grown rapidly and needs a overhaul.

One solution.... Develop the Book view.

1. Slice up MSDN Library into books (same as a real library) - At the moment we have more a sea of single topics loosely held in context by links and an enormous TOC. The UX would be much enhanced by a book view.
2. The nightly build should generate a .mshc file for every MSDN library book, and make them all available for download (by web and HLM).
   Many users are currently frustrated that only a small proportion of MSDN Library is available offline. The download should be available from the online book cover page (a more logical place for some than Help Library Manager app).
   Also generate a PDF of the book for printing and devices without Help Viewer. Personally I don’t think I have a use for building my own PDFs from selected individual pages.
3. Allow the user to scope down to the Book level (TOC/Index/Search just for a particular book -- Online or Offline). More natural. Easier to find content in the book. Less clutter.
4. The high-level view of MSDN Library should be more book oriented (like a real library or Amazon) with color coded mock up book cover panels. Scope down to get TOC/Index experience of today.
5. Discontinue the old complex “filtering” idea of VS 200x local help… and filtering on strange boundaries such as "Concepts". Complex tagging of individual pages was never fully successful.
   Just keep it simple. Stick to Books with nice logical boundaries.
   I just want to easily find and scope down to a logical book. I can find everything easily from there (concepts, HowTos, API Ref etc), as long as it is properly organized and sign posted.
6. Group related books into “book stacks” (like a predefined book shelf). I should also be able to scope down to the book stack level. And I should be able to defined my own stack (book shelf).
7. The Online/Offline experience should be similar and tightly linked. The offline viewer: At any time I should be able to update my “MSDN book list” to match the online list. I should be able to get a nice visual representation of all the MSDN books [Books I don’t have yet show as ghosted - with option to download; Books with updates available should be clearly marked - with option to update; Book covers color coded by technology]. KISS.

As a developer I typically spend my whole day inside one reference book (online or offline).
I don’t want to see other books (unless I choose to scope up or do a wider Bing search).

The current experience is "OK". But I suggest it could be much better by adding a book view.

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 53

>>
Hey Rob,

 

That is pretty much how the old help system was setup, and I agree that it made much more sense than what we currently have.  The original MSDN Library was basically a bunch of independant books bound together in one repository.  On a side note for those of us who need or want to download the entire library, like we used to be able to, it would be nice if there was an update system in place (like Windows Update) that would automatically check for updates on a schedule that is configurable (i.e. weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc.), with the same options as Windows Update.

Thanks,
Bill

<<

 

Bill (I've expanded my thoughts a little and moved this discussion sub-thread to the end so I can find it :-s ... eg., I think each book should also be available in .PDF format as well as .mshc so printing and other devices are covered). Thanks for confirming that I'm somewhere near the pulse. I feel so convicted by this that I may even code up a solution that we can see it in action.

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 54

Bill a note on the update system. In Australia we still pay by the GB (but I think unlimited plans are not far away). So the default should be manual update with the option to automate as you described.

And the manual system should be dead easy ... No separate Help Library Manager. In the local viewer, scope up to see all books... the book icons should include an "update available" mark. Right-click and schedule the download. 

Unfortunately over the years Microsoft have trained us all to want to download everything locally.
In fact it's only recently (for those with long memories) that selective installs have been made available.

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 55

The ideas are good and I think that these changes would be great. (And top most of cours ethe content!).

Regarding the Updating: Maybe a central point like "Windows Update" could be used. So far we find Windows and Office updates inside there. (That way you can use all the available infrastructure!)

But that idea should not replace your 7th point where you can directly check a book to download inside the offline reader! It should just be an addition for automatic updates.

Konrad

Answer 56

Good points Konrad. Agreed.

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 57

Hey Rob,

Yeah, that sounds pretty good.  I do so miss that ability, which had existed all the way up to VS 2008 where they changed the layout dramatically.  Remember the MSDN Updates page "What's New?" that you were immediately presented with if you went into the library directly?  It was also where Microsoft placed short articles on all of the new things that they were working on.  There is also something that I know that they were working on, but I have no idea where it stands now, nor do I know to what extent they were planning on taking it.

Special URIs for the help system in general that are valid for both offline and on-line viewing, IE, Windows Explorer, Help Viewer, etc.  No matter what you use to the view the content, pages should display picture perfect and identically in each viewer.  None of this offline content looks great, but the on-line content looks like crap stuff.  If this requires a browser addin, so-be-it.  Depending upon your settings you can define the offline/on-line priority like in previous versions.  URIs will take you to the page based on your settings and content availability (offline vs on-line).  Also, Favorites should be stored in your Windows Favorites folders, not an independent system.

Take it easy,
Bill

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Bill Bosacker's Blog @ http://www.openSourceC.org/

Answer 58

h3viewer may be great for you but so far any time I try to use it it gets stuck on "h3viewer waiting for agent to start" and after waiting forever I have to cancel it.  For us the old help system was much better because it worked.  I've been working on this help crap for over a week now after I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 and the SP1 which was supposed to fix the new help system.  Well it didn't so I thought I'd try this new h3viewer thingee but as I said it gets stuck waiting for the help agent, whatever that is, to start.

Answer 59

I would be totally ecstatic if help would open in a new tab in my browser.  unfortunately when I use the F1 key nothing at all happens.  wish I knew how to get it to show up in my browser

Answer 60

I installed SP1, downloaded the help content and I still cannot get anything to happen when I try to view help in visual studio 2010.   what's up with that?  I am now installing visual studio 11 developer preview since supposedly it has a newer help system that is supposed to resolve the help lib agent problems.  I've also tried the h3viewer to no avail as well.  Yes I ran it as administrator so I could change the default help program to the h3viewer but when I run this h3viewer it sits at a message telling me the help lib agent is starting.  However it never does so all I can do is cancel the program.  Talk about frustrating.  None of the previous versions of Visual Studio(and I go back a long way)  have ever given me trouble with the help system.

Answer 61

that seems like a glib comment on what I view as a serious problem, given that I"ve wasted an entire week trying to get a single help screen displayed

Answer 62

would live to move on if I could ever get this viewer or any other help system working for visual studio 2010

Answer 63

Hey Don,

While I will be the first to admit that the VS 2010 Help System is by far the worst help system that has ever existed for any of Microsoft's products, it does work.  If you are having a problem with the help service, that means that something failed during your installation of Visual Studio 2010, which needs to be resolved.  I will tell you that even when you do get it working, the content available is still less than 10% of what was available for 2008, absolutely nothing available for Web Development.  The same goes for the current beta versions of Visual Studio 2010 (a.k.a. Visual Studio Next), as they are using the exact same files.

If you haven't already done so, try removing the entire VS 2010 installation and any files that it may leave behind.  This includes the \ProgramData folder on Vista and later systems.  Then try reinstalling and see if any errors occur.  If they do, you'll need to address them.  Also, if you have multiple versions of VS installed, they must be installed oldest first.  If you try to install an older version after a newer version has already installed, both versions will run into issues and may be partially unusable.

Take it easy,
Bill

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Bill Bosacker's Blog @ http://www.openSourceC.org/

Answer 64

I would like to meet one Visual Studio developer in person. So I could beat the ever living shit out of him.

Answer 65

Classy. Your death threat is now permanently on a public forum. Smart.

When you are ready to talk about real issues let us know.

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 66

I very rarely call-out a specific person on Internet forums unless I am seeking that person's advice. But today, I am going to write a message specifically directed at a single person.

That person is Rob Chandler.

Rob:

I have been reading the posts in this thread, starting with the one written by the original poster (OP), as well as the subsequent replies. It is clearly evident from all the posts here that the new Visual Studio product has caused extreme frustration and anger among the customers who bought it. This frustration and anger is so great that even people for whom English is not their native language have still made attempts to express their undeniable state of discontent.

Each time someone comes here and starts ranting and venting about how bad they hate Visual Studio 2010, you should let them.

If Visual Studio could be rated on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the worst, and 10 is the best, and a user comes in here ranting and venting because they think it is definitely less than a 5, you should let them rant and vent.

This ranting and venting is the most genuine feedback that Microsoft can get. It removes any ambiguity what-so-ever about how discontent their customers are with the product. When a disgusted customer uses the word suck, you have no doubt how they really feel because they have purposely chosen that specific word so that nothing is lost in translation.

When you say things like, "Let's move on..." you implicitly discount the feelings of these posters. And quite frankly, it is mildly insulting. 

People have a right to be angry. People have a right to express that anger. People would ~like~ to be angry, express their anger, and not have their anger discounted by someone who is not as angry as they are.

I firmly believe in this principle, even if what they are angry about is one of my own products.

And finally, let me be the latest person to say that Visual Studio 2010 REALLY, REALLY, SUCKS, I think the TEAM THAT CREATED THIS VERSION IS INCOMPETENT, and I think they SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE HELP SYSTEM ALONE unless they were pretty certain that they could have done a better job than their predecessors.

Finally, I would greatly appreciate Microsoft not patronizing us so much. 

Look guys, when we are angry with your product, don't write back with stuff like,

We value your feedback.. we have created many tools that allow you to express your...we have Microsoft Connect to let you...our Project Manager put up a web cast to demonstrate how we are committed to...

Blah Blah Blah!

Sometimes, all you need to do is say:

Ok, yep, you're right. This version, relative to what you would expect from the most knowledgeable company in the world on Microsoft technology, does, indeed, suck. We're sorry.

We are fixing it.

That will make us shut up, and you will start to recover the enormous amount of credibility that you lost when you published this pig that is Visual Studio 2010.

Prove to us that rewriting large chunks of Visual Studio from C++ to .NET was a smart move.

We're here. We're watching. 

Answer 67

Hi  Le Chaud Lapin

Thanks for being honest about how you are feeling. Point taken.

I agree the VS 10 RTM is pretty sucky.  VS 10 SP1, which has the new help window, is much better. Did you try that?
And VS 11 is pretty darn good. Although I know that does not help VS 10 users.

Cheers
Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 68

I'm glad to see this thread continues to be active.  Rob Chandler mentioned VS11. (???)  I read that VS 2012 is due to be released next month.  Does anyone know if it addresses the issue of F1 not taking you where you want to go (and giving you no opportunity to go elsewhere)?  For several examples see this thread:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/devdocs/thread/32e46b50-9d89-4156-9f8c-a70ed9294679

Given the use I have gotten from VS 2010 (almost none), it turns out to be one of the poorest software investments I have ever made.  I'm leery of spending another couple hundred bucks on a development environment in which getting appropriate help is so difficult.

Answer 69

Hi Vincent

So check for Help updates when you find bad help -- They are continuously updating and adding modules (although possibly all the work has now shifted to VS 2012 [AKA VS 11.0] ). If still broken then you can report the problem via http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/ .

VS 2012 RTM is available now via MSDN (as is Win 8 RTM).

The VS 2012 help engine was rewritten. Now has a COM interface. No more Help Agent running in the tray.

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

Answer 70

Hi Vincent

So check for Help updates when you find bad help -- They are continuously updating and adding modules (although possibly all the work has now shifted to VS 2012 [AKA VS 11.0] ). If still broken then you can report the problem via http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/ .

VS 2012 RTM is available now via MSDN (as is Win 8 RTM).

The VS 2012 help engine was rewritten. Now has a COM interface. No more Help Agent running in the tray.

Rob

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/

I just checked  ... no updates ... 11 months after my first comments.

Answer 71

Thanks for checking. 

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Rob Chandler Help MVP http://Helpware.net/ http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/