Visual Studio Help System Improvement Suggestion

Question

I rarely use the help in visual studio (2008). The reason is its user interface is inconsistent and sluggish. Especially from intellisense. A great example is to type the following In a visual studio code file: String.Copy and while the intellisense is open for Copy press F1.  After 10 - 20 seconds help finally loads and in, my scenario, I see results for my last search. Not for String.Copy or even yet String!

I have a suggestion to speed up and increase the accuracy of information that help displays.

Option 1. For each class, method, property etc in intellisense, add a help link which, when clicked, displays the help page for the selected item from intellisense. The link should be embedded into the intellisense.
Option 2. Similar to option 1 but instead of loading the bulky help module each time, have a link for "show help on this topic" and intellisense can either expand or display a fly-out window which shows a brief and concise help segment on the selected item and a link to see full help for item as mentioned in step 1.

Option 2 should be faster because Visual Studio won't have to load the full help module and since the information is concise every time it speeds up development time. Also  the system should show the default language in the examples in this express type of help.

Answer 1

Hi John

I'll jump in here.

So VS 2010 beta 2 now has a completely new Help system. VS 2005/2008 wont be updated as far as I know sorry.

I think you will find the new help works as you want it. There is a slight delay the first time you press F1 (usual .NET Framework loading time thing), but after that F1 help loads quickly. And the context IDs I believe are the full path to the class, so there is less chance (or no chance) of the wrong help showing. There is no Document Explorer program to load any more. Instead the ms-xhelp:/// protocol is associated with the Help Library Agent application which simply does the required query on the local library store and serves up the result in your default browser. Very cool.

Cheers

Rob

---

Rob Chandler http://Helpware.net

Answer 2

I will test this in 2010 and see however 2008 i have no expectations for MS to fix that as it has been like that for ever. I would still like the context mini help type which would definately allow getting quick information to improve my development time (less time digging through larger help doc).

Thanks for the heads up Rob.

Answer 3

Rob, have you actually tried the new help?

The delay for starting the help listener is about as bad as starting dexplore used to be, and subsequent help requests are not significantly faster. Showing help in the browser has numerous negative side effects, including a significantly dumbed-down interface, and the fact that Visual Studio help gets grouped in with whatever other internet windows I have open at the time.

The old system had a lot of problems, but they were well documented, and all Microsoft had to do was fix them. Instead they spent all of their effort on creating a new help system which is a gigantic step back from the old one.

---

Moderator | MCTS .NET 2.0 Web Applications | My Blog: http://www.commongenius.com

Answer 4

I have been using it. It's certainly got a long way to go. The RC release should be an improvement.

I've documented problems with the Beta 2 help here 

http://mshcMigrate.helpmvp.com/faq/beta2

These points are important if you are an early adopter of the technology.

Yes like all apps built with the .NET Framework Help Library Agent is slow to load first time. After that I found that all F1 calls to help are fast. If this initial loading time bothers you, you could simply Run Agent at startup.

I'm getting used to VS 2010 opening help in the current browser. I use Chrome and that opens pretty fast. A new tab for each help call.

I think when they release the API info for the help system we will see good solid non-browser viewers available. Now if there was to associate an your choice of help viewer to VS then I would be pretty happy.

Rob

---

Rob Chandler http://Helpware.net