VS SDK Tweaks TOC
Last night I was watching the fireworks over Lake Sammamish, less than two miles from the Microsoft corporate campus. My thoughts were of of the many things that the U.S. has done around the globe to make this world a better place. As a retired soldier, I view the 4th of July as a period of renewal, not just a celebration of the birthday of the United States. Happy Independance day citizens!
The VSIP team has made a commitment to recast the VSIP documents and has just released the first technical preview of the Visual Studio SDK. Allen Denver, the Dev lead, was the first to blog about it in his VSIP Musings site. In a continuing search for ways to improve this 30,000 topic doc set and address the evolving diversity and number of customers, the VSXue team is starting from scratch with the TOC. Walkthroughs, How-tos, and samples will reign supreme. We have a lot of work to do in the coming months to get the SDK to a point where the new infrastructure will be mostly in place, but I think you'll agree it has been worth the wait.
So here is a peak at the emerging (read draft) TOC:
Visual Studio SDK
What’s New
Roadmap
Support and Test
Visual Studio Integration
Essentials
What's New
Architecture
Features (or Technologies)
Core Scenarios
Package
Walk Throughs
Samples
(repeated thru-out…)
Project Systems
Project Flavor (subtypes)
Language
Editor
Tool Window
Commands
Tool Window UI
Property Pages
Options Page
Setup and Deployment
Advanced Scenarios
Data Extensibility
Debugger
Source Control
DSL Tools
System Definition Model
Essentials
What’s New
Architecture
Tasks
Walkthroughs
Samples
Team Foundation Client Services
XML Designer
Reference
Core
Extended
Help Integration
Etc.
TF Server Integration
Etc.
VS Tools for Applications
Etc.
VSTools for Office
Etc.
Licensable Tools
PPE
Those of you who have been using the original VSIP TOC should notice a big difference. The primary method of discoverability is still accomplished using the SEARCH and INDEX functionality. These mechanisms are still available. But for customers who use the TOC to walk through the documentation, we hope that this will enable you to find what you are looking for when it comes to customizing the Visual Studio IDE (workspace).
Here's the location of the VS SDK download. Try this out and provide feedback as you see fit. Use the VS Extensibility Forum (my favorite) or the MSDN Product Feedback Center to submit your observations or recommendations.