Announcing New Technology Page Design

  • Article

The SQL Server Developer Center on MSDN and TechCenter on TechNet contain what are called "navigation pages" because their primary purpose is to navigate you to more information and resources. For example, one path you might take starting from the Developer Center home page is to click Versions under the home tab, then SQL Server 2008.

From this page, you might click one of the technology pages for a technology you were interested in (for example, Database Engine) to get a list of resources and content relating to Database Engine topics.

However, if you had selected Integration Services, you would see the newly updated navigation page design. This design has several great new features, including:

  • Scoped Search. This may be the most valuable new feature. The Get Help section allows you to enter your Search terms and the results returned to you will be automatically scoped to results that are part of the Integration Services documentation set in the Library.
  • Get Started. Resources linked from this section were hand-picked by one of our Integration Services Writers as being the "best" learning resources for a beginner.
  • Recent Releases and Downloads. A fairly self-explanitory section, this will be kept up-to-date with the latest items available.
  • Community Buzz. Find out what others in the Community are saying about or relating to Integration Services topics.
  • MVP Corner. This section will showcase an MVP member of the Community each month.
  • Other items. "Below the fold" you will find links to many other resources including:
    • More downloads
    • Technical articles and white papers
    • Videos
    • Podcasts and Webcasts
    • Documentation
    • Knowledge Base Search
    • Code Samples
    • Blog posts
    • Forums
    • External Web sites
    • Books

We on the documentation team are very excited about the new design, and we hope you like it. But even if you don't, or something is missing that you would like to see, please let us know. Our goal is to roll out similarly designed navigation pages for the other technologies, so Reporting Services, Database Engine, and so forth, would all get pages in this design.

To send your feedback on the Integration Services navigation page design, you can do either of the following:

  • Use the "Rate and Give Feedback" control on the top right of the page. First click one of the stars to give the page a Rating, then a box will open up where you can type your comments and send them in.

    -or-

  • Comment this blog post.

Either way, we'll take the feedback, whether it is positive or negative.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education