New Visual Studio Tips Book: Tip Layout

Okay folks, I just got the latest update from the publisher on ideas for information layout.  Below are the ideas.  We took a lot of your feedback from last time and incorporated it into the plan.  Let me know what you think of this layout :)

 

1. Keystroke, mouse, and other “how to access the feature” images are in the left margin, under the title. This accomplishes three goals:

· It provides one consistent place to look for tip accessibility

· It gets the images out of the way of the tip text.

· It makes it possible to “flip” through the book to find a keystroke (Note: In the real book, the text for these accessibility images should appear under the images, should be indexed, and (in electronic form) should be searchable.)

 

2. The tip name is at the same level as the tip title, but right-aligned at the right margin. I put it there to make it easily visible and in a consistent place. Because there’s a list of “related tips” on some tips, it’s highly likely that readers will want to find those related tips. Putting the tip name in the upper right margin makes it possible to flip through the book and easily find any related tip. In practice, in the real book, this should probably appear on the top line, probably one line above the title, so that long titles don’t force the tip name to move.

 

3. Added an “Applies To” heading at the bottom of the tip under which version images appear. These should be small and consistent. (Note: In the real book, the text for these version images should appear under the images, should be indexed, and (in electronic form) should be searchable.)

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2010
  Hi Zain, I can no longer EASILY (without going through all kinds of hoops) get access to this blog any more (since the introduction of Live ID being required I believe). I have several Live ID's & may already be logged in with a different one, I don't know if that's making any difference. After the page tries to load a few times, I get: The Windows Live Network is unavailable from this site for one of the following reasons: This site may be experiencing a problem The site may not be a member of the Windows Live Network You can: You can sign in or sign up at other sites on the Windows Live Network, or try again later at this site. But there is NOWHERE on the page to actually sign in. Very frustrating! Also, it would be nice to have a way of getting notification of replies to any particular post, like in Connect. So, for example, I won't see any reply you make this this post, UNLESS I remember to come back to this specific post & look for it. Yann

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2010
  Yann -- Not sure about the Live ID problem.  Is anyone else experiencing this issue?  I'll see if there is a config option on the blog that I can set but I think there is one you can set to be notified of replies. Z

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2010
  I check this site every couple of days and never had any issues. :)

• Anonymous
  July 18, 2010
  Ok I just experienced what Yann was talking about.  It would seem if you're not signed in you get here (now using my secondary browser), if your signed in then you get the error described above. :/ Si

• Anonymous
  July 20, 2010
  Thanks for the confirmation that it wasn't just me Simon. It's understandable that if you're already logged in with a different ID that you would need to log in with the one associated with MSDN, the incredible (& annoying) part is that the page you're taken to doesn't give you any way to sign in with a different ID, just a way to create a new one. Yann

• Anonymous
  July 20, 2010
  Unless I'm missing something, I can't see any way of being notified of replies..

• Anonymous
  July 21, 2010
  Yannduran and Simon -- Thanks for the confirmation.  Thoughts on what I should suggest to the MSCOM team as a fix?  Sounds like just an ability to login using a different LiveID? Z