Introduction

In this video, we’ll be looking at the help systems available in Visual Studio 2005 and Dreamweaver 8. Affective help systems assist the developer to find information that they need at a point when they need it. This functionality takes a number of forms, including Intellisense in Visual Studio 2005, context-sensitive help, as well as online subject-specific help.

Dreamweaver Section

Starting in Dreamweaver 8, the help environment has been expanded with options that include local support, LiveDocs, and an online support center, which includes a developer support area. LiveDocs display user comments and include an ‘Add Comment’ button which allows you to comment on a page’s content and its usefulness. LiveDoc’s topics mimic those in the local help’s contents.

Dreamweaver’s online support center provides numerous options which include a guided search of the Dreamweaver knowledge base, the top Dreamweaver support solutions, other Dreamweaver support topics, facility to request support, and additional Dreamweaver support which includes forums and contact options.

Visual Studio 2005 Section

Visual Studio 2005 also provides a variety of help options. In this video, we’ll be looking at local help, dynamic help, Intellisense, and other online resources. Local help includes help files installed during setup, or files accessed from your installation CD. Local help is updatable through updates provided by Microsoft. This help is available at any time from the F1 help key and is context-sensitive, giving you help on the word your where your cursor is located. The dynamic help window is provides links to information found in local help, based on the portion of the IDE that currently has focus. This help is called dynamic help because it happens automatically while you are working. If you need help with a specific item, the help is already there for you to see. In this code-behind file, we’re working with a button control. As we type and reference the button, you’ll see the dynamic help update automatically to show us help about the button control.

There are also several online communities that offer free assistance with Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer. These popular Web sites are www.ASP.net and MSDN Online. The www.ASP.net Web site is devoted to all things ASP.NET. This site contains moderated community forums with tens of thousands of active community members answering questions. The ASP.NET Web site also provides a blogging system where ASP.NET community leaders as well as the ASP.NET team members frequently add content.

MSDN Online contains the latest version of the content in the MSDN documentation set, including the latest quarterly releases. MSDN Online also publishes technical articles, samples, and white papers. In addition, questions can be emailed directly to Microsoft for free from the support.Microsoft.com Web site.

Conclusion

This concludes our comparison of the Dreamweaver and Visual Studio 2005 help systems.