Strategies for Using Help

  • Article

Help in Visual Studio is tightly integrated with the development environment (IDE), in an effort to provide you with the information you need based on the context of your development effort. To increase your efficiency in using the IDE, you might like to consider the general situations in which Help might benefit you and where you might find Help in each situation.

Help Available When You Need It

You can find help that is tailored to your current situation.

  • When you first open the box and want information on installation and late-breaking developments in the product or documentation, the Readme holds last minute news and notes about the product. You can also find the latest news and updates on Microsoft.com.

  • While working in the integrated development environment (IDE), the Dynamic Help window can display a choice of links for topics related to your current work. The topics can contain procedures for completing a task, a walkthrough designed to introduce new technologies, or programming practices for completing portions of a development effort. Other categories of Dynamic Help include samples and related training topics. You can display the Dynamic Help window by typing Help.DynamicHelp in the Command Window.

    Of course, F1 Help displays reference topics based on the user interface elements you select or error messages you see. You can specify a context for the Dynamic Help window by selecting various points in the integrated development environment. F1 Help displays reference topics based on the UI elements you select or the error messages you see.

  • While you are designing objects and coding their functionality, the editors can offer statement completion that presents the syntax information you need for language keywords, methods, and properties. If you want to examine the functionality of a library or object more broadly, you can use the Object Browser. If you want even more information about the usage and capabilities of a particular language element, you can use F1 Help to display the language reference topic.

  • When the Dynamic Help window and F1 Help do not meet your needs, you can use the Keyword index, How Do I page, Full-Text Search, and Table of Contents provided with Microsoft Document Explorer. Using the MSDN Library, you can research various new technologies. The library includes periodicals and technical articles. In addition, you can also choose to search online Help sources, such as the Code Wise Community and MSDN Online.

Types of Help and Where to Find It

Although Help topics present information in a variety of ways, each is designed to allow you to accomplish one of the following objectives:

  • Find syntax, language reference, and components

  • Accomplish a goal or perform a task

  • Research and understand concepts

Find Syntax, Language Reference, and Components

If you are looking for information while writing your code, you might try the following suggestions.

If you want to

Try

Use a particular keyword and learn about its syntax

Editor's statement completion

Object Browser

Language reference (F1)

Index

Search

Table of Contents

Find a keyword that provides a certain functionality

Editor's statement completion

Language reference

Examples and samples

Read about an editor while editing a document

User Interface Reference (Shift + F1)

Accomplish a Goal or Perform a Task

If you know what you want to do and are looking for ideas on how to do it, you might try the following suggestions.

If you want to

Try

Create something new

Dynamic Help Window

Walkthrough topics

Samples

Index

Use the windows, dialog boxes, designers, and tools

F1 Help

Dynamic Help window

Contents window

Resolve issues noted by error messages

F1 Help

Error message topics

KB articles (https://support.microsoft.com)

Research and Understand Concepts

If you are interested in more descriptions and explanations so you can better understand what is available, recommended, or how something does what it does, you might try the following suggestions.

If you want more information about

Try

A specific technology and its uses

What's New topics

Index window

Search window

Dynamic Help window

Samples

Existing technologies, what is new, and what has changed.

What's New topics

Dynamic Help window

Index window

Search window

Contents window

Modifying and upgrading existing development efforts

Dynamic Help window

Index window

Search window

Samples

Learning to program by using Visual Studio

Language Reference examples

Samples

Contents window

Information related to the topic you currently have open

See Also links

Contents window

Index window

Search window

Localized versions of English documentation

In addition to English, Visual Studio documentation is available in eight languages online.

Language

Web site

French

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/fre/

Italian

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ita/

German

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/deu/

Spanish

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/spa/

Chinese Traditional

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/cht/

Simplified Chinese

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/chs/

Japanese

https://www.microsoft.com/japan/msdn/library/

Korean

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/kor/

See Also

Tasks

How to: Customize Dynamic Help

Concepts

User Interface Reference (Microsoft Document Explorer Help)

Navigation and Graphical Elements in Help Topics

Reference

Browsing Code and Components