This is very cool. Microsoft have released the Visual Studio image library of over 5,000 icons & images so that developers can create apps that are visually consistent with Visual Studio 2012 and older.
VS 2012 Help DVD
Visual Studio 2012 Help DVD is now available for download
Posted in Microsoft, MS Help, MS Help Viewer, MSDN
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PackageThis! 1.3.10
We are now up to PackageThis! 1.3.10 and getting better all the time. Now with a more intuitive interface and scheduler. You can stop the download and restart at the same place.
For those who don’t know, PackageThis allows you to download MSDN & TechNet Library content, and package it into Visual Studio offline help or HTML Help.
In Australia I can download around 200 topics (and associated images) a minute. So it can take me an hour or so to download 10,000 topics (the recommended max help file size).
Amazingly Malcolm (from the Microsoft MSDN team) took just 2 mins to download the entire first branch (Design Tools) of the MSDN Library (20,000 topics?) using the Microsoft internal network in Redmond Seattle.
Posted in MS Help, MS Help 2.x, MS Help 3.x, MS Help Viewer, MS HTML Help 1.x, MSDN
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FAR 5.4 Released
We are please to announce the release of FAR HTML 5.4 (build 786).
It contains many bug fixes and most importantly Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8 compatibility.
This is a free update to all FAR HTML 5.x license holders.
Posted in Announcements, Helpware
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RAD Studio XE3
XE3 World Tour Event video
Other XE3 & Mobile Studio info
Posted in Uncategorized
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iOS Development with RAD Studio XE3
Where’s the iOS Support?
Like others I rushed out and purchased RAD Studio XE3 because of its support for Windows 32-bit, Windows 64-bit, Apple OSX, Apple iOS (Apple mobile devices – iPhone and iPad) and HTML5 Builder.
However I found iOS support has been removed from XE3 (even though it exists in XE2).
Posted in Delphi, Technology
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FAR Beta 785 now available
FAR Beta 785 is now available. Now compatible with Windows 8. Will promote soon. I welcome any feed back before I release it.
Posted in Announcements, Helpware
2 Comments
Antivirus for Windows 8
I was please to find that Antivirus is built-in to Windows 8. It’s lightweight and runs quietly in the background until a threat is detected. This is nice having professional virus protection enabled out of the box.
Formally a Microsoft download called MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials for XP, Vista, Windows 7) it has now reverted to it’s old name of Windows Defender. It’s a standard Windows application skinned in the Windows 8 metro style.
All Virus protection programs contain holes. When I find a problem that is not addressed by my current antivirus I usually download the free version of Malwarebytes (I find it usually picks up everything else).
Windows 8 surprises me again 
AHCI interface for SATA disks in Windows 8
Recently while bench-marking my new OCZ Vertex 4 SSD, my PC builder suggested I may get better results by using Intel’s AHCI interface (for SATA disks). Turns out my new Windows 8 PC was already enabled for AHCI. Philip Elder (SBS MVP) informed me that 99% of PCs they see are already enabled.
For Windows 8 here’s how to enable AHCI. Since Windows Vista you can change over to AHCI without losing disk data.
- Set a restore point.
- Change registry value of “Start”to zero (0) in key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Storahci
In Windows 7 this key was called
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci - Go into Bios and make sure disk access is set to AHCI not SATA.
After restarting the PC, the AHCI drivers should be installed and Device Manager will show AHCI drivers for the disks.
8.1 is a good score for Disk data transfer rate [Windows Experience Index]
Plunge into Windows 8
Today more Windows 7 USB device connection problems forced me to move early to Windows 8 RTM Pro. A clean install (not an upgrade). I expecting the worst (maybe $1000+ in upgrade costs) but was pleasant surprised to spend only AU$200 upgrading software.
1. Start8 by Stardock
As you remember in my last post, Start8 by Stardock brings back the Windows Start menu back to Windows 8. Great app.
There are several other Start Menus available for Windows 8.
– Free Trial — $4.99
Windows 8 RTM – Get back the Start Menu
For many users Win 8 is a poor desktop experience. The Start menu, which has been a major feature since Windows 95, is gone and a new Metro interface is now in its place. I’ve been used Win 8 for some time now and don’t like using the new headless desktop.
But now something has happened to change my mind. Several vendors have released Start Menu replacements for Windows 8. Most are just average but Start8 by Stardock is brilliant. Now I’m enjoying Windows 8 and all the many new Win8 features. Thanks Stardock! See http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
Posted in Microsoft, Windows
2 Comments
FireMonkey x-platform eBook
Great to see that my brother Graeme has release a big fat 300+ ebook for Delphi XE2 developers called
FireMonkey Development for iOS and OS X with Delph™ XE2
Download a content preview
Graeme has been an official Embarcadero trainer/partner for many years. Delphi cross platform development is very new and this book clearly explains all the ins and outs of developing on the Apple platforms.
Thanks Graeme! I’m about 25% through the book and have learnt heaps.
Windows 8 – My 2c
So MS couldn’t ignore the IPad and fast growth in the mobile market, and now they are betting on a new “reimagined” OS. The Build attendees got a nice new Samsung incentive to start building the future. Success will depend on cheap hardware becoming available and cool apps appearing.
People already spend their money on $700 IPhones & iPads, and on $2000+ all-singing all-dancing PCs (Gaming; Video editing; Development; Business; etc etc). Is there really money left over for consumers to buy yet another $800 device?
Corporations will want to switch OFF the Metro interface. Over many years Microsoft have trained Windows business users to be desktop-centric. To force existing users to be tablet orientated is a complete enigma to most. For those of us that use PCs for our day to day work, having Windows Desktop associations & Start menu throw you out of the desktop into full screen apps is really annoying. Especially when most of us are running multiple large 24″+ monitors.
Microsoft keep insisting there is method to their madness, but serious desktop users don’t see it. It’s like Vista all over again. Microsoft are stubbornly in denial that users hate having a schizophrenic operating system.
Most people seem to enjoy the Metro UI but find it gets in the way of their desktop work.
So many people will be put off and confused by metro and stay on Windows 7. Some users like Windows 8 straight out of the box. Many existing desktop users seem to be installing replacement Win 7 style Start Menus to reduce the rude Metro interruptions.
For myself, I love Windows 8 and wouldn’t go back. My turning point was when I install Start8 fake Start menu. Now I don’t keep getting thrown into Metro.
Steven Sinofsky mentioned many advantages to Windows 8…
- uses less memory/less Power; faster boot & shutdown;
- better performance; better security. better touch. better USB3 support.
- Hyper-V Client included (but requires CPU with SLAT for smoother video)
- Easier boot from VHD (VMs have access to hardware & performance)
- Win7 could boot from a 2 TB drive. Win8 can boot from a 256TB drive.
- Metro needs 1024×768; 1366×768 for full side-by-side experience.
- Supports -3 axis accellerometer / Magnetrometer / Gyro
- Support for NFC Antenna hardware
- Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)+SSD for fastest startup/shutdown
- Copy – All copy jobs in one window. Ability to pause jobs & show performance.
- Explorer: A ribbon UI (can be rolled up and ignored like normal ribbons).
- Photo login (visual touch/mouse login type password)
- All Microsoft inhouse PC hardware tests can now be downloaded.
- Better dual monitor control – Which apps run where; etc
- New Task manager
- etc etc
Rob
Posted in Microsoft, MS Technology, Windows
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FAR HTML 5.3 Now Available
Folks we have just released FAR HTML 5.3
This is a minor release so a free update to all 5.x licensed users. Just install over the old version.
Many great improvements including:
- FAR can now access extra memory — +1GB on Windows 32-bit, +2 GB on Windows 64-bit (thanks Pierre le Riche for FastMM which is compatible with the Windows extended memory compiler switch /LargeAddressAware).
- Win 7 SP1 compatibility.
- Search File Names (see below).
- Google Translated help.
- etc…
Get the Update
- Release Notes:
http://helpware.net/FAR/farupdate.htm - Download from MS Gallery:
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/050e1612-5f52-49bd-b880-1125368e59f3/ - Download from Helpware.net
http://helpware.net/FAR/
Search File Names
There are lots of little fixes and improvements but one of our favorites is “Commands > Search File Names” (also available via “Search” button in the tool bar).
This is really useful command given that Windows Search is so lame in Vista and Windows 7.
In the screen shot below I have scanned my entire C: Drive and found around 1/2 million files. The new search dialog is open (Ctrl+Shift+F), and as I type in the text “fastforward” the entire 1/2 million items quickly reduces to show the 9 final matches. We have also done work on optimizing .FAR file load time — We saved all these files to a .FAR list and they reloaded in under 2 seconds on the laptop.
Enjoy — Rob
Posted in Announcements, Helpware
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Windows 8 Developer Preview under VMware
A number of developers have been struggling to install the Win 8 Preview .ISO as a VM.
The trick seems to be to create a Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit) VM and select “I will install the operating system later.” Attach the Win 8 .ISO as an optical drive and restart the VM. The Win 8 bits should install OK. The VM Tools will now install OK as well. I’m using VMware Workstation 8.0. Not sure if VM 7.0 is suitable.
The trick for installing came from here. Thanks Ron!
MS Help Viewer 2.0
Those checking out the new developer preview bits (Beta releases of both Visual Studio 11 & Windows 8) may notice some changes in help.
Jeff Braaten [MSFT] has all the detail for you here…
http://thirdblogfromthesun.com/2011/09/announcing-microsoft-help-viewer-2-0-developer-preview/
Paul O’Rear also posted these notes…
To summarizing:
- Help Viewer 1.1 has been super seeded by Help Viewer 2.0 in VS 11.
- Windows 8 help is using the same help engine (HV 2.0) but their own UI.
- The Agent tray application is gone. There is now a COM interface to access the Help Viewer API.
- Content filtering is still in the pipe and we will see this in a later release.
- Help Library Manager app has been completely revamped and integrated into the Help Viewer.
- Can now move the data store.
- Can now connect to any download source (so a company could host their own MSDN download source).
- New downloader is smarter. Can recover and continue if interrupted.
H3Viewer – Our own Help Viewer replacement H3Viewer is currently not compatible with VS 11 and Win 8 help. This is because it still uses the HelpLibAgent.exe interface. In time we will update.
Congratulation to the help team on reaching this significant milestone.
== Screen shots ==
Remember this a preview and the some features will change.
Posted in MS Help, MS Help Viewer
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Windows 8 Developer Preview
Yesterday was very exciting for the developer community. Microsoft released details of Windows 8 at the Build 2011 (formally PDC) developer conference. The new features and improvements to Windows 8 are too numerous to list. But I took these notes as I listened to the 2.5hr keynote if you are interested: My notes from Build 2011 Keynote.
You can download a developer preview of Win8 here:
There is an Win8 ISO image that contains VS 2011 (contains the new Metro Style controls), or you can download the VS 11 preview separately:
Info on VS 11 preview:
- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2011/09/14/announcing-visual-studio-11-developer-preview.aspx
All Metro style Forums (Thanks Lisa): http://forums.dev.windows.com
- UI Design for Metro style apps
- Tailoring your Metro style app for hardware and devices
- Building Metro style apps with HTML5
- Building Metro style apps with C++
- Building Metro style apps with C# or VB
- Building Metro style games with DirectX
- Tools for Metro style apps
- Windows Developer Preview: General OS questions
Posted in Microsoft, MS Technology, Windows
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What if MSDN Library had Books?
иконографияWhenever I talk to the Microsoft LEX team (VS & MSDN help), I come away staggered at the scale they operate on. The MSDN site is one of the biggest websites in the world and supports many different online languages. They are always working hard on the next big thing to make it easier for customers to find stuff. These guys love customer feedback. So here’s my latest…
The following thoughts have been buzzing around in my head for some time crystallizing and I wanted to write them down.
IMHO I think MSDN Library has grown rapidly and needs a radical overhaul.
One solution…. Develop the Book view.
- Slice up MSDN Library into books (same as a real library) – At the moment we have more a sea of single topics loosely held in context by links and an enormous TOC. The UX would be much enhanced and by a book view.
- The nightly build should generate a .mshc file for every MSDN library book, and make them all available for download (by web and HLM).
Many users are currently frustrated that only a small proportion of MSDN Library is available offline. The download should be available from the online book cover page (a more logical place for some than Help Library Manager app).
Also generate a PDF of the book for printing and devices without Help Viewer. Personally I don’t think I have a use for building my own PDFs from selected individual pages. - Allow the user to scope down to the Book level (TOC/Index/Search just for a particular book — Online or Offline). More natural. Easier to find content in the book. Less clutter.
- The high-level view of MSDN Library should be more book oriented (like a real library or Amazon) with color coded mock up book cover panels. Scope down to get TOC/Index experience of today.
- Discontinue the old complex “filtering” idea of VS 200x local help… and filtering on strange boundaries such as “Concepts”. Complex tagging of individual pages was never fully successful.
Just keep it simple. Stick to Books with nice logical boundaries.
I just want to easily find and scope down to a logical book. I can find everything easily from there (concepts, HowTos, API Ref etc), as long as it is properly organized and sign posted. - Group related books into “book stacks” (like a predefined book shelf). I should also be able to scope down to the book stack level. And I should be able to defined my own stack (book shelf).
- The Online/Offline experience should be similar and tightly linked. The offline viewer: At any time I should be able to update my “MSDN book list” to match the online list. I should be able to get a nice visual representation of all the MSDN books [Books I don’t have yet as ghosted; Books with updates available clearly marked; Book covers color coded by technology].
As a developer I typically spend my whole day inside one reference book (online or offline).
I don’t want to see other books (unless I choose to scope up or do a wider Bing search).
The current experience is OK. But I suggest it could be much better by adding a book view.
Thanks
Rob
VS 2010 Help … Thoughts
иконографияикониJust jotting down some thoughts. VS 2010 SP1 Help is much improved but there is still much to do. Here are some thought that came out in the forums today…
So you may not know that with the VS 2011 SP1 release they brought back the standalone viewer (full TOC, full Index, favs etc).
The RTM help received such a flood of bad reviews that, to the credit of the help team, they quickly reinstated the standard viewer app.
The browser based help idea just didn’t go down well with customers.
Moving forward..
There is still work to do with the SP1 viewer. These problems remain…
- A help system of this size must have filtering.
My idea is… Nothing too complicated. Just tag all pages of each book with the bookName, Locale and Version.
At the moment we take a new book, rip out all the pages and throw them in to the huge soup of single pages. Not a great experience, - They need to reorganize the book version tagging and TOC Sync.
At the moment when you search you find 6 versions of the same thing.
But the TOC only has VS 2010 related help so a TOC Sync wont always work. - Books you download often parent into another book. If that other book does not exist it wont show in the master TOC.
They need a way to dynamically add orphaned books to the TOC. - Rich media. HTML is able to host rich content but currently VS 2010 help blocks Flash, video, links to PDF … everything.
We need a safe way to register local media associated with a help book (like Adobe do with Flash).
The easiest way is to register media associated with your help during install when elevated in admin mode. - The help registration signing system is over the top and duplication.
Windows already has a way to securely install components. We install, we get challenged, we except the challenge and installation continues in an elevated (admin) context. To reinvent another layer of protection is just annoying & confusing to developers and customers.
One challenge is enough in installing content.
I think the MS standard help configuration still works well. Most companies creating help today offer TOC, Index & Bookmarking system and customers are happy.
CHMs work but we need a new help system which
- supports Unicode
- is scalable
- is open with a rich API (so we can embed help in apps and do background lookups etc).
The VS 2010 help actually ticks all these boxes. But the help system still needs to mature (ie. see top list above).
I am so wrapped with #3 the open API side of HV 1.x. If you haven’t tried our H3Viewer yet then please do so. It was very straight forward to build this alternate viewer using the new VS 2010 help engine.
With the web, we have to rely on search.. But the web is broken in to web sites and these can be searched independently (filtering) and often have their own navigation systems (filtering). At the moment MSDN is (as I said) mostly a large soup of single pages (with only some TOC structure holding them in relationship).
Rob
Move or Reset your VS 2010 help Library
Help Viewer 1.x (VS 2010 help) does not yet officially support moving your local help library, however it’s easy to do (if you are comfortable tweaking the registry and editing files in the protected area of your hard disk… Which most developers are).
Read the article:
Enjoy
Rob
Posted in MS Help, MS Help Viewer
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Visual Studio SP1 Help rant
Did you know that VS 2010 Service Pack 1 is now available and has a brand new help viewer?
<rant>
There were a lot of angry responses to the VS 2010 RTM help. In particular the way it displayed help in a browser and did not provide a full TOC, full Index or bookmark support.
I think everyone was quite taken aback by the huge negative response to the RTM help. Not many people know this, but the help team were well on track to delivering a full traditional Help Viewer experience. It was quite late in development when someone made the suggestion to deliver help in the browser. The idea was appealing. There had been complaints in the past that documentation was locked into Microsoft technology (eg. in HTML Help we had only one viewer which was built around the Internet Explorer browser and ActiveX). So I can see how this idea of “an Open Help Platform” would look attractive. The mistake was introducing a radical change during the final stage of the project, without talking to their customers.
Please show the help team some love. I’m sure they will remember this painful lesson for some time to come.
</rant>
OK enough ranting. The Service Pack 1 is now out and does deliver several improvements that customers were asking for:
- A dedicated viewer done in C# and WPF.
- Full TOC.
- Full Index.
- Full bookmark support.
- Fast and responsive. Accurate F1.
The following are on the radar and should be fixed in the next wave
- F1 help for C++ projects (currently not so accurate I hear).
- Content filtering (MS know this is important to customers but tell them again anyway).
Also we have these improvements
- Faster merge times than DExplore.
- Merge no longer locks up Visual Studio as it did in DExplore (VS 2002/2003/2005/2008).
- Help application is independent of Visual Studio. This will become important as we move forward.
- A Help SDK. All past MS Help systems were closed to programmers.
- Alternative viewers. I’ve published H3Viewer which offers some extra features. I’m sure in time there will be more.
Please try VS SP1 help and see what you think.
IMHO the help team have done a great job in responding to feedback. And filters I know are still high up on the To Do list.
If you still have concerns about help. The help team are very open to receiving direct feedback.
They do respond to all serious posts to their blogs. You can leave a public comment under
an appropriate blog entry or click the link that says “Email me”.
- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/thehelpguy/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
Paul O’Rear [MSFT] PM in the LEX (Library Experience) team. Works with ISVs, MVPs and Community. - http://thirdblogfromthesun.com/
Jeff Braaten [MSFT], Director of PM (he’s above Paul in the organization).
Rob (moving forward)
VS SP1 and new Help Viewer, are now available
Hi all
In case you missed it….
VS SP1 is now available for download from MSDN Subscriber downloads and tomorrow as a public download. VS SP1 contains the new VS local Help Viewer. So no more browser based help. No more testing in all browser for compatibility.
http://thirdblogfromthesun.com/2011/03/new-local-help-viewer-available-in-visual-studio-2010-sp1/
Side Note: The latest H3Viewer.exe is compatible with the new help system and still contains several extra features.
Rob
Say No to GM in Australia
Steve Marsh, a WA organic grower, says: “GM canola can’t be contained. We rely on the premium for GM-free organic food and we need Farmer Protection laws. We want compensation for lost premiums and cancelled certification.”
Kevin Willmott, a Victorian farmer who grew GM canola this year, says: “I’ve got 100 tonnes of GM canola that germinated in the pods when it was still green. GM is the problem because my conventional canola was fine. We’ll never grow GM again.”
Monsanto wants to make Australia the first country to develop and grow GM wheat – our daily bread and pasta. It recently acquired 20% of WA’s public breeding program for this purpose. Gene Ethics is working hard to stop industry and government research, development and promotion of GM crops and animals, particularly wheat. Your generous financial support will help to oppose the GM companies and their backers that use shaky science to sell shonky products.
Please donate to Gene Ethics, now:
Posted in GM Food
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New Help Viewer for VS 2010
кухненско обзавежданеMicrosoft announced today plans to address issues with VS 2010 offline help viewer.
Jeff Bratten’s blog articles tells you all about it.
As part of the announcement Paul O’Rear has provided a video tour of a new offline help viewer due to be released with VS 2010 SP1.
