---
title: "How Microsoft Visual Studio Is Doing Help"
date: 2009-11-07
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# How Microsoft Visual Studio Is Doing Help

The following [10 minute video](http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/kmcgrath/Help-30-New-Help-System-in-Visual-Studio-2010/) shows what's new in the help system for the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.

[![Get Microsoft Silverlight](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/)](https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=124807)

The key trends are as follows:

- Help is embedded in a browser because the browser is the predominant mode people use to find information.
- Search is the main method for navigating content. There's still a table of contents, but no more index.
- When you choose a topic, you see contextual topics related to the topic you're viewing.
- You can choose to include online content into the search.
- The help is "decoupled" from the Visual Studio application, so the help authors can update the help without waiting for the next release of Visual Studio. (This is what I referred to in my [content independence post](https://idratherbewriting.com/2009/11/02/wikis-and-the-holy-grail-of-content-independence/).)

The direction the Visual Studio Help team is moving reflects my own trends as well: moving towards a web-like experience with help, relying more on search, adding contextual topics based on what the user is viewing, and publishing help in a location I can update on the fly.

(Thanks to [Keith Soltys](http://www.soltys.ca/coredump/2009/11/video-of-new-microsoft-help-system.html) for the link.)