Do not eliminate the CLASSIC view of MSDN
Microsoft is apparently about to eliminate the classic view of MSDN in favor of the poor low-contrast, pale, washed out 'lightweight' view. When you visit MSDN now you will see the following if you are viewing the CLASSIC view:
"This view of the MSDN and TechNet Libraries will be replaced soon with the Lightweight view. Try it now by clicking the Lightweight link above."
This is more of the same from Microsoft in reducing the developer experience to a shred of what it once was, and makes using MSDN as unpleasant as the grey theme of VS2012.
ITMAGE
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16 comments
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Petr Vones
commented
Interestingly, the MSDN Magazine style has reverted back to the readable one that keeps the browser window width instead of older horrible one that displayed ridiculously thin column of text only. Can we get this back for MSDN online ?
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Petr Vones
commented
Great, MSDN is finally hardly readable (scroll here, scroll there, less visible information). What else is Microsoft going to destroy ?
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Wilfried Boos
commented
I disagree. The new view is much more readable and much cleaner than the classic view. I actualy prefer the new view over the classic view
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Anonymous
commented
at least give us a choice?
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abatishchev commented
This finally happened and they has eliminated the Classic Theme.
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Sherry Barber
commented
I agree. We don't need a different (not better) hammer. The hammer is the tool we use to do our jobs. We don't want to have to learn how to use a different tool, in addition to having to learn and keep up with rapidly changing technologies. Classic view is our hammer. Please return the classic view.
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dav0id
commented
I completely agree:
I always use classic view - and I prefer to have the choice.
I don't mind waiting for the topic tree to load, because it's so useful.
Please don't remove the classic view! -
ITMAGE
commented
Seems Microsoft has added a 'Related Resources' section to the lightweight view. I find this unhelpful and more a distraction than anything else. What do you think?
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Gerald Heinig
commented
Lightweight view was a disaster for me: it caused *hours* of frustrating searches for a previous page that I needed, but couldn't find, due to the impossibility of finding my place in the navigation tree. I was hugely relieved when I stumbled on classic view by accident (via Wikipedia).
MSDN was always a great way of discovering new information just by browsing around. Lightweight view eliminates that and thus removes 80% of the usefulness of MSDN.
Please, do *not* remove classic view! -
Mohan Taneja
commented
I absolutely agree with this. Classic view is really helpful while navigating from one topic to another and gives a bigger picture of where you are in the library.
Why does Microsoft want to remove this view? MS can keep the Lightweight as defult however we do want to have Classic available please. -
Cindy Meister
commented
You do have to ask yourself what kind of people actually USE Help at Microsoft in order to learn products and research new technologies. The quality and completeness of Help for the Office applications (both end-user and developer) has been steadily deteriorating over the past ten years. It now appears Help across the board is going to be reduced to bland mediocrity dictated by marketing and only of use to the casual user/developer. This is certain to result in increased traffic in the forums when people aren't able to locate the answers on their own any more. But will Microsoft hire enough knowledgeable and literate "contingent staff" to cover increased demand?
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Mark
commented
I'm baffled by the decision to remove the classic view--lightweight's navigation is inferior to classic's (you can only see the children of the current topic you're viewing, not the sibling topics at the same level, whereas you can see *everything* in classic). It drives me crazy that I have to go up a level (and do a full page refresh) if I want to explore topics at the same navigation level that I'm currently reading.
I suspect a manager in the MSDN team decided that lightweight is prettier and more modern, and decided to eliminate classic without ever having tried to use the product.
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GUI
commented
Yet another political decision done in the name of "improving the brand" and "consistency" at the expense of usability.
Several parts of MSDN have already been steadily getting destroyed by this design trend (eg forum list that has no delimitation whatsoever, a total mess). It's too bad this is going away as well; will have to rely on local doc & a viewer to get a proper treeview back.
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Petr Vones
commented
I also agree that the Classic view is the most readable and ergonomic (variable-width) style. There is no need to remove it.
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brian
commented
Microsoft seems to be **** bent in making their product unusable from Windows 8 through to VS2012 and now MSDN - despite the virtual universal dislike of the flat Metro looks they carry degrading their products - unbelievable!
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ITMAGE
commented
