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Microsoft Developer Network

The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is a developer community providing API information and documentation. There are two ways you can access the MSDN:

  1. Using the link: The .NET API Browser
  2. Directly from Visual Studio

Access API Documentation in Visual Studio

  1. Left click your cursor on the thing you want to read the documentation about. This could be a panel in Visual Studio, a class, a class member, etc.

    Placing Cursor

  2. Press the F1 key.

    This will open an instance of your default browser and load the documentation page within it.

    Warning

    Depending on your keyboard, you may need to hold down the FN (Function) key when you press the F1 key.

    This method of looking up documentation works for more than just classes. You can put your cursor on anything, like a method, and when you click F1 it will open the documentation for that item.

Note

Using F1 to jump to documentation will only work for Framework APIs and will not work for code you've written.

Further Reading