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developerWorks staff
IBM
9 April 2003

Some people enjoy browsing the Web, seeing what's out there and discovering some hidden treasure. But when you need information to get your job done, you don't want to be "browsing." You want to get in, get what you need, and get back to work. developerWorks helps you do just that with our new and improved content views.

At developerWorks, our goal is to offer a Web site that reflects how people work. We focus on developer's needs and when necessary, we revamp the site to meet changing needs. Some people would say the design is "user-centered." We just say we listen to our users.

We were listening when you said you needed an easier way to find information on developerWorks. In response, we have recently revised our content views -- those pages that come up when you select items from the left navigation, like "Tools and products," "Code and components," and others. The new content views offer you greater flexibility and more options in how you see the content and how you sort it to find just what you're looking for.

Choose how to see the information
Now you can select how you want to view the information. For example, in the "Articles and columns" view, the page initially displays the titles of articles in alphabetical order. In other words, the view is "by title." Figure 1 illustrates the view-by selection on the Java technology Articles and columns view. Note that the title listing is in two sections -- titles beginning with A to M and titles beginning with N to Z.

Figure 1. "View by" selections

But what if you're looking for a particular topic or author? You can change the view-by selection to be by all topics, by all authors, or by a specific topic. For example, Figure 2 illustrates the results when you select the topic "J2ME" on the Java technology Articles and columns view.

Figure 2. View articles by topic (J2ME)

When you change the view-by selection to "Author" or "Topic," simply select an author name or topic to expand the list of articles under that author or topic.

Choose how to sort the information
Once you have selected how you want to view the information, you can control how that view is sorted. For example, on the "Articles and columns" view, the page initially displays the titles of all articles (A to M) in alphabetical order. You can click on the "Skill Level" column heading to display the articles in order of skill level. And you can click on the "Date" column heading to display the articles sorted by date. These three headings (Title, Skill level, and Date) also control the order of the sort results -- for example, clicking "Date" again reverses the order of the dates. The sort icon () shows which column is being sorted and the direction of the sort.

Figure 3 highlights the Skill Level and Date sorting options on the Java technology Articles and columns view.

Figure 3. "Sort by" selections

Keep in mind that sorting applies only to the current view that is displayed. In other words, if you have titles A to M displayed, and you sort by date to find the most recent articles, you will see the most recent articles that have a title beginning with A to M.

Search for exactly what you want
When you know exactly what you're looking for -- well, almost exactly -- you can use the search function. For example, if you remember seeing an interview with Steve Tuecke on the Java technology zone, you can simply search on "tuecke" and bingo! There it is -- "Grid guru: An interview with Argonne's Steve Tuecke." Your search term appears in bold in the search results.

Figure 4 highlights the "Search by" box on the Java technology Articles and columns view.

Figure 4. Search function

Hints and tips
Most of the views on all the developerWorks zones work essentially the same. But there are some differences.

• Some views contain abstracts (or summaries); some do not. If a view contains summaries, you can choose to hide them to help you scan the view.
  
  
• The view-by choices and sort-by selections are tailored to the content in the view. For example, the "News" view lets you view by current stories or previous stories. (Previous stories span the past two months.) "Events" lets you view by country/region and types of events. The "Standards" view does not have a view-by option.
  
  
• Certain content views let you view by "IBM." In other words, you can quickly find IBM tools and products, code and components, and related links.

Tell us what you think
So now you have a brief introduction to our new and improved content views. Try them out, see if they help you get what you need quicker, and let us know how we can improve them. Use the Comments box below to send us your feedback.

Resources

• If you're new to developerWorks, "About dW" tells you about our mission and background and even shares some tips on how to use the developerWorks site most effectively.
  
  
• Get a complete listing of tutorials and training opportunities from developerWorks.
  
  
• Check out our printed publication, developerWorks journal, offering the developer resources you need offline.
  
  
• A developerWorks Toolbox subscription offers one-stop access to over 1000 IBM tools, middleware, and technologies.
  
  

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