Working links for old 3-panel docs?

Question

Well, I figured this day would come. My links to the older 3-panel style Salesforce docs for Apex, VF, SOQL, API, etc, now all redirect to the new "Atlas" style docs. For example, this: https://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/index_Left.htm now goes to https://developer.salesforce.com/docs; if you want the Apex docs you have to use https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/.

I find the new docs unusable - every navigation click reloads the entire page (slowly), the navigation tree often collapses after navigation, and the nav is in the same panel as the content, so scrolling the content moves the navigation - a pain when you are trying to flip between a couple of pages of reference. Up until today, the old links continued to work. Anyone know of a way to access the older docs?

Answer 1

While I've found no working link to the old docs, I've found a reasonable replacement: downloading the PDF for the documentation you need. Each Atlas page includes a link to download the PDF. I'm able to search, and I'm able to keep the navigation open (I'm using the Preview app on Mac OS X, although I believe Adobe Acrobat Viewer on Windows also includes the option to view the collapsible TOC in a navigation pane). I'd still prefer the old docs back, but it beats Atlas hands down.

Also, if you didn't see the comment above, @Daniel Ballinger has started an Idea to add the missing features to the Atlas docs which is probably the best way forward.

Answer 2

The docs team has just posted a blog about the retirement of the old portal and is responding to the community's requests for improvements to the new.

They did add a search widget (which is in the screenshot in the docs blog article). Currently it only appears to work for single word searches. I suspect it will improve over time.

This problem has the attention of the most senior people in the docs and the developer.salesforce.com organizations and work is in progress to address the usability feedback we are getting.

Update

They just release an update on Jul 9th that addressed a number of these concerns

A lot of these issues have now been addressed with their July 9th update (full details in the update blog post).

• deep links work now
• search the current api
• table of contents
  • can see a lot more of it (smaller font, less spacing between entries, prioritize space for table of contents relative to other features, i.e. pdf, language, etc.)
  • expands/scrolls to the section your on
• can find the feedback widget now
• code in docs uses fixed width font