Visual Studio Macro for Live Search
Here is a Visual Studio macro that takes the highlighted text and starts a search of the msdn/msdn2 sites. It often works better than the built-in help system. I usually assign it to hot key Alt+F1.
'--------------------------------------------------------------------------
'You will need to add a reference to 'System.Web' for HttpUtility.UrlEncode
'--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Sub SearchLiveForSelectedText()
Dim s As String = ActiveWindowSelection().Trim()
If s.Length > 0 Then
'If there is a space, then put quotes around the phrase.
Dim i As Integer
i = s.IndexOf(" ")
If i <> -1 Then
s = """" & s & """"
End If
'Adding 'header library' to the search string helps focus
'the search on non-.NET stuff
Dim ext As String = LCase(Path.GetExtension(ActiveDocument().Name))
If ext = ".cpp" Or ext = ".inl" Or ext = ".hpp" Or ext = ".cxx" Then
s = s + " header library "
End If
DTE.ItemOperations.Navigate("http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&q=" & _
Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(s) & " (site:msdn2.microsoft.com OR site:msdn.Microsoft.com)")
End If
End Sub
