Customization for Visual Studio 2008 that opens MSDN Help in a browser when hitting F1

Question

The MSDN help isn't very helpful in that its startup time is long and that it quite often doesn't get you to the correct help file. I always end up opening MSDN in a browser instead. Is there some customization for Visual Studio 2008 that opens MSDN Help in a browser when hitting F1?

Answer 1

Two suggestions:

1: Remove the default key-binding for F1, via Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard > Help.F1Help

Then write a little macro (different ways to do this of course), to start your browser with a default URL e.g.

Sub OpenChromeWithURL()
Dim url As String = "http://msdn.microsoft.com"

'launch browser
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData) + "\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe", url)
End Sub

To this macro you can now assign a keyboard shortcut as described before. Go to Tools > Options > Evnironment >Keyboard. Look for Macro.OpenChromeWithURL and assign a shortcut key to your Macro. An explanation on how to assign a shortcut key you can find here: How to map a Visual Studio macro to a keyboard shortcut?

---

2: Download the MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 SP1