How do I filter out the Silverlight documentation when I'm developing WPF application in VS2008? It's very annoying to get the help for the Silverlight version of the class when I press F1.
I'd prefer not to remove the documentation for Silverlight altogether since I will need it in the future, but some way to choose between WPF and Silverlight help would be great.
Thanks.
Frankly, I've found the "context sensitivity" of the F1 help in Visual Studio to be dubious. I usually use the help index. This allows you to filter by broad topics.
I don't use .NET 3.5 and am currently only using VS2005, so I'm not sure exactly what the index's "Filter By" list contains when WPF, Silverlight, etc. are installed, but I think in this case I'd try the "Windows Forms Development" filter.
Alternatively, you can use the search. You are still likely to have false hits, but you can select the topics from a list, and the topic headings usually give you some idea of the context.
Hope it helps,
Nathan D. Southerland, MCSD.NET
PS - The only thing I've been able to find on customizing help is in this article.
I blogged this last week. It does "remove" the silverlight docs, or rather hides them from the index until the day that you decide to add them back in.
In order to fix this right click on the VS2008 icon and run as an administrator. Choose the Index option from the Help menu. In the search box type “collection manager” – and click on the Help option in the index list. Uncheck the “Microsoft Silverlight 2 SDK Documentation” collection then click Update VSCC. Close the Document Explorer and Visual Studio. You must open Document Explorer from Help/Index within Visual Studio, starting MSDN directly is not enough.
Now try pressing F1 on one of those pesky topics that exist in both .NET and Silverlight (I used the Add method on a Dictionary class) and wait while Document Explorer updates itself, that long slow horrible process. Once complete you should find that you’re back to seeing the .NET help by default and not the Silverlight help.
For the sake of completeness, there's also the method details here on the Silverlight SDK Blog. It does have an unfortunate side affect of changing how the help works though, so if you don't like the online mode it may not be for you.
The workaround is to adjust the settings in Visual Studio's Tools|Options|Environment|Help|Online dialog box. There are two scenarios:
- In the Tools|Options dialog box, set your preferences to use local help. In this case, pressing F1 on a .NET/Silverlight shared member always goes to the Silverlight version, regardless of whether you are developing for .NET or Silverlight.
- In the Tools|Options dialog box, set your preferences to use online help. In this case, pressing F1 on a .NET/Silverlight shared member always goes to the .NET online version, regardless of whether you are developing for .NET or Silverlight.