Visual Studio Hacks

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Chapter 7, Help and Research

#61 Redirect Help to Google

HACK

To use this power toy, you should first select a piece of text in the text edi-

tor and then right-click and select the search engine you would like to

search. The power toy will then pass the selected text to the search engine

you chose and open the page in the built-in browser, as shown in

Figure 7-12.

Because the source is also available online (follow the same link as before),

you could add your own searches to the menu if you were so inclined. (I

would love to see a Google groups search item.) The VSOnlineSearch power

toy is simple to install, easy to use, and makes it very easy to search for

something without leaving the IDE.

HACK

#61

Redirect Help to Google Hack #61

Supercharge Visual Studio’s help by hooking up a macro to Google and other

search engines.

In “Search the Internet from Visual Studio” [Hack #60], you saw a way to high-

light text and then query a search engine using that selected text. This hack

is similar in that it allows you to select text and then search Google with that

text. The difference between these hacks is that this hack uses a macro. This

makes it easier to wire up to a shortcut key and to change the search engine

to use.

Figure 7-11. VSOnlineSearch right-click menu

Redirect Help to Google #61

Chapter 7, Help ...