Setup for Visual Studio 2008, which opens MSDN help in a browser when you press F1

Question

The MSDN Helper does not help much in that its startup time is long and that quite often it does not lead you to the correct help file. In any case, I always open MSDN in the browser. Is there some kind of setting for Visual Studio 2008 that opens MSDN help in a browser when I press F1?

Answer 1

Two suggestions:

1: Remove the default key binding for F1 using Tools> Options> Environment> Keyboard> Help. .F1 Help

Then write a small macro (different ways to do this, of course) to launch the browser with the default URL, for example.

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 

You can now assign a keyboard shortcut to this macro, as described above. Go to Tools> Options> Evnironment> Keyboard. Find Macro.OpenChromeWithURL and assign a shortcut to your macro. An explanation of how to assign a keyboard shortcut can be found here: How do I match a Visual Studio macro with a keyboard shortcut?

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2: Download the MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1)