Katy Visual C++ Stuff Puzzling Questions

Unanswered questions about Microsoft Visual Studio and InfoViewer

I want to make my own toolbar with a URL combo box.

The URL combo box item should be somewhere in the Microsoft Developer Studio dialog brought up by Tools | Customize, but I have no idea where.

A workaround: Use drag/drop to move the combo box from the InfoViewer toolbar to my custom toolbar, then restore the original InfoViewer toolbar.

Like my Netscape bookmark file, for example.

Or maybe some sites other than the ones Microsoft has helpfully provided in the Help | Microsoft on the web menu item.

How do I access my Favorites from within DevStudio?

Workaround: Open up explorer, and navigate to D:\WinNT\Profiles\KTM\Favorites\

How do I view my annotations at the same time as a text page?

You can annotate bookmarks, which I guess is Microsoft's idea of a replacement for the old annotations. In my opinion, it's not good enough yet.

Possible workaround: if Microsoft updates the .IVT files often enough, downloading the new ones and putting them on a CDR disk might be acceptable.

Watch MSDN Online for updates to MSDN.

How do I tell if an InfoViewer page has an annotation?

Once I can write annotations, I'd like to pass them around among my team, and know when somebody has written one, so I can take advantage of the information.

How do I tell which .IVT file I'm looking at?

The URL combo box gives me a start, since the prefix of the "URL" is something like mk:@ivt:dsmsdn/. However, this URL doesn't tell me if the file is coming from my local hard drive, or the MSDN CD on the network, or the VStudio disc in my CD-ROM drive.

Looking up the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InfoViewer\5.0\Titles key in the registry editor (use the last part of the prefix, then look at the Content and/or Location values) gives additional clues, but doesn't seem definitive -- the Content value may change after opening a title, for example. I noticed this behavior after installing MSDN on a system that had only had VStudio installed.

How can I turn Java/JavaScript on only for items behind the firewall?

InfoViewer seems to require that JavaScript be turned on, which is (reluctantly) fine for access the MSDN CD. But I don't want to run anyone else's JavaScript.

How do I create my own InfoViewer Title?

According to reports on the Internet (see Dejanews) this is impossible. How am I supposed to document any sort of extension DLL or Addin I write?

Partial workaround: Implement your help using straight HTML, and add the following macro to the macros loaded every time Visual Studio is loaded:

  Sub Application_DocumentOpen(theDocument)
  'Description: Runs whenever a document is opened in the workspace. 
  '  If an .HTML file is opened, show it in the infoviewer.

    if theDocument.Type = "Text" then
      ' Documents with type "Text" type use the ITextDocument interface as
      ' well as the IGenericDocument interface, so the Language property is
      ' valid.
      if theDocument.Language = dsHTML_IE3 Or 
         theDocument.Language = dsHTML_RFC1866  Then
        ExecuteCommand "EditPreviewHTMLPage"
      end if
    end if
  End Sub

This automatically shows the .HTML in the infoviewer. If I knew how to add a button to open an .HTML file you could call up the help by hitting a toolbar button.

This doesn't integrate your help in with the rest of the help, but at least you can show it within the IDE.

No solicitation beyond this point.
Don't even think of adding me to your mailing list. Put up a web page I'm interested in, and let me ask you for information.
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This page was last modified on 1998/08/23