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Stephen Taylor
New Member
Canada
2 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 02 2018 : 11:19:11 AM
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It would be neat if there was a shortcut to open a webpage on SO and search whatever was selected under the cursor.
It could replace the utterly useless F1 functionality |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - Apr 02 2018 : 12:35:04 PM
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Here I would be tempted to turn to your browser, and see if you can set up a keyboard shortcut to tell it to search Stack Overflow, and then paste in the selected code.
Personally I use Vivaldi (based on Chrome) these days, and it is easy to do there, via the Search Engine settings. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Apr 02 2018 : 12:40:43 PM
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| It would be good to have a configurable url too -- so that for example, you could do the search anywhere you want, not just hardcoded to SO. case=115503 |
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Stephen Taylor
New Member
Canada
2 Posts |
Posted - Apr 02 2018 : 12:46:05 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by feline
Here I would be tempted to turn to your browser, and see if you can set up a keyboard shortcut to tell it to search Stack Overflow, and then paste in the selected code.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it, but...
I have to:
copy selected text
find/raise/open browser
paste
search
Four button clicks that, admittedly, is not major, but is repetitively done day in, day out. Also requires switching between mouse & kb. F1 is the easiest key to find on the KB, (possibly except spacebar & esc) but its completely unused.
I would personally use the sh*t out of this feature. More so than a customizable search button on my mouse https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13942657/visual-studio-intercepting-f1-help-command
The other major point is that whenever I am searching SO, its almost guaranteed I'm searching something from VS (an error message, or something similar). Conversely, when I don't have VS open, it's relatively unlikely I'll be searching SO.
Perhaps a customizable search function would be better - so can set it to just search google. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - Apr 03 2018 : 09:07:19 AM
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Are you aware that the IDE has a built in web browser?
IDE View menu -> Other Windows -> Web Browser
set home page via:
Tools menu -> Options -> Environment -> Web Browser -> Home page
Which will help to cut out a couple of steps here.
Another way to approach this is Source Links: https://support.wholetomato.com/default.asp?W754
This is designed for things like bug numbers, but if you use a regular expression rule, with a simple tag like "SO:", you can have Source Links go active by just typing SO: before the text you want to search:
https://support.wholetomato.com/default.asp?W754#regex
its not as simple as F1, but it does offer you control over what happens, and saves you having to copy / paste the text into the browser, and look for the search field, once you have set up the search URL. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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"Search on StackOverflow"
