Creating Macros for a Slide-In Prompt and to Renumber

When using the Developer Studio IDE, I have always missed some of the functionality I added to my CodeWright environment using a custom .dll I wrote several years back. The two most useful functions I missed most were called SlideInPrompt and Renumber.

The SlideInPrompt macro inserts a text string into a selected column. If only one column was selected, the selected column is left intact and the text inserted at the beginning of the column. If more than one column is selected, the text under the column is deleted before the text is inserted.

The Renumber macro will sequentially renumber a selected column. It will prompt for a beginning number, delete the selected column, and then sequentially ordered numbers are inserted in its place.

The combination of these two macros are great time savers. Here is an example of how you might use them.

Simply select a blank column (hold down your Alt key while selecting, or press CTRL+SHIFT+F8 to go into column mode), and activate the SlideInPrompt macro (I have it tied to CTRL->). Enter your text, such as:

GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);

You will end up with a column of text like this:

GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);
GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);
GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);
GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);
GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);
GetDlgItem(IDC_RADIO1)->Enable(FALSE);

Now comes the renumber macro. Highlight the columns of 1's and active the Renumber macro. It will prompt for a starting number; enter "1" and the column will be renumbered sequentially.

I had to calculate the number of columns selected because I couldn't find a function to return it. Anybody have any ideas on this?

To use this macro, simply highlight it and save it as a .dsm file in the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98\Macros" folder. Select Tools, Customize and go to the Add-Ins and Macros tab. Click the Browse button and select the macro.

'------------------------------------------------------------------
' FILE DESCRIPTION: Two Macros: SlideInPrompt() slides text into
' selection; Renumber() renumbers a column of numbers
' Eric Sanders, February 12, 2001
'------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub SlideInPrompt()
    SlideString = InputBox ("Enter Slide-In string:")
    If SlideString <> "" Then
        SlideIn(SlideString)
    End If
End Sub

Function SlideIn(ByVal SlideString)
    nStartLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.TopLine
    nEndLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.BottomLine

    ' Calculate how many columns have been selected
    ' No direct function to retreive this?
    nChars = len(ActiveDocument.Selection)
    nColumns = ((nChars - 2 * (nEndLine - nStartLine + 1)) _
                            / (nEndLine - nStartLine + 1))

    ' We cut to force cursor to the top left
    ActiveDocument.Selection.Cut

    ' If we only selected one column, then we want the original
    ' text so put it back
    if nColumns = 1 then
        ActiveDocument.Selection.Paste
    end if

    ' Now go through the column adding our string
    nStartColumn = ActiveDocument.Selection.CurrentColumn

    For i = nStartLine To nEndLine
        ActiveDocument.Selection.MoveTo i, nStartColumn
        ActiveDocument.Selection = SlideString
    Next
End Function


Sub Renumber()
    BegNum = InputBox ("Enter beginning number")
    If BegNum <> "" Then
        If IsNumeric(BegNum) Then
            nBegNum = Int(BegNum)
            RenumberColumnSelection(nBegNum)
        End If
    End If
End Sub


Function RenumberColumnSelection (ByVal nBegNum)
    nStartLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.TopLine
    nEndLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.BottomLine
    ActiveDocument.Selection.Delete
    nStartColumn = ActiveDocument.Selection.CurrentColumn

    For i = nStartLine To nEndLine
        ActiveDocument.Selection.MoveTo i, nStartColumn
    ActiveDocument.Selection = nBegNum
    nBegNum = nBegNum + 1
    Next
End Function

Downloads

Source Code (renumber.dsm) - 5kb

September 13, 2002