At least in my opinion, the largest feature lacking from the Visual
Studio editing environment is emacs-style paren-matching. While it is
impossible (so far as I know) to do *real* highlighting back to the
matching punctuation pair (in VStudio-macro-land, changes of selection
aren’t reflected in a screen update until end-of-macro), it is
possible to get the next best thing.
As is documented in each of the ‘NewRightPunctuation’ functions, simply
rebind each of the right paren, right bracket, and right curly brace
keys to these new functions. They will insert the character, call the
Visual Studio function to match on back to the correct character,
blink around it ‘a bit’, and then hop on back to the correct point to
continue typing.
The only caveat? The number of times to blink around is *very*
machine-dependant. Fifty seems to work well on a P2-400; alter to your
own preferences. It’s in the MatchEnclosing() function’s call to
SwapAroundCharacter(n) — just change ‘n’.
Sub NewRightParen()
‘DESCRIPTION This should be bound to ‘)’ in order to gain the matching
InsertCharAndMatchEnclosing(“)”)
End Sub
Sub NewRightBracket()
‘DESCRIPTION This should be bound to ‘]’ in order to gain the matching
InsertCharAndMatchEnclosing(“]”)
End Sub
Sub NewRightCurlyBrace()
‘DESCRIPTION This should be bound to ‘}’ in order to gain the matching
InsertCharAndMatchEnclosing(“}”)
End Sub
Sub InsertCharAndMatchEnclosing(ch)
ActiveDocument.Selection = ch
MatchEnclosing()
End Sub
Sub MatchEnclosing()
‘DESCRIPTION Blinks around the matching punctuation and then hops on back
lCurrentColumn = ActiveDocument.Selection.CurrentColumn
lCurrentLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.CurrentLine
ExecuteCommand “GoToMatchBrace”
SwapAroundCharacter(50)
ActiveDocument.Selection.MoveTo lCurrentLine, lCurrentColumn
End Sub
Sub SwapAroundCharacter(numIterations)
nIterator = 0
While nIterator < numIterations
nIterator = nIterator + 1
ActiveDocument.Selection.CharRight dsExtend
ActiveDocument.Selection.CharLeft dsExtend
Wend
End Sub
Again, to install these, simply save them into a macro file, load it
into Visual Studio, then go to Tools->Customize. If you select the
Keyboard tabbie and then change the category to Macros, the NewRight*
functions should appear. I
’
d recommend changing the Editor field to
Text and then going on ahead and binding the right bracket, right
curly, and right paren keys to each of the appropriate macros.
Date Posted May 2, 1999