Sometimes you need to comment out blocks of code, but you don't necessarily want to comment out each entire line. As I was performing this very chore today, I thought to myself, "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if there was a keyboard shortcut I could use to comment a selected block of text using comment delimiters?" Then I thought to myself, "I already know how to create macros thanks to Philip's great blogs on macros. Why don't I try writing my own?" So I did. Source code within.

See Philip's great blogs for instructions on how to install macros.

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module SolutionExplorer

  Sub CollapseNodes()
    ' Get the the Solution Explorer tree
    Dim UIHSolutionExplorer As UIHierarchy
    UIHSolutionExplorer = DTE.Windows.Item( _
     Constants.vsext_wk_SProjectWindow).Object()

    ' Check if there is any open solution
    If (UIHSolutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems.Count = 0) Then
      Return
    End If

    ' Get the top node (the name of the solution)
    Dim UIHSolutionRootNode As UIHierarchyItem
    UIHSolutionRootNode = UIHSolutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems.Item(1)

    ' Collapse each project node
    Dim UIHItem As UIHierarchyItem
    For Each UIHItem In UIHSolutionRootNode.UIHierarchyItems
      UIHItem.UIHierarchyItems.Expanded = False
    Next

    ' Select the solution node, or else when you click
    ' on the solution windows scrollbar, it will synchronize the open document
    ' with the tree and pop out the corresponding node which is probably not
    ' what you want.
    UIHSolutionRootNode.Select(vsUISelectionType.vsUISelectionTypeSelect)
  End Sub

  Sub ExpandNodes()
    ' Get the the Solution Explorer tree
    Dim UIHSolutionExplorer As UIHierarchy
    UIHSolutionExplorer = DTE.Windows.Item( _
     Constants.vsext_wk_SProjectWindow).Object()

    ' Check if there is any open solution
    If (UIHSolutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems.Count = 0) Then
      Return
    End If

    ' Get the top node (the name of the solution)
    Dim UIHSolutionRootNode As UIHierarchyItem
    UIHSolutionRootNode = UIHSolutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems.Item(1)

    ' Collapse each project node
    Dim UIHItem As UIHierarchyItem
    For Each UIHItem In UIHSolutionRootNode.UIHierarchyItems
      UIHItem.UIHierarchyItems.Expanded = True
    Next

    ' Select the solution node, or else when you click
    ' on the solution windows scrollbar, it will synchronize the open document
    ' with the tree and pop out the corresponding node which is probably not
    ' what you want.
    UIHSolutionRootNode.Select(vsUISelectionType.vsUISelectionTypeSelect)
  End Sub

End Module