Activate 'View Item Description' programmatically?

Question

I have created an ArcMap add-in for browsing data layers and adding them to the TOC. I would like to add a button that when clicked will open the selected layers item description (before it is added to the TOC) however I can't seem to find any documentation on how to accomplish this.

Basically I want the same functionality as the 'View Item Description...' in the 'Data' menu when right clicking a layer in the TOC. So when the button is pressed the item description window is opened. Any one have any ideas I thought for sure there would be an easy way to do this?

Answer 1

Below is some VBA code that shows you how to open the Item Description window from the first layer in the TOC.

Public Sub OpenItemDescription()
    ' Get Application
    Dim pApp As IApplication
    Set pApp = Application

    ' Get Map document
    Dim pMXD As IMxDocument
    Set pMXD = ThisDocument

    ' Get Map
    Dim pmap As IMap
    Set pmap = pMXD.FocusMap

    ' Get first layer in TOC
    Dim pLayer As ILayer
    Set pLayer = pmap.Layer(0)

    ' Get Dataset
    Dim pDataset As IDataset
    Set pDataset = pLayer
    Dim pName As IName
    Set pName = pDataset.FullName
    Dim pFeatureClassName As IFeatureClassName
    Set pFeatureClassName = pName

    ' Get Metadata for dataset
    Dim pMetaData As IMetadata
    Set pMetaData = pFeatureClassName

    ' Open window
    Dim pMetadataViewWindow  As IMetadataViewWindow2
    Set pMetadataViewWindow = New MetadataViewWindow
    With pMetadataViewWindow
        Set .Application = pApp
        Set .Layer = pLayer
        Set .Metadata = pMetaData.Metadata
        .Show True
    End With
End Sub

Edit

Here is the code in c#.

 private void viewMetadataButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            IGxLayer gxLayer = new GxLayerClass();
            IGxFile gxFile = gxLayer as IGxFile;
            gxFile.Path = @lyrPath;
            ILayer layer = gxLayer.Layer as ILayer;
            IDataset pDataSet = (IDataset)layer;
            IName pName = (IName)pDataSet.FullName;
            IFeatureClassName pFeatureClassName = (IFeatureClassName)pName;
            IMetadata pMetadata = (IMetadata)pFeatureClassName;
            IMetadataViewWindow2 pMetadataViewWindow = (IMetadataViewWindow2) new MetadataViewWindow();
            pMetadataViewWindow.Application = ArcMap.Application;
            pMetadataViewWindow.Layer = layer;
            pMetadataViewWindow.Metadata_2 = pMetadata.Metadata;
            pMetadataViewWindow.Show(true);
        }