ASP.NET Development Tips/Tricks : Know your Keyboard

I've thought for a while about what tip I wanted to start with. I decided to begin with the keyboard because I'll mention what shortcuts I use in all future tricks.

I don't want to get into a debate of which is better "the keyboard" or "the mouse", (personally I use one to compliment the other) but there are a some things about your keyboard and Visual Studio (VS) that can shave a few seconds off your common daily tasks. I like to call these two tips "VS Keyboard Shortcuts" and "Walking the Menus."

VS Keyboard Shortcuts

Everyone should know Visual Studio IDE largely relies on the Command Pattern. Nearly every action in VS can be performed by a command, and most Add-ins rely on the command pattern too.

What does this give us? Two words: "Keyboard" "Shortcuts." You can essentially tie any command (save, build, copy) to a key combination.  These settings are controlled in the keyboard options dialog.

Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard

In this dialog you can lookup all the commands, and assign key combinations to them.

If you see a command with a comma (',') in it, this means you pause.

For example "Ctrl+K, Ctrl+K" means hit "Ctrl+K" pause hit "Ctrl+K" again. Or, hold down the "Ctrl" key and hit the "K" key twice.

Some of the most common VS shortcuts I use are:

Ctrl+X	Cut
Ctrl+C	Copy
Ctrl+V	Paste
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo
Ctrl+S	Save
Ctrl+G	Go to line
Ctrl+Shift+B	Build Entire Solution
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+K	Add/Remove Bookmark
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+P	Go to Previous Bookmark
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+N	Go to Next Bookmark
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+O	Collapse all (regions, methods, etc.)
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+P	Expand All (regions, methods, etc.)
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+M	Collapse/Expand Current
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C	Comment out Current Line or Selection
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+U	Uncomment Current Line or Selection
F9	Add/Remove a breakpoint on the current line

Most of the common commands appear in the menus for quick reference.

Some general non-VS shortcuts I also use:

Alt+Tab	Switch windows.
Ctrl+Right Arrow	Jump one "word" to the right
Ctrl+Left Arrow	Jump one "word" to the left
Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow	Un/Highlight one "word" to the right
Ctrl+Shift+Left Arrow	Un/Highlight one "word" to the left

 

Walking the Menus

Now, spend a few minutes exploring your menus and context menus. Look at all those commands and command categories. (Most having an underlined letter)

Using your Alt key and those underlined letters you can "walk the menus."

When you hit Alt, the menu bar gets focus. Use the letter shortcuts (the underlined letter) to select the action you want. This keeps you from taking your hands off your keyboard to grab the mouse to click the menus.

Some of my common "walks" are:

Alt, B, U	Build Current Project (the project containing the document your working on)
Alt, D, P	Attach the VS Debugger to a Process
Alt, D, D	Detach the VS Debugger from all Processes
Alt, W, L	Close all Documents/Tabs

The first three don't seem like much, but I'll explain how valuable they are in a later post.

Conclusion

The process of taking your hand off your keyboard home row, grabbing the mouse, dragging to target, clicking (repeated clicking if you have bad aim), and moving your hand back to the home row takes valuable seconds. Why not save them by learning a keyboard trick or two?