Some Very Useful Visual Studio Shortcut Keys and Some Tips to Go with VS 2005

This simple article lists a number of visual studio short keys. Knowing short keys makes programming with IDE a fun. Further, there are a number of tips to play easy and faster with visual studio. The tips will help save a lot of time while browsing windows, getting reference to methods, properties and adding codes etc. These tips have been known to work with visual studio 2005.

Efficient programmers use short keys in IDE like Visual Studio. This saves time and in many cases makes the work run faster also. I also love short keys. They are smart! And there also go some tricks that help make your visual studio days a party! I have listed here some short cuts and some tips with the hope that this will be helpful to you all.

22 Most Useful Visual Studio Short-cuts

1. Ctrl+F5 to run the website without debugging. F5 only will run the website in debugging mode.
   
2. Stop Debugging: Shift+F5
   
3. Restart Debugging: Ctrl+Shift+F5
   
4. Break All: Ctrl+Alt+Break
   
5. F11 to debug line by line downwards from the toggle point. This works with F10 also. In fact you can see F10 assigned for this task. See Debug menu in the visual studio.
   
6. F9 to toggle a break point.
   
7. To delete all the break points at once: Ctrl+Shift+F9. If you only wish to disable the break points you can go down the Debug menu.
   
8. Ctrl+S to save the current document. Ctrl+Shift+S to save all the documents at once.
   
9. Print a document directly from the visual studio? Press Ctrl+P. This will bring the print dialog.
   
10. Ctrl+F to find a text. A find dialog will be displayed. Then you are left with a number of options.
    
11. Ctrl+H or Ctrl+Shift+H for find and replace.
    
12. Ctrl+G to go to the specific line number in the current document.
    
13. Open the web browser right from within the visual studio? Press Ctrl+Alt+R.
    
14. Irritated switching back and forth the design view and code behind page of a file? Use F7 to navigate back and forth the files of a page.
    
15. Press F4 to view the properties window for a control from the design page.
    
16. To view the server explorer: Ctrl+Alt+S
    
17. To view the solution explorer: Ctrl+Alt+L
    
18. To view the output window: Ctrl+Alt+O
    
19. To view the toolbox: Ctrl+Alt+X
    
20. Press Shift+Alt+Enter to view/undo full screen.
    
21. Press Ctrl+O to open a document from the project folder.
    
22. Ctrl+F11 to view disassembly: the machine level code!

6 Interesting Visual Studio Tips

1. To view the start page, navigate View->Other Windows->Start Page
   
2. To initiate the start page to display feed from a website, Tools->Options->Startup. Choose show start page at start from the combo fox. Input the start page news channel rss feed. Click Ok.
   
3. To display line numbers in the documents, Tools->Options->Text Editor. Now click the editor you need to display number in. Check Line Numbers at the right side of the window.
   
4. Initiate the home page for the web browser [opened by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R]? Follow Tools->Options->Environment->Web Brower. Set the home page and optionally the search page from the right side of the window.
   
5. Know the class name or method name but confused the right namespace? Right click the class name or method name and click Resolve; you will see the reference you need to add. Click the reference. It will be added for the page.
   
6. Using find window and clicking Find button each time to go to next match? Leave the trend. Just press F3 to go to next match!!

Shortcuts are the small but useful ladders of programming. You can use them to go up and down, left and right or south and north. I would like to heartily welcome to share your tips and tricks that you have learned from your dedicated play around with the visual studio. All the tips and shortcuts I have listed above are tested and learned from visual studio 2005. They may or may not work in visual studio 2008 and later versions. You can specify the compatibility of your trick that you are posting as comment in this article.

I originally blogged these 22 Visual Studio Short Keys and 6 Short-cut Ways to Custom Jobs: A List of Tips and Tricks in my blog dotNETspidor: A dot net programmers experiences

Welcome to your comments, suggestions and more over addition of any short cuts from your side. Thank you very much. Happy Programming!