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I keep learning new keyboard shortcuts for Visual Studio and I find some of them increase my productivity a lot. I was wondering what keyboard shortcuts in VS you found useful and why.

I know I could find a list of shortcuts online somewhere, but I don't think that would be as beneficial to me as asking here since there are so many shortcuts and I think my eyes would just glaze over trying to read that list.

Here are some that are extremely useful to me:

F12 - Goes to the definition of any class or method. It has saved me so much time searching code files once I found that one out.

Ctrl+M, O|L - Expands/Collapses regions in C# or tags in XAML files. I love this feature in XAML files since I can't use Regions in them to make my code easier to read

Ctrl+R, E - Builds a property's Get/Set methods for me. That, combined with a few macros, makes building accessor methods a lot less painful

Ctrl+E, D - Fixes the whitespaces in code files

I also created my own keyboard shortcut to CloseAllOpenFiles since VS2010 moved the Close button on open files and I can no longer keep my mouse in one place and spam-click to close all my open files. Why would they they think its a good idea to put the close button on each tabs and make the tabs various widths....

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Possible Duplicate of a SO question: stackoverflow.com/questions/98606/… . – Bobby Nov 15 '10 at 16:06
that's a community wiki question on SO. We're here to earn rep ;-) – azheglov Nov 15 '10 at 16:27
Thanks, didn't know there was an existing post on SO. I thought it would get deleted there since it isn't programming-related – Rachel Nov 15 '10 at 16:36
@Rachel: But it is about software tools commonly used by programmers (quote from the FAQ), so it's On-Topic on SO (at least as I see it, and it's not closed, so that's a good sign ;) ). @azheglov: I'd say something very philosophical about that not the reputation counts...but heck, who does not want more reputation?! ;) – Bobby Nov 15 '10 at 18:02
ALT+F4 for after a long hard day (and quarter of a night) – J.T.S. Nov 15 '10 at 21:27
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closed as off topic by Yannis Rizos♦ Mar 17 '12 at 2:41

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9 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=92CED922-D505-457A-8C9C-84036160639F&displaylang=en

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You legend Pradeep. I'm sure I would have found this eventually, the VS2008 one for C# was gold. But hey thanks for being the one to find it for me! :D – Anonymous Type Nov 15 '10 at 21:49
up vote 6 down vote

CTRL + K + C|U: comment/uncomment selected lines of code

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Didn't know there was a shortcut for that, thanks! I think I'm going to have to try and remap it though so I can hit that with one hand. The K is a little bit of a stretch for me – Rachel Nov 15 '10 at 16:39
Actually noticed Ctrl+E, C|U works the exact same way so don't need to remap anything – Rachel Nov 15 '10 at 16:46
up vote 4 down vote

CTRL + "-": It's like the back button in your browser. Use it after having jumped to a search result, or after you've used F12.

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This is a good one. – Anonymous Type Nov 15 '10 at 21:45
up vote 3 down vote

CTRL-K, D - format document

CTRL-. - resolve (add using)

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CTRL-. is the greatest keyboard shortcut out there. :-) – Eric King Nov 15 '10 at 17:12
Ctrl + . is a great shortcut indeed. Must resist the urge to use it 25 times in the same code file! – azheglov Nov 15 '10 at 18:54
up vote 2 down vote

I find these shortcuts very useful during debugging sessions:

CTRL + ALT + "e": to open the Exceptions window, where you can control how Visual Studio behaves when program exceptions are encountered (halt execution or ignore).

F9 - sets a breakpoint on the line of code your cursor is currently on.

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Haven't had to use Exceptions window much but I use breakpoints all the time so +1 – Rachel Nov 15 '10 at 16:40
up vote 2 down vote

Alt+W W Home Shift+End Alt+C Esc - closes all code windows :-)

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.... lol Thanks, but I think I like my custom Ctrl+Shift+W better – Rachel Nov 15 '10 at 16:37
up vote 1 down vote

Shift + F9: quickwatch popup. quickly inspect a variable. used while debugging.

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up vote 0 down vote

I like ALT-CTRL-B to build the application. I tend to use that and then just refresh my website (and not the use the one below as that opens a new window).

Another favorite is - CTRL-F5 to start without debugging.

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up vote 0 down vote

CTRL+K,R - Find all references

ALT+SHIFT+ENTER - Full screen editing mode

CTRL+TAB - switch between documents (and tool windows) (this is not unique to VS, but still useful)

SHIFT+F10 - brings up context menu so you can use the keyboard for other things you might not know the shortcut to

Another useful one, maybe not a shortcut, is when navigating with the keyboard if you hold CTRL it will scroll the window while leaving your cursor in the same position. Also, nobody's yet mentioned good ol' F5 - debug.

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