Favorite Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts

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What is your favorite Visual Studio keyboard shortcut   I m always up for leaving my hands on the keyboard and away from the mouse     One per answer please

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There are some great tips and trips and shortcuts on Sara Ford s blog

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Stock Visual Studio  F12 - Edit GoToDefinition   Having DevExpress  Refactor  installed means that Ctrl     is my all-time fave  though

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Ctrl Shift 8 - Backtracks go to previous  F12  Go to definition

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Incremental Search - Ctrl   I   It s basically the find dialog box without the dialog box   Just start typing what you want to search for  look at the bottom status bar location to see what you ve typed    Pressing Ctrl   I again or F3 searches for the next instance   Press Escape to quit   Starting a new search by pressing Ctrl   I twice repeats the last search

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Ctrl Shift V multiple times cycles through the clipboard ring

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If you have your keyboard settings set to the  Visual C  2005  setting  the window switching and text editing chords are excellent  You hit the first combination of Ctrl   Key  then release and hit the next letter    Ctrl E  C  Comment Selected Text Ctrl E  U  Uncomment Selected Text Ctrl W  E  Show Error List Ctrl W  J  Show Object Browser Ctrl W  S  Show Solution Explorer Ctrl W  X  Show Toolbox   I still use F4 to show the properties pane so I don t know the chord for that one   If you go to the Tools   Customise menu option and press the Keyboard button  it gives you a list of commands you can search to see if a shortcut is available  or you can select the  Press Shortcut Keys   textbox and test shortcut keys you want to assign to see if they conflict   Addendum  I just found another great one that I think I ll be using quite frequently  Ctrl K  S pops up an intellisense box asking you what you would like to surround the selected text with  It s exactly what I ve needed all those times I ve needed to wrap a block in a conditional or a try catch

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In debug mode  Alt   jumps to the current breakpoint  where execution is stopped

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Outlining  ctrl M  ctrl M - Collapse expand current element ctrl M  ctrl O - Collapse all  gives you a nice overview of a complex class  for example  ctrl M  ctrl O - Toggle all  This works both in VB C  code  e g  collapse expand a function  and in an aspx page  e g  collapse expand a GridView definition   One very nice use of this is to cut or copy a big chunk of markup or code  For example  to move a big  sprawling  lt table gt  or  lt asp gridview gt  definition   Go to the first line ctrl M  ctrl M to collapse it ctrl X to cut it  you don t have to select it  as long as your insertion point is still in that line  Move to where you want it and ctrl V to paste

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Ctrl X  This cuts  to clipboard  the current line of code

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Ctrl   R   W to display whitespace  great for tab or space enforcement    Also  holding down Alt while selecting with the mouse will create a rectangular region

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VS 2008   Ctrl E D   Format Code  Ctrl M O   Collapse To Definitions Ctrl Z     Undo    F9  Breakpoint Ctrl Shift F9   Delete All Breakpoints

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Snippets Each snippet has a shortcut that you can access by typing a word then tab  The one I use the most is for a standard property definition  just type property then tab

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Ctrl M  O  Can collapse and expand all sections of code in a particular file

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If you have your keyboard settings set to the  Visual C  2005  setting  the window switching and text editing chords are excellent  You hit the first combination of Ctrl   Key  then release and hit the next letter    Ctrl E  C  Comment Selected Text Ctrl E  U  Uncomment Selected Text Ctrl W  E  Show Error List Ctrl W  J  Show Object Browser Ctrl W  S  Show Solution Explorer Ctrl W  X  Show Toolbox   I still use F4 to show the properties pane so I don t know the chord for that one   If you go to the Tools   Customise menu option and press the Keyboard button  it gives you a list of commands you can search to see if a shortcut is available  or you can select the  Press Shortcut Keys   textbox and test shortcut keys you want to assign to see if they conflict   Addendum  I just found another great one that I think I ll be using quite frequently  Ctrl K  S pops up an intellisense box asking you what you would like to surround the selected text with  It s exactly what I ve needed all those times I ve needed to wrap a block in a conditional or a try catch

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Control Apostrophe   Oh wait  that was after I remapped it away from that god-awkward Alt Shift F10 or whatever it was   When you remap options to help bind this away from it s original hard to hit shortcut  it becomes a lot lot more useful

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Ctrl      To include a missing library

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Ctrl   W for selecting the current word

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Ctrl Shift R -  Refactor with Resharper

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Visual Studio 2010 Keybinding Posters

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I have two that I use a lot  the first is standard  the second you have to map   Ctrl A  Ctrl E  F  Select All  Format Selection   Ctrl E  R  Remove Unused Usings and Sort   Both help pay down the  cruft debt  early and often

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prop  and hit tab   stubs out property for you

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Format document    Ctrl K  Ctrl D  On an aspx page  this takes care of properly indenting all of your markup and ensures that everything is XHTML compliant  adds quotes to attributes  corrects capitalization  closes self-closing tags   I find that this makes it much easier to find mismatched tags and to make sure that my markup makes sense  If you don t like how  it s indenting  you can control which tags go on their own line and how much space they get around them under  Tools Options Text Editor HTML Format Tag Specific Options   In your C  or VB code  this will correct any  capitalization or formatting issues that didn t get caught automatically   For CSS files  you can choose compact  one definition per line   semi-expanded  or expanded  each rule on its own line   and you can choose how it handles capitalization

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Ctrl   R   W to display whitespace  great for tab or space enforcement    Also  holding down Alt while selecting with the mouse will create a rectangular region

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Insert snippet   Ctrl K  Ctrl S  I use if often for try  catch and  region

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Hopefully this hasn t already been posted  apologies if so  I ve just come across a useful keyboard shortcut in Visual Studio 2008  With the QuickWatch window open  highlight a row with a string value in it and hit Space Bar  The text visualiser window will appear with the value in it   I have found it quite useful for checking jQuery innerText values as the QuickWatch window by default is too small to show longer strings fully

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VS 2008   Ctrl E D   Format Code  Ctrl M O   Collapse To Definitions Ctrl Z     Undo    F9  Breakpoint Ctrl Shift F9   Delete All Breakpoints

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Ctrl Shift S    Save  Ctrl Shift B    Build

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Incremental Search - Ctrl   I   It s basically the find dialog box without the dialog box   Just start typing what you want to search for  look at the bottom status bar location to see what you ve typed    Pressing Ctrl   I again or F3 searches for the next instance   Press Escape to quit   Starting a new search by pressing Ctrl   I twice repeats the last search

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Ctrl M  Ctrl O   collapse to definitions  I use it all the time together with  regions  despite what Jeff says  to get an overview of the code on my screen

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By far the most useful  after Ctrl Shift B  are    Ctrl K  C - to Comment out selection Ctrl k  U - to Uncomment a selection

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Ctrl A  K  F  Select all  prettyprint

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Expand Smart Tag  Resolve Menu   Ctrl      period   Expands the tag that shows when you do things like rename an identifier

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Ctrl Shift S    Save  Ctrl Shift B    Build

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Ctrl Shift space shows the syntax overloads for the current function you are typing parameters for

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Hmmm  nobody said F1 for help     Could it be that Google is faster and better for getting at the information that you need

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I ve mapped File Close to CTRL SHIFT W  That and CTRL TAB mean you can close exactly whichever files you want

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Ctrl F10 run to cursor when debugging  Looked for this for ages before I found the keyboard shortcut

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Well  if you re really       always up for leaving my hands on the   keyboard and away from the mouse       Than you should go here  It s not really my favorite  it s just everything   A shortcut a day will keep the mouse away

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Shift ESC  This hides closes any of the  fake window  windows in Visual Studio  This includes things like the Solution Explorer  Object Browser  Output Window  Immediate window  Unit Test Windows etc  etc  and still applies whether they re pinned  floating  dockable or tabbed   Shortcut into a window  e g  Ctrl   Alt   L or Ctrl   Alt   I  do what you need to do  and Shift   Esc to get rid of it  If you don t get rid of it  the only way to give it focus again is to use the same keyboard shortcut  or the mouse  which is what we re trying to avoid       Once you get the hang of it  it s immensely useful     Grrr    The amount of times of hit Ctrl   F4 to close the  window  only to see my current code window close was insane before I found this  now it only happens occasionally

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It s simple  but   Ctrl   L  deletes the entire line   Great for fast code editing

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Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift -  But if you are a keyboard lover then go for Resharper

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F7 toggles from design view to code view

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For me  it s nothing to do about auto completing code  matching parenthesis or showing some fancy tool panel  Instead  it s just about letting me see the code    With all the panels surrounding you  the area you use to actually write code becomes too small    In this cases  Shift Alt Enter comes in to the rescue and gets the code window in focus in full screen mode  Hit it again  and you have all the panels back

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I mapped all of the expand collapse commands so that they can be used with the left and only so my right hand stays on my mouse  Ctrl   E  Ctrl   E toggles expansion Ctrl   E  Ctrl   D collapses all to definitions  Ctrl   E  Ctrl   A toggles all outlining

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Ctrl   Alt   E   Exception Catch Settings and code snippets

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Control Apostrophe   Oh wait  that was after I remapped it away from that god-awkward Alt Shift F10 or whatever it was   When you remap options to help bind this away from it s original hard to hit shortcut  it becomes a lot lot more useful

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Ctrl Shift S    Save  Ctrl Shift B    Build

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Ctrl F10 run to cursor when debugging  Looked for this for ages before I found the keyboard shortcut

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Ctrl K  Ctrl D - Format the current document   Helped me fix indentation and remove unneeded spaces quickly

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I am surprised not to find this one on the list as I use it all the time   Ctrl   K  Ctrl   M - Implement method stub   Write a call to a non-existent method  and then use that shortcut to create the method in the right place  with the right parameters and return value  but with a method body that just throws a NotImplementedException   Great for top-down coding

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I hate closing the extra tabs when I use  Start Debugging  on ASP NET apps   Instead  I usually use  Start without Debugging   Ctrl F5   If I end up needing to debug  I use Ctrl Alt P  Attach to Process  and choose WebDev WebServer exe   Then I m still on my previous page and I only have one tab open

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Ctrl R T  Runs the current test   Ctrl R A  Runs all tests in the project

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Ctrl Shift 8 - Backtracks go to previous  F12  Go to definition

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Ctrl Shift S    Save  Ctrl Shift B    Build

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Ctrl   I for incremental search

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Turn line wrapping on and off Ctrl E  Ctrl W Sometimes you want to see the flow of the code with all of your indents in place  sometimes you need to see all 50  attributes in a GridView declaration  This lets you easily switch back and forth

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F9  toggle and un-toggle breakpoints

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The combination Ctrl F3 and Ctrl Shift F3 for finding selected and previous selected item works very well for me

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Some handy ones that I use often are   Ctrl J -  Forces Intellisence to pop up  Ctrl Alt L -  Show the Solution Explorer

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Use Emacs-like keybinding  it s TAB  P

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If you install Visual Assist X  which I highly recommend you do  these are useful    Alt O  Toggle current document between header implementation   h  cpp  Alt G  Go to definition declaration

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Ctrl K  Ctrl C Comment a block Ctrl K  Ctrl U Uncomment the block

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By usage  the pair    Ctrl Enter  insert blank line above the current line  Ctrl Shift Enter  insert blank line below the current line

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If you install Visual Assist X  which I highly recommend you do  these are useful    Alt O  Toggle current document between header implementation   h  cpp  Alt G  Go to definition declaration

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One that I use often but not many other people do is      Shift   Alt   F10 then Enter   If you type in a class name like Collection lt string gt  and do not have the proper namespace import then this shortcut combination will automatically insert the import  while the carret is immediately after the        Update   An equivalent shortcut from the comments on this answer  thanks asterite        Ctrl       Much more comfortable than my original recommendation

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For me  it s nothing to do about auto completing code  matching parenthesis or showing some fancy tool panel  Instead  it s just about letting me see the code    With all the panels surrounding you  the area you use to actually write code becomes too small    In this cases  Shift Alt Enter comes in to the rescue and gets the code window in focus in full screen mode  Hit it again  and you have all the panels back

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Ctrl Shift R Tools RecordTemporaryMacro  again to stop recording   Ctrl Shift P Tools RunTemporaryMacro  Beats the heck out of trying to work out a regexp search and replace

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Ctrl   Alt   E   Exception Catch Settings and code snippets

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Ctrl C  Ctrl V to duplicate the current line Ctrl L to delete the current line Ctrl F3 to search for the current selection Ctrl K  Ctrl K to create a bookmark  which are useful    Ctrl K  Ctrl N to go to the next bookmark    And  here is something even more interesting  Press Ctrl   to put the cursor into a box where you can type commands   For example  Pressing Ctrl   and type   of    now start typing the name of a file in your project  and it will autocomplete  This is a very fast way to open files in the current solution

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CTRL F5  Start Without Debugging   CTRL SHIFT B  Build Solution

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Alt Shift arrow keys  larr   uarr   darr   rarr    This allow you to select things in a block   Like you could select all of the  int  in the block and then search and replace to double for example     int   x   1    int   y   2    int   z   3

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CTRL   Alt    darr   This causes the list of open files to pop open in the upper right corner of the editor window  The cool thing is that it is searchable so you can leave go of the keys and start typing the file name to shift the focus to that file  Very handy when you have zillions of files open

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Ctrl C  Ctrl V to duplicate the current line Ctrl L to delete the current line Ctrl F3 to search for the current selection Ctrl K  Ctrl K to create a bookmark  which are useful    Ctrl K  Ctrl N to go to the next bookmark    And  here is something even more interesting  Press Ctrl   to put the cursor into a box where you can type commands   For example  Pressing Ctrl   and type   of    now start typing the name of a file in your project  and it will autocomplete  This is a very fast way to open files in the current solution

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I m a big fan of Ctrl   D   Q to open quickwatch while debugging

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Here are my favourite debugging keyboard shortcuts    F5   start debugger   run to next breakpoint Shift F5   stop debugging F10   step over next statement F11   step into next statement Ctrl F10  run to the cursor location F9   add or remove breakpoint

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Ctrl   K   C - set current selected code to be comments Ctrl   K   U - set current selected comments to be code

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Turn line wrapping on and off Ctrl E  Ctrl W Sometimes you want to see the flow of the code with all of your indents in place  sometimes you need to see all 50  attributes in a GridView declaration  This lets you easily switch back and forth

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What Ray said  Ctrl       I really didn t like the smart tags  those little blue and red underscores that appear wanting to help you  until I found out that you don t need to waste time trying to hover the mouse over the exact pixel that gets the menu to show    I think Ctrl     to open the smart tag menu saves me about five minutes every day and reduces my blood pressure considerably

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Ctrl Shift R Tools RecordTemporaryMacro  again to stop recording   Ctrl Shift P Tools RunTemporaryMacro  Beats the heck out of trying to work out a regexp search and replace

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Ctrl C  Ctrl V to duplicate the current line Ctrl L to delete the current line Ctrl F3 to search for the current selection Ctrl K  Ctrl K to create a bookmark  which are useful    Ctrl K  Ctrl N to go to the next bookmark    And  here is something even more interesting  Press Ctrl   to put the cursor into a box where you can type commands   For example  Pressing Ctrl   and type   of    now start typing the name of a file in your project  and it will autocomplete  This is a very fast way to open files in the current solution

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Ctrl M  O  Can collapse and expand all sections of code in a particular file

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For me  it s nothing to do about auto completing code  matching parenthesis or showing some fancy tool panel  Instead  it s just about letting me see the code    With all the panels surrounding you  the area you use to actually write code becomes too small    In this cases  Shift Alt Enter comes in to the rescue and gets the code window in focus in full screen mode  Hit it again  and you have all the panels back

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Ctrl   for matching braces and parentheses   Ctrl Shift   selects code between matching parentheses

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Ctrl K  Ctrl D - Format the current document   Helped me fix indentation and remove unneeded spaces quickly

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Ctrl Shift Alt B Rebuild Solution   Ctrl R  Ctrl T Debug Tests in Current Context

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Ctrl C  Ctrl V to duplicate the current line Ctrl L to delete the current line Ctrl F3 to search for the current selection Ctrl K  Ctrl K to create a bookmark  which are useful    Ctrl K  Ctrl N to go to the next bookmark    And  here is something even more interesting  Press Ctrl   to put the cursor into a box where you can type commands   For example  Pressing Ctrl   and type   of    now start typing the name of a file in your project  and it will autocomplete  This is a very fast way to open files in the current solution

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I mapped all of the expand collapse commands so that they can be used with the left and only so my right hand stays on my mouse  Ctrl   E  Ctrl   E toggles expansion Ctrl   E  Ctrl   D collapses all to definitions  Ctrl   E  Ctrl   A toggles all outlining

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F7 toggles from design view to code view

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Ctrl Shift V paste   cycle through the clipboard ring

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Alt   B   U  - Build the current project

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Ctrl R T  Runs the current test   Ctrl R A  Runs all tests in the project

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Paste in loop Ctrl   Shift   V  Expand Collapse current block - Ctrl   M   M  Code Snippet - for creating property type prop and press tab

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Ctrl Shift B - Build

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Ctrl Shift F4 to close all windows  You have to map it yourself   Instructions    In Visual Studio  go to Tool   Options Under Environment select Keyboard In Show commands containing  enter Window CloseAllDocuments  You should get a single entry in the listbox below it Put the cursor in Press shortcut keys and press Ctrl Shift F4  Click OK   Credit to Kyle Baley at codebetter com   I modified his example to use shift instead of alt because it was easier on my hands

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Ctrl K then Ctrl H to add a line of code to the built in task todo list Ctrl Alt K   Very handy

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Ctrl K then Ctrl H to add a line of code to the built in task todo list Ctrl Alt K   Very handy

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Alt   B   U  - Build the current project

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Shift ESC  This hides closes any of the  fake window  windows in Visual Studio  This includes things like the Solution Explorer  Object Browser  Output Window  Immediate window  Unit Test Windows etc  etc  and still applies whether they re pinned  floating  dockable or tabbed   Shortcut into a window  e g  Ctrl   Alt   L or Ctrl   Alt   I  do what you need to do  and Shift   Esc to get rid of it  If you don t get rid of it  the only way to give it focus again is to use the same keyboard shortcut  or the mouse  which is what we re trying to avoid       Once you get the hang of it  it s immensely useful     Grrr    The amount of times of hit Ctrl   F4 to close the  window  only to see my current code window close was insane before I found this  now it only happens occasionally

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Ctrl M  Ctrl O   collapse to definitions  I use it all the time together with  regions  despite what Jeff says  to get an overview of the code on my screen

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When the IntelliSense drop down is displayed  holding down Ctrl turns the list semi-transparent so you can see what is hidden behind it

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Paste in loop Ctrl   Shift   V  Expand Collapse current block - Ctrl   M   M  Code Snippet - for creating property type prop and press tab

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Alt Shift  Arrow keys  larr  uarr  darr  rarr   or mouse moving   Block Column selection  comes really handy

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VS 2008   Ctrl E D   Format Code  Ctrl M O   Collapse To Definitions Ctrl Z     Undo    F9  Breakpoint Ctrl Shift F9   Delete All Breakpoints

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Ctrl Shift F  Good old Find In Files

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I don t think that any shortcut is remaining for me to mention so let me mention a shortcut that I would love Visual Studio to have  -  One shortcut that I really miss and that is present in Eclipse is  Open Resource   Ctrl   Shift   S  which allows you to type in a file name and the IDE displays the files matching it  Really useful when you are working with bid code bases

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Alt   B   U  - Build the current project

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Shift ESC  This hides closes any of the  fake window  windows in Visual Studio  This includes things like the Solution Explorer  Object Browser  Output Window  Immediate window  Unit Test Windows etc  etc  and still applies whether they re pinned  floating  dockable or tabbed   Shortcut into a window  e g  Ctrl   Alt   L or Ctrl   Alt   I  do what you need to do  and Shift   Esc to get rid of it  If you don t get rid of it  the only way to give it focus again is to use the same keyboard shortcut  or the mouse  which is what we re trying to avoid       Once you get the hang of it  it s immensely useful     Grrr    The amount of times of hit Ctrl   F4 to close the  window  only to see my current code window close was insane before I found this  now it only happens occasionally

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The combination Ctrl F3 and Ctrl Shift F3 for finding selected and previous selected item works very well for me

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F7 and Shift F7 to switch between designer code view  Ctrl Break to stop a build  Great for those  oh  I realized this won t compile and I don t want to waste my time  moments   Alt Enter opens the resharper smart tag  Bookmark ShortCuts Ctrl K Ctrl K to place a bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl N to go to next bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl P to go to previous bookmark  The refactor shortcuts  Each starts with Ctrl R   Follow it with Ctrl R for rename  Ctrl M for extract method  Ctrl E for encapsulate field

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Ctrl  nbsp E nbsp   nbsp D nbsp   Format Document  Tip for teams  Set up agreed-on formatting options in Visual Studio  they are very flexible   then export the settings to a  settings file for each developer to import   Now if all developers learn to autoformat everything  it will not only produce perfect formatting consistency throughout the project with no effort at all  but also greatly reduce annoying false differences in the diff tool when merging multiple check-ins to Source Control   Oh  I enjoy good tools

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I like Ctrl M  Ctrl M   To expand collapse the current code block

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Ctrl Alt P  -  Attach to process

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Visual Studio 2010 Keybinding Posters

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People have mentioned Ctrl C and Ctrl V to paste a line when nothing is selected but I use Ctrl X to move lines of code regularly

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Refresh javascript intellisense and code coloring    ctrl shift J   I ve found intellisense for Javascript to be flaky - this usually straightens it out

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Ctrl Shift S Save all changed files  saved me quite a few times

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Simple one  F8   Go to next build error  Found that now it will work in any sort of list window  the ones that cluster together at the bottom usually

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For me  it s nothing to do about auto completing code  matching parenthesis or showing some fancy tool panel  Instead  it s just about letting me see the code    With all the panels surrounding you  the area you use to actually write code becomes too small    In this cases  Shift Alt Enter comes in to the rescue and gets the code window in focus in full screen mode  Hit it again  and you have all the panels back

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Select word  Ctrl W  I can t live without that shortcut   Used over 100   or 200   a day

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I like Ctrl M  Ctrl M   To expand collapse the current code block

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Some handy ones that I use often are   Ctrl J -  Forces Intellisence to pop up  Ctrl Alt L -  Show the Solution Explorer

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I like Ctrl M  Ctrl M   To expand collapse the current code block

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Outlining  ctrl M  ctrl M - Collapse expand current element ctrl M  ctrl O - Collapse all  gives you a nice overview of a complex class  for example  ctrl M  ctrl O - Toggle all  This works both in VB C  code  e g  collapse expand a function  and in an aspx page  e g  collapse expand a GridView definition   One very nice use of this is to cut or copy a big chunk of markup or code  For example  to move a big  sprawling  lt table gt  or  lt asp gridview gt  definition   Go to the first line ctrl M  ctrl M to collapse it ctrl X to cut it  you don t have to select it  as long as your insertion point is still in that line  Move to where you want it and ctrl V to paste

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Stock Visual Studio  F12 - Edit GoToDefinition   Having DevExpress  Refactor  installed means that Ctrl     is my all-time fave  though

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Shift ESC  This hides closes any of the  fake window  windows in Visual Studio  This includes things like the Solution Explorer  Object Browser  Output Window  Immediate window  Unit Test Windows etc  etc  and still applies whether they re pinned  floating  dockable or tabbed   Shortcut into a window  e g  Ctrl   Alt   L or Ctrl   Alt   I  do what you need to do  and Shift   Esc to get rid of it  If you don t get rid of it  the only way to give it focus again is to use the same keyboard shortcut  or the mouse  which is what we re trying to avoid       Once you get the hang of it  it s immensely useful     Grrr    The amount of times of hit Ctrl   F4 to close the  window  only to see my current code window close was insane before I found this  now it only happens occasionally

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Another useful Find short key sequence is Ctrl    Shift  F --  ALT C --  ALT W for switching between exact and fuzzy searches

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I have two that I use a lot  the first is standard  the second you have to map   Ctrl A  Ctrl E  F  Select All  Format Selection   Ctrl E  R  Remove Unused Usings and Sort   Both help pay down the  cruft debt  early and often

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Another useful Find short key sequence is Ctrl    Shift  F --  ALT C --  ALT W for switching between exact and fuzzy searches

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Hmmm  nobody said F1 for help     Could it be that Google is faster and better for getting at the information that you need

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What Ray said  Ctrl       I really didn t like the smart tags  those little blue and red underscores that appear wanting to help you  until I found out that you don t need to waste time trying to hover the mouse over the exact pixel that gets the menu to show    I think Ctrl     to open the smart tag menu saves me about five minutes every day and reduces my blood pressure considerably

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Not a keyboard shortcut  but with your mouse  you can use forward and backwards buttons on your mouse to go to previous locations in your code and return to your current location

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There are some great tips and trips and shortcuts on Sara Ford s blog

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One that I use often but not many other people do is      Shift   Alt   F10 then Enter   If you type in a class name like Collection lt string gt  and do not have the proper namespace import then this shortcut combination will automatically insert the import  while the carret is immediately after the        Update   An equivalent shortcut from the comments on this answer  thanks asterite        Ctrl       Much more comfortable than my original recommendation

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People have mentioned Ctrl C and Ctrl V to paste a line when nothing is selected but I use Ctrl X to move lines of code regularly

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My favorite  F12  go to definition  and Shift F12  find references    The latter is useful with F8  go to next result     Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift - are mapped to my mouse s back and forwards buttons    Ctrl   is useful too  especially for adding event handlers and  using  statements

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Stock Visual Studio  F12 - Edit GoToDefinition   Having DevExpress  Refactor  installed means that Ctrl     is my all-time fave  though

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I have two that I use a lot  the first is standard  the second you have to map   Ctrl A  Ctrl E  F  Select All  Format Selection   Ctrl E  R  Remove Unused Usings and Sort   Both help pay down the  cruft debt  early and often

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Here s a link to a list of Shortcuts I find usefull  VS2003  but some still apply   My favorite being F12 and Ctrl - to navigate to the declaration and back

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Commenting  Ctrl K  Ctrl C - Comment current item Ctrl K  Ctrl U - Uncomment current item  The great thing about this is that it applies to the element you re currently in - you don t have to select a whole line of VB code to comment it  for example  you just type Ctrl K  Ctrl C to comment the current line  On an aspx page  you can comment out a big chunk of code - for example an entire ListView - by just going to the first line and hitting Ctrl K  Ctrl C

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Good old Ctrl Tab for flipping back and forth between open documents   Visual Studio actually provides a very nice Ctrl Tab implementation  I especially appreciate that the Ctrl Tab document activation order is most-recently-used order  rather than simple  left-to-right  order  so that Ctrl Tab  press once and release  can be used repeatedly to flip back and forth between the two most-recently-used documents  even when there are more than two documents open

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Ctrl  nbsp E nbsp   nbsp D nbsp   Format Document  Tip for teams  Set up agreed-on formatting options in Visual Studio  they are very flexible   then export the settings to a  settings file for each developer to import   Now if all developers learn to autoformat everything  it will not only produce perfect formatting consistency throughout the project with no effort at all  but also greatly reduce annoying false differences in the diff tool when merging multiple check-ins to Source Control   Oh  I enjoy good tools

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Open a file without using the mouse   CTRL   ALT   A  opens command window  Followed by  open somedoc  I didn t see this one yet   Can t believe how many cool shortcuts have been posted here

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F7 to build and then F8 to go to the errors and warnings one by one

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Ctrl Shift B - Build

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I think Ctrl   K   D is definitely my favourite  I use it more than any other shortcuts  It helps to format the document according to the indentation and code formatting settings specified by us

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Ctrl   K   C - set current selected code to be comments Ctrl   K   U - set current selected comments to be code

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Here s a link to a list of Shortcuts I find usefull  VS2003  but some still apply   My favorite being F12 and Ctrl - to navigate to the declaration and back

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Save LOTS of time copy and cutting    Ctrl C with no selection in the line  copies the whole line Ctrl X with no selection - cuts the whole line

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F7 to build and then F8 to go to the errors and warnings one by one

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Ctrl Space  Visual Studio gives the possible completions

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It s simple  but   Ctrl   L  deletes the entire line   Great for fast code editing

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Insert snippet   Ctrl K  Ctrl S  I use if often for try  catch and  region

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The ones I use all the time    ctrl    Matching Brace ctrl shift   Select to the end of brace ctrl shift q Untabify ctrl k ctrl c comment out the currently selected block ctrl k ctrl u uncomment out the currently selected block alt mouse move vertical selection ctrl alt x toolbox ctrl shift b build

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I hate closing the extra tabs when I use  Start Debugging  on ASP NET apps   Instead  I usually use  Start without Debugging   Ctrl F5   If I end up needing to debug  I use Ctrl Alt P  Attach to Process  and choose WebDev WebServer exe   Then I m still on my previous page and I only have one tab open

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Alt   B   U  - Build the current project

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I just found out that Shift F11 steps out of the current function   This is very useful when you want to debug function foo in foo bar baz     Use F11  Shift F11 to jump in and out of bar and baz

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When the IntelliSense drop down is displayed  holding down Ctrl turns the list semi-transparent so you can see what is hidden behind it

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F7 toggles from design view to code view

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Ctrl Shift 8 - Backtracks go to previous  F12  Go to definition

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If you have your keyboard settings set to the  Visual C  2005  setting  the window switching and text editing chords are excellent  You hit the first combination of Ctrl   Key  then release and hit the next letter    Ctrl E  C  Comment Selected Text Ctrl E  U  Uncomment Selected Text Ctrl W  E  Show Error List Ctrl W  J  Show Object Browser Ctrl W  S  Show Solution Explorer Ctrl W  X  Show Toolbox   I still use F4 to show the properties pane so I don t know the chord for that one   If you go to the Tools   Customise menu option and press the Keyboard button  it gives you a list of commands you can search to see if a shortcut is available  or you can select the  Press Shortcut Keys   textbox and test shortcut keys you want to assign to see if they conflict   Addendum  I just found another great one that I think I ll be using quite frequently  Ctrl K  S pops up an intellisense box asking you what you would like to surround the selected text with  It s exactly what I ve needed all those times I ve needed to wrap a block in a conditional or a try catch

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Some handy ones that I use often are   Ctrl J -  Forces Intellisence to pop up  Ctrl Alt L -  Show the Solution Explorer

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Open and set focus in Solution Explorer  Ctrl Alt L

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My favorite  F12  go to definition  and Shift F12  find references    The latter is useful with F8  go to next result     Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift - are mapped to my mouse s back and forwards buttons    Ctrl   is useful too  especially for adding event handlers and  using  statements

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Ctrl   K  D to auto format code

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Expand Smart Tag  Resolve Menu   Ctrl      period   Expands the tag that shows when you do things like rename an identifier

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I ve mapped File Close to CTRL SHIFT W  That and CTRL TAB mean you can close exactly whichever files you want

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Alt Shift arrow keys  larr   uarr   darr   rarr    This allow you to select things in a block   Like you could select all of the  int  in the block and then search and replace to double for example     int   x   1    int   y   2    int   z   3

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Not a keyboard shortcut  but with your mouse  you can use forward and backwards buttons on your mouse to go to previous locations in your code and return to your current location

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I m addicted to some very subtle stuff in http   blog jpboodhoo com UsefulVSKeySequencesShortcuts aspx  e g  Alt-W U to auto collapse everything when in Full screen mode when it all gets too much

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Simple one  F8   Go to next build error  Found that now it will work in any sort of list window  the ones that cluster together at the bottom usually

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I like my code clean and arranged so my favorite keyboard shortcuts are the following   Ctrl K D - Format document  Ctrl K F - Format selected code  Ctrl E S - Show white spaces  Ctrl L - Cut line  Alt Enter - Insert line below

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Hopefully this hasn t already been posted  apologies if so  I ve just come across a useful keyboard shortcut in Visual Studio 2008  With the QuickWatch window open  highlight a row with a string value in it and hit Space Bar  The text visualiser window will appear with the value in it   I have found it quite useful for checking jQuery innerText values as the QuickWatch window by default is too small to show longer strings fully

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If you install Visual Assist X  which I highly recommend you do  these are useful    Alt O  Toggle current document between header implementation   h  cpp  Alt G  Go to definition declaration

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Ctrl Shift V paste   cycle through the clipboard ring

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I like Ctrl M  Ctrl M   To expand collapse the current code block

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I think Ctrl   K   D is definitely my favourite  I use it more than any other shortcuts  It helps to format the document according to the indentation and code formatting settings specified by us

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Ctrl Shift R Tools RecordTemporaryMacro  again to stop recording   Ctrl Shift P Tools RunTemporaryMacro  Beats the heck out of trying to work out a regexp search and replace

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Cutting and pasting lines Everyone knows Ctrl   X and Ctrl   C for cutting copying text  but did you know that in VS you don t have to select the text first if you want to cut or copy a single line  If nothing is selected  the whole line will be cut or copied

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By usage  the pair    Ctrl Enter  insert blank line above the current line  Ctrl Shift Enter  insert blank line below the current line

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Ctrl M  Ctrl L will expand every collapsed bit of code  It is the opposite of Ctrl M  Ctrl O

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F7 toggles from design view to code view

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The ones I use all the time    ctrl    Matching Brace ctrl shift   Select to the end of brace ctrl shift q Untabify ctrl k ctrl c comment out the currently selected block ctrl k ctrl u uncomment out the currently selected block alt mouse move vertical selection ctrl alt x toolbox ctrl shift b build

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Simple one  F8   Go to next build error  Found that now it will work in any sort of list window  the ones that cluster together at the bottom usually

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Showing hidden windows   ctrl alt L   Solution explorer ctrl alt S   Server explorer ctrl alt O   Output ctrl alt X   Toolbox ctrl shift W  1   Watch ctrl    E   Error list ctrl shift C   Class view   I like to use all my screen real estate for code and have everything else hidden away  These shortcuts keep these windows handy when I need them  so they can be out of the way the rest of the time

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I m a big fan of Ctrl   D   Q to open quickwatch while debugging

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Expand Smart Tag  Resolve Menu   Ctrl      period   Expands the tag that shows when you do things like rename an identifier

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Ctrl   BP  Previous bookmark   Ctrl   BN  Next bookmark

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Refresh javascript intellisense and code coloring    ctrl shift J   I ve found intellisense for Javascript to be flaky - this usually straightens it out

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Alt Shift arrow keys  larr   uarr   darr   rarr    This allow you to select things in a block   Like you could select all of the  int  in the block and then search and replace to double for example     int   x   1    int   y   2    int   z   3

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Here is a list that I use frequently   Ctrl   I  for progressive search  If you don t type anything after I  and keep pressing I  holding the Ctrl key down   it will search the last item you had searched  Ctrl   Shift   I will reverse search  You might also want to use F3  and Shift   F3  once some search string is entered   Ctrl   K Ctrl   C  For commenting highlighted region  If nothing is highlighted  current line will be commented  Naturally  you can just hold Ctrl and press K  C in succession   Ctrl   K Ctrl   U  For uncommenting highlighted region  Works like above   Ctrl      Will take the cursor to the small search box on top  You can type   of filename   without the quotes  to open a file  Very useful if your project contains multiple files   Ctrl   K Ctrl   K  Will bookmark the current line  This is useful if you want to look at some other part of code for a moment and come back to where you were   Ctrl   K Ctrl   N  Will take you to the next bookmark  if there are more than one   Ctrl   -  Will take the cursor to its previous location  Ctrl   Shift   -  Will take the cursor to its next location  if it exists   Ctrl   Shift   B  Build your project  Ctrl   C  Although this does the usual copy  if nothing is highlighted  it copies the current line  Same for Ctrl   X  for cut   Ctrl   Space  Autocomplete using IntelliSense  Ctrl      Will take you to the matching brace  Works with all kinds of braces                 Useful for big blocks   F12  Will take you to the function definition variable definition   Alt   P   P  Will open up project properties  Although not many use this  it useful if you want to quickly change the command line arguments to your program   F5  To start debugging  Shift   F5  To stop debugging  While debugging  you can use Ctrl   Alt   Q to add a quick watch  Other debugging shortcuts can be found in the debug drop down menu

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Ctrl K then Ctrl H to add a line of code to the built in task todo list Ctrl Alt K   Very handy

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Ctrl K  Ctrl D    Auto- Re Format  See Also  Answer

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Open and set focus in Solution Explorer  Ctrl Alt L

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Commenting  Ctrl K  Ctrl C - Comment current item Ctrl K  Ctrl U - Uncomment current item  The great thing about this is that it applies to the element you re currently in - you don t have to select a whole line of VB code to comment it  for example  you just type Ctrl K  Ctrl C to comment the current line  On an aspx page  you can comment out a big chunk of code - for example an entire ListView - by just going to the first line and hitting Ctrl K  Ctrl C

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Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift -   Alt D  P  Attach the debugger to the application   first letter of any application you want to debug  works most of the time   Ctrl Shift F  Ctrl I  incremental seach

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CTRL   Alt    darr   This causes the list of open files to pop open in the upper right corner of the editor window  The cool thing is that it is searchable so you can leave go of the keys and start typing the file name to shift the focus to that file  Very handy when you have zillions of files open

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Ctrl     for  Navigate To  window  link

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I am surprised not to find this one on the list as I use it all the time   Ctrl   K  Ctrl   M - Implement method stub   Write a call to a non-existent method  and then use that shortcut to create the method in the right place  with the right parameters and return value  but with a method body that just throws a NotImplementedException   Great for top-down coding

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By far the most useful  after Ctrl Shift B  are    Ctrl K  C - to Comment out selection Ctrl k  U - to Uncomment a selection

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If  Favorite  is measured by how often I use it  then   F10   Debug StepOver

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CTRL F5  Start Without Debugging   CTRL SHIFT B  Build Solution

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Stock Visual Studio  F12 - Edit GoToDefinition   Having DevExpress  Refactor  installed means that Ctrl     is my all-time fave  though

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Ctrl     for  Navigate To  window  link

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If  Favorite  is measured by how often I use it  then   F10   Debug StepOver

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Here s a link to a list of Shortcuts I find usefull  VS2003  but some still apply   My favorite being F12 and Ctrl - to navigate to the declaration and back

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Ctrl    Move to corresponding      Ctrl Shift V  Cycle clipboard

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Find and replace  Ctrl F and Ctrl H - Find  Find  amp  replace  respectively Ctrl shift F and Ctrl shift H - Find in files  Find  amp  replace in files  respectively   quot Find in files quot  has been an enormous productivity booster for me  Rather than jump to each result one by one  it just shows you a list of results in your entire project or solution  It makes it very simple to find sample code  or see if a function is used anywhere

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Ctrl M  O  Can collapse and expand all sections of code in a particular file

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Open a file without using the mouse   CTRL   ALT   A  opens command window  Followed by  open somedoc  I didn t see this one yet   Can t believe how many cool shortcuts have been posted here

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Ctrl   - and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   -   Move cursor back  or forwards  to the last place it was  No more scrolling back or PgUp PgDown to find out where you were   This switches open windows in Visual Studio   Ctrl   tab and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   tab

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Ctrl X  This cuts  to clipboard  the current line of code

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Open a file without using the mouse   CTRL   ALT   A  opens command window  Followed by  open somedoc  I didn t see this one yet   Can t believe how many cool shortcuts have been posted here

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CTRL F5  Start Without Debugging   CTRL SHIFT B  Build Solution

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Ctrl   Alt   E   Exception Catch Settings and code snippets

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Ctrl I for incremental search

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Expand Smart Tag  Resolve Menu   Ctrl      period   Expands the tag that shows when you do things like rename an identifier

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Ctrl   - and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   -   Move cursor back  or forwards  to the last place it was  No more scrolling back or PgUp PgDown to find out where you were   This switches open windows in Visual Studio   Ctrl   tab and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   tab

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One that other editors should take up  Ctrl C with nothing selected will copy the current line  Most other editors will do nothing   After copying a line  pasting will place the line before the current one  even if you re in the middle of the line   Most other editors will start pasting from where you are  which is almost never what you want   Duplicating a line is just  Hold Ctrl  press c  then v   Ctrl C  Ctrl V

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Ctrl A  K  F  Select all  prettyprint

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F7 and Shift F7 to switch between designer code view  Ctrl Break to stop a build  Great for those  oh  I realized this won t compile and I don t want to waste my time  moments   Alt Enter opens the resharper smart tag  Bookmark ShortCuts Ctrl K Ctrl K to place a bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl N to go to next bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl P to go to previous bookmark  The refactor shortcuts  Each starts with Ctrl R   Follow it with Ctrl R for rename  Ctrl M for extract method  Ctrl E for encapsulate field

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Ctrl   Alt   E   Exception Catch Settings and code snippets

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Ctrl M  O  Can collapse and expand all sections of code in a particular file

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There are some great tips and trips and shortcuts on Sara Ford s blog

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Find and replace  Ctrl F and Ctrl H - Find  Find  amp  replace  respectively Ctrl shift F and Ctrl shift H - Find in files  Find  amp  replace in files  respectively   quot Find in files quot  has been an enormous productivity booster for me  Rather than jump to each result one by one  it just shows you a list of results in your entire project or solution  It makes it very simple to find sample code  or see if a function is used anywhere

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Ctrl Shift R Tools RecordTemporaryMacro  again to stop recording   Ctrl Shift P Tools RunTemporaryMacro  Beats the heck out of trying to work out a regexp search and replace

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Ctrl   W for selecting the current word

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Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift -   Alt D  P  Attach the debugger to the application   first letter of any application you want to debug  works most of the time   Ctrl Shift F  Ctrl I  incremental seach

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Ctrl M  Ctrl L will expand every collapsed bit of code  It is the opposite of Ctrl M  Ctrl O

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Ctrl I for incremental search

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Ctrl K  Ctrl D    Auto- Re Format  See Also  Answer

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What Ray said  Ctrl       I really didn t like the smart tags  those little blue and red underscores that appear wanting to help you  until I found out that you don t need to waste time trying to hover the mouse over the exact pixel that gets the menu to show    I think Ctrl     to open the smart tag menu saves me about five minutes every day and reduces my blood pressure considerably

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What Ray said  Ctrl       I really didn t like the smart tags  those little blue and red underscores that appear wanting to help you  until I found out that you don t need to waste time trying to hover the mouse over the exact pixel that gets the menu to show    I think Ctrl     to open the smart tag menu saves me about five minutes every day and reduces my blood pressure considerably

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Ctrl   for matching braces and parentheses   Ctrl Shift   selects code between matching parentheses

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Ctrl   M  L - Expands all regions

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If  Favorite  is measured by how often I use it  then   F10   Debug StepOver

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Not a keyboard shortcut  but with your mouse  you can use forward and backwards buttons on your mouse to go to previous locations in your code and return to your current location

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Ctrl    Move to corresponding      Ctrl Shift V  Cycle clipboard

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Ctrl Space  Visual Studio gives the possible completions

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Here are my favourite debugging keyboard shortcuts    F5   start debugger   run to next breakpoint Shift F5   stop debugging F10   step over next statement F11   step into next statement Ctrl F10  run to the cursor location F9   add or remove breakpoint

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Format document    Ctrl K  Ctrl D  On an aspx page  this takes care of properly indenting all of your markup and ensures that everything is XHTML compliant  adds quotes to attributes  corrects capitalization  closes self-closing tags   I find that this makes it much easier to find mismatched tags and to make sure that my markup makes sense  If you don t like how  it s indenting  you can control which tags go on their own line and how much space they get around them under  Tools Options Text Editor HTML Format Tag Specific Options   In your C  or VB code  this will correct any  capitalization or formatting issues that didn t get caught automatically   For CSS files  you can choose compact  one definition per line   semi-expanded  or expanded  each rule on its own line   and you can choose how it handles capitalization

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The TAB key for  snippets    E g  type try and then hit the tab key twice   Results in   try                  catch  Exception         throw      which you can then expand   Full list of C  Snippets  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library vstudio z41h7fat aspx

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Ctrl Shift Alt B Rebuild Solution   Ctrl R  Ctrl T Debug Tests in Current Context

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Surround with  Ctrl   K   S   It is great when you want to wrap some text in a tag

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Ctrl I for incremental search

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Hmmm  nobody said F1 for help     Could it be that Google is faster and better for getting at the information that you need

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Ctrl Alt P  -  Attach to process

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Ctrl   - and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   -   Move cursor back  or forwards  to the last place it was  No more scrolling back or PgUp PgDown to find out where you were   This switches open windows in Visual Studio   Ctrl   tab and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   tab

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Good old Ctrl Tab for flipping back and forth between open documents   Visual Studio actually provides a very nice Ctrl Tab implementation  I especially appreciate that the Ctrl Tab document activation order is most-recently-used order  rather than simple  left-to-right  order  so that Ctrl Tab  press once and release  can be used repeatedly to flip back and forth between the two most-recently-used documents  even when there are more than two documents open

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Ctrl Shift V paste   cycle through the clipboard ring

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VS 2008   Ctrl E D   Format Code  Ctrl M O   Collapse To Definitions Ctrl Z     Undo    F9  Breakpoint Ctrl Shift F9   Delete All Breakpoints

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Ctrl   I for incremental search

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Ctrl   BP  Previous bookmark   Ctrl   BN  Next bookmark

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Alt Shift arrow keys  larr   uarr   darr   rarr    This allow you to select things in a block   Like you could select all of the  int  in the block and then search and replace to double for example     int   x   1    int   y   2    int   z   3

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Cutting and pasting lines Everyone knows Ctrl   X and Ctrl   C for cutting copying text  but did you know that in VS you don t have to select the text first if you want to cut or copy a single line  If nothing is selected  the whole line will be cut or copied

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One that I use often but not many other people do is      Shift   Alt   F10 then Enter   If you type in a class name like Collection lt string gt  and do not have the proper namespace import then this shortcut combination will automatically insert the import  while the carret is immediately after the        Update   An equivalent shortcut from the comments on this answer  thanks asterite        Ctrl       Much more comfortable than my original recommendation

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Ctrl   M  L - Expands all regions

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I have two that I use a lot  the first is standard  the second you have to map   Ctrl A  Ctrl E  F  Select All  Format Selection   Ctrl E  R  Remove Unused Usings and Sort   Both help pay down the  cruft debt  early and often

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I like my code clean and arranged so my favorite keyboard shortcuts are the following   Ctrl K D - Format document  Ctrl K F - Format selected code  Ctrl E S - Show white spaces  Ctrl L - Cut line  Alt Enter - Insert line below

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Alt Shift  Arrow keys  larr  uarr  darr  rarr   or mouse moving   Block Column selection  comes really handy

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I just found out that Shift F11 steps out of the current function   This is very useful when you want to debug function foo in foo bar baz     Use F11  Shift F11 to jump in and out of bar and baz

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I hate closing the extra tabs when I use  Start Debugging  on ASP NET apps   Instead  I usually use  Start without Debugging   Ctrl F5   If I end up needing to debug  I use Ctrl Alt P  Attach to Process  and choose WebDev WebServer exe   Then I m still on my previous page and I only have one tab open

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Incremental Search - Ctrl   I   It s basically the find dialog box without the dialog box   Just start typing what you want to search for  look at the bottom status bar location to see what you ve typed    Pressing Ctrl   I again or F3 searches for the next instance   Press Escape to quit   Starting a new search by pressing Ctrl   I twice repeats the last search

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F7 to build and then F8 to go to the errors and warnings one by one

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Snippets Each snippet has a shortcut that you can access by typing a word then tab  The one I use the most is for a standard property definition  just type property then tab

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The combination Ctrl U and Ctrl Shift U for converting a block of characters to all upper lower case

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One that other editors should take up  Ctrl C with nothing selected will copy the current line  Most other editors will do nothing   After copying a line  pasting will place the line before the current one  even if you re in the middle of the line   Most other editors will start pasting from where you are  which is almost never what you want   Duplicating a line is just  Hold Ctrl  press c  then v   Ctrl C  Ctrl V

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Ctrl Shift F4 to close all windows  You have to map it yourself   Instructions    In Visual Studio  go to Tool   Options Under Environment select Keyboard In Show commands containing  enter Window CloseAllDocuments  You should get a single entry in the listbox below it Put the cursor in Press shortcut keys and press Ctrl Shift F4  Click OK   Credit to Kyle Baley at codebetter com   I modified his example to use shift instead of alt because it was easier on my hands

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Haven t seen this one      Ctrl   Up  Ctrl   Down  Scrolls the window without moving the cursor

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Use Emacs-like keybinding  it s TAB  P

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Here is a list that I use frequently   Ctrl   I  for progressive search  If you don t type anything after I  and keep pressing I  holding the Ctrl key down   it will search the last item you had searched  Ctrl   Shift   I will reverse search  You might also want to use F3  and Shift   F3  once some search string is entered   Ctrl   K Ctrl   C  For commenting highlighted region  If nothing is highlighted  current line will be commented  Naturally  you can just hold Ctrl and press K  C in succession   Ctrl   K Ctrl   U  For uncommenting highlighted region  Works like above   Ctrl      Will take the cursor to the small search box on top  You can type   of filename   without the quotes  to open a file  Very useful if your project contains multiple files   Ctrl   K Ctrl   K  Will bookmark the current line  This is useful if you want to look at some other part of code for a moment and come back to where you were   Ctrl   K Ctrl   N  Will take you to the next bookmark  if there are more than one   Ctrl   -  Will take the cursor to its previous location  Ctrl   Shift   -  Will take the cursor to its next location  if it exists   Ctrl   Shift   B  Build your project  Ctrl   C  Although this does the usual copy  if nothing is highlighted  it copies the current line  Same for Ctrl   X  for cut   Ctrl   Space  Autocomplete using IntelliSense  Ctrl      Will take you to the matching brace  Works with all kinds of braces                 Useful for big blocks   F12  Will take you to the function definition variable definition   Alt   P   P  Will open up project properties  Although not many use this  it useful if you want to quickly change the command line arguments to your program   F5  To start debugging  Shift   F5  To stop debugging  While debugging  you can use Ctrl   Alt   Q to add a quick watch  Other debugging shortcuts can be found in the debug drop down menu

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I m addicted to some very subtle stuff in http   blog jpboodhoo com UsefulVSKeySequencesShortcuts aspx  e g  Alt-W U to auto collapse everything when in Full screen mode when it all gets too much

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Ctrl Shift B - Build

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Ctrl    Move to corresponding      Ctrl Shift V  Cycle clipboard

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Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift -   Alt D  P  Attach the debugger to the application   first letter of any application you want to debug  works most of the time   Ctrl Shift F  Ctrl I  incremental seach

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The TAB key for  snippets    E g  type try and then hit the tab key twice   Results in   try                  catch  Exception         throw      which you can then expand   Full list of C  Snippets  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library vstudio z41h7fat aspx

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In debug mode  Alt   jumps to the current breakpoint  where execution is stopped

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Ctrl Shift S Save all changed files  saved me quite a few times

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F9  toggle and un-toggle breakpoints

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Ctrl K  Ctrl D    Auto- Re Format  See Also  Answer

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Hmmm  nobody said F1 for help     Could it be that Google is faster and better for getting at the information that you need

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F7 and Shift F7 to switch between designer code view  Ctrl Break to stop a build  Great for those  oh  I realized this won t compile and I don t want to waste my time  moments   Alt Enter opens the resharper smart tag  Bookmark ShortCuts Ctrl K Ctrl K to place a bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl N to go to next bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl P to go to previous bookmark  The refactor shortcuts  Each starts with Ctrl R   Follow it with Ctrl R for rename  Ctrl M for extract method  Ctrl E for encapsulate field

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Select word  Ctrl W  I can t live without that shortcut   Used over 100   or 200   a day

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If you have your keyboard settings set to the  Visual C  2005  setting  the window switching and text editing chords are excellent  You hit the first combination of Ctrl   Key  then release and hit the next letter    Ctrl E  C  Comment Selected Text Ctrl E  U  Uncomment Selected Text Ctrl W  E  Show Error List Ctrl W  J  Show Object Browser Ctrl W  S  Show Solution Explorer Ctrl W  X  Show Toolbox   I still use F4 to show the properties pane so I don t know the chord for that one   If you go to the Tools   Customise menu option and press the Keyboard button  it gives you a list of commands you can search to see if a shortcut is available  or you can select the  Press Shortcut Keys   textbox and test shortcut keys you want to assign to see if they conflict   Addendum  I just found another great one that I think I ll be using quite frequently  Ctrl K  S pops up an intellisense box asking you what you would like to surround the selected text with  It s exactly what I ve needed all those times I ve needed to wrap a block in a conditional or a try catch

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Ctrl K  Ctrl C Comment a block Ctrl K  Ctrl U Uncomment the block

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Some handy ones that I use often are   Ctrl J -  Forces Intellisence to pop up  Ctrl Alt L -  Show the Solution Explorer

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Alt F4     But on a more serious note  Ctrl Space is probably hit a lot from me  in my limited usage of VS

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F7 and Shift F7 to switch between designer code view  Ctrl Break to stop a build  Great for those  oh  I realized this won t compile and I don t want to waste my time  moments   Alt Enter opens the resharper smart tag  Bookmark ShortCuts Ctrl K Ctrl K to place a bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl N to go to next bookmark Ctrl K Ctrl P to go to previous bookmark  The refactor shortcuts  Each starts with Ctrl R   Follow it with Ctrl R for rename  Ctrl M for extract method  Ctrl E for encapsulate field

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Ctrl I for incremental search

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Use Emacs-like keybinding  it s TAB  P

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Nothing beats Ctrl Shift B - Building the solution    As far as navigation control  Ctrl - and Ctrl   is nice     But I prefer Ctrl K K ---  creates bookmark    and Ctrl K N ---  to navigate to the next bookmark    awesome stuff

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Ctrl R T  Runs the current test   Ctrl R A  Runs all tests in the project

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Simple one  F8   Go to next build error  Found that now it will work in any sort of list window  the ones that cluster together at the bottom usually

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Ctrl Shift F  Good old Find In Files

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Ctrl K  Ctrl D    Auto- Re Format  See Also  Answer

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One that I use often but not many other people do is      Shift   Alt   F10 then Enter   If you type in a class name like Collection lt string gt  and do not have the proper namespace import then this shortcut combination will automatically insert the import  while the carret is immediately after the        Update   An equivalent shortcut from the comments on this answer  thanks asterite        Ctrl       Much more comfortable than my original recommendation

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Open and set focus in Solution Explorer  Ctrl Alt L

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Not a keyboard shortcut  but with your mouse  you can use forward and backwards buttons on your mouse to go to previous locations in your code and return to your current location

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Open a newline above Ctrl   Enter  Open a newline below Ctrl   Shift   Enter

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Ctrl   K  D to auto format code

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Haven t seen this one      Ctrl   Up  Ctrl   Down  Scrolls the window without moving the cursor

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Alt F4     But on a more serious note  Ctrl Space is probably hit a lot from me  in my limited usage of VS

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Good old Ctrl Tab for flipping back and forth between open documents   Visual Studio actually provides a very nice Ctrl Tab implementation  I especially appreciate that the Ctrl Tab document activation order is most-recently-used order  rather than simple  left-to-right  order  so that Ctrl Tab  press once and release  can be used repeatedly to flip back and forth between the two most-recently-used documents  even when there are more than two documents open

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Ctrl K  Ctrl C Comment a block Ctrl K  Ctrl U Uncomment the block

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The TAB key for  snippets    E g  type try and then hit the tab key twice   Results in   try                  catch  Exception         throw      which you can then expand   Full list of C  Snippets  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library vstudio z41h7fat aspx

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The combination Ctrl U and Ctrl Shift U for converting a block of characters to all upper lower case

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Use Emacs-like keybinding  it s TAB  P

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My favorite  F12  go to definition  and Shift F12  find references    The latter is useful with F8  go to next result     Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift - are mapped to my mouse s back and forwards buttons    Ctrl   is useful too  especially for adding event handlers and  using  statements

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Well  if you re really       always up for leaving my hands on the   keyboard and away from the mouse       Than you should go here  It s not really my favorite  it s just everything   A shortcut a day will keep the mouse away

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Ctrl Shift 8 - Backtracks go to previous  F12  Go to definition

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Ctrl   - and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   -   Move cursor back  or forwards  to the last place it was  No more scrolling back or PgUp PgDown to find out where you were   This switches open windows in Visual Studio   Ctrl   tab and the opposite Ctrl   Shift   tab

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Ctrl   for matching braces and parentheses   Ctrl Shift   selects code between matching parentheses

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Ctrl      To include a missing library

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Visual Studio 2005 2008 keybinding posters    Visual C  2008 Keybinding Reference Poster Visual C  2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Reference Poster  Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster   These don t cover customizations  but they re good reference materials and definitely helpful for finding new shortcuts   Also  a macro that dumps all the current bindings to a HTML file   http   www codinghorror com blog archives 000315 html

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F7 to build and then F8 to go to the errors and warnings one by one

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Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift -  But if you are a keyboard lover then go for Resharper

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By far the most useful  after Ctrl Shift B  are    Ctrl K  C - to Comment out selection Ctrl k  U - to Uncomment a selection

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Open a file without using the mouse   CTRL   ALT   A  opens command window  Followed by  open somedoc  I didn t see this one yet   Can t believe how many cool shortcuts have been posted here

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Ctrl Shift V multiple times cycles through the clipboard ring

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Incremental Search - Ctrl   I   It s basically the find dialog box without the dialog box   Just start typing what you want to search for  look at the bottom status bar location to see what you ve typed    Pressing Ctrl   I again or F3 searches for the next instance   Press Escape to quit   Starting a new search by pressing Ctrl   I twice repeats the last search

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There are some great tips and trips and shortcuts on Sara Ford s blog

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By far the most useful  after Ctrl Shift B  are    Ctrl K  C - to Comment out selection Ctrl k  U - to Uncomment a selection

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Open and set focus in Solution Explorer  Ctrl Alt L

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Ctrl Shift V paste   cycle through the clipboard ring

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My favorite  F12  go to definition  and Shift F12  find references    The latter is useful with F8  go to next result     Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift - are mapped to my mouse s back and forwards buttons    Ctrl   is useful too  especially for adding event handlers and  using  statements

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I hate closing the extra tabs when I use  Start Debugging  on ASP NET apps   Instead  I usually use  Start without Debugging   Ctrl F5   If I end up needing to debug  I use Ctrl Alt P  Attach to Process  and choose WebDev WebServer exe   Then I m still on my previous page and I only have one tab open

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Ctrl Shift B - Build

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One that other editors should take up  Ctrl C with nothing selected will copy the current line  Most other editors will do nothing   After copying a line  pasting will place the line before the current one  even if you re in the middle of the line   Most other editors will start pasting from where you are  which is almost never what you want   Duplicating a line is just  Hold Ctrl  press c  then v   Ctrl C  Ctrl V

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Ctrl Shift F  Good old Find In Files

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If  Favorite  is measured by how often I use it  then   F10   Debug StepOver

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Ctrl Shift R -  Refactor with Resharper

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Ctrl Shift space shows the syntax overloads for the current function you are typing parameters for

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The TAB key for  snippets    E g  type try and then hit the tab key twice   Results in   try                  catch  Exception         throw      which you can then expand   Full list of C  Snippets  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library vstudio z41h7fat aspx

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Save LOTS of time copy and cutting    Ctrl C with no selection in the line  copies the whole line Ctrl X with no selection - cuts the whole line

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Ctrl Shift F  Good old Find In Files

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I don t think that any shortcut is remaining for me to mention so let me mention a shortcut that I would love Visual Studio to have  -  One shortcut that I really miss and that is present in Eclipse is  Open Resource   Ctrl   Shift   S  which allows you to type in a file name and the IDE displays the files matching it  Really useful when you are working with bid code bases

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Good old Ctrl Tab for flipping back and forth between open documents   Visual Studio actually provides a very nice Ctrl Tab implementation  I especially appreciate that the Ctrl Tab document activation order is most-recently-used order  rather than simple  left-to-right  order  so that Ctrl Tab  press once and release  can be used repeatedly to flip back and forth between the two most-recently-used documents  even when there are more than two documents open

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Ctrl K  Ctrl C Comment a block Ctrl K  Ctrl U Uncomment the block

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Nothing beats Ctrl Shift B - Building the solution    As far as navigation control  Ctrl - and Ctrl   is nice     But I prefer Ctrl K K ---  creates bookmark    and Ctrl K N ---  to navigate to the next bookmark    awesome stuff

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Ctrl - and Ctrl Shift -   Alt D  P  Attach the debugger to the application   first letter of any application you want to debug  works most of the time   Ctrl Shift F  Ctrl I  incremental seach

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Ctrl R T  Runs the current test   Ctrl R A  Runs all tests in the project

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One that other editors should take up  Ctrl C with nothing selected will copy the current line  Most other editors will do nothing   After copying a line  pasting will place the line before the current one  even if you re in the middle of the line   Most other editors will start pasting from where you are  which is almost never what you want   Duplicating a line is just  Hold Ctrl  press c  then v   Ctrl C  Ctrl V

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Surround with  Ctrl   K   S   It is great when you want to wrap some text in a tag

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Here s a link to a list of Shortcuts I find usefull  VS2003  but some still apply   My favorite being F12 and Ctrl - to navigate to the declaration and back

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Ctrl   for matching braces and parentheses   Ctrl Shift   selects code between matching parentheses

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prop  and hit tab   stubs out property for you

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Showing hidden windows   ctrl alt L   Solution explorer ctrl alt S   Server explorer ctrl alt O   Output ctrl alt X   Toolbox ctrl shift W  1   Watch ctrl    E   Error list ctrl shift C   Class view   I like to use all my screen real estate for code and have everything else hidden away  These shortcuts keep these windows handy when I need them  so they can be out of the way the rest of the time

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If you install Visual Assist X  which I highly recommend you do  these are useful    Alt O  Toggle current document between header implementation   h  cpp  Alt G  Go to definition declaration

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Ctrl    Move to corresponding      Ctrl Shift V  Cycle clipboard

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Open a newline above Ctrl   Enter  Open a newline below Ctrl   Shift   Enter

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Visual Studio 2005 2008 keybinding posters    Visual C  2008 Keybinding Reference Poster Visual C  2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Reference Poster  Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster   These don t cover customizations  but they re good reference materials and definitely helpful for finding new shortcuts   Also  a macro that dumps all the current bindings to a HTML file   http   www codinghorror com blog archives 000315 html

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CTRL F5  Start Without Debugging   CTRL SHIFT B  Build Solution

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Ctrl K then Ctrl H to add a line of code to the built in task todo list Ctrl Alt K   Very handy

[.net] Favorite Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts

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