Visual Studio shortcut keys

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Visual Studio shortcut keys

Visual Studio
shortcut keys Understanding Code: Exploring the .NET framework’s Class
Relationships The dynamic class diagram is a great way of exploring class relationships
in ­­the .NET framework. Now I’m sure most people will already be using
the class diagram for their own class hierarchies (Add a class diagram, go to class
view [Ctrl-W, Ctrl-C], and drag a class to the diagram), but did
you know that you can also use a class diagram as a great way of getting familiar
with the .NET framework in VS2005? In class view, open the “Project References”
tree and drag a namespace to the class diagram (e.g. System.IO). Also, don’t forget
you can “Show Derived classes” by right-clicking on a class. Navigating Code You
are probably aware of the right-click ‘Go to Definition” navigation (with your cursor
placed in a symbol). It is also bound to F12. What you might not be aware of is
its counterpart, Shift-F12 which shows all references to the symbol defined at the
current cursor location. F12 - Go to symbol definition Shift-F12
- Show all references to a symbol The F8 key is a great shortcut
key to remember. It can cycle through all references found with F12,
and in addition it can cycle through any ‘List’ output window, such as the task
list, error list, etc. F8 - Cycle through list of items in the
currently active output window Shift-F8 - Same as F8 but in the
opposite direction The next two key ‘chords’ are very useful when you are dealing
with unfamiliar code, as they provide a high level view of a class’s methods:
Ctrl-M, Ctrl-O - Collapses all methods to outline view Ctrl-M, Ctrl-M
- Collapses/expands the method the cursor is currently in. Most people are aware
of the “IE style navigation” using Ctrl-minus and Ctrl-Shift-minus to move backwards
and forwards through visited code: Ctrl-‘-‘ - Move backwards to
previous cursor location Ctrl-Shift-‘-‘ - Move forwards to last
cursor location But the following two are less well known (and in many instances,
more useful). If you are navigating a sequence of method calls, and you move around
in the surrounding code, the IE style navigation will cycle through every location
the cursor was placed. The following two commands move up and down the “Definition
Navigation Stack”, so just those methods that you delved into using F12: Ctrl-Shift-8
- Move up the definition navigation stack (stack pop) Ctrl-Shift-7
- Move down the definition navigation stack (stack push) Another less known shortcut
is Ctrl-I which activates incremental search. Open a source file,
hit Ctrl-I and start typing the first few letters of your search
text. Visual Studio will go to the first occurrence and continuing searching as
you enter more characters. Hit Ctrl-I to go to the next occurrence
(and of course, Ctrl-Shift-I to go to the previous). Pressing Escape
will turn off incremental search. Ctrl-Shift-I - Incremental search
Ctrl-Shift-F - Find in all files (more useful than Ctrl-F)
Ctrl-H - Replace Another tip involves finding files. You can download
a free add-in called VS File Finder from the following link: http://www.zero-one-zero.com/vs.
It’s easy to use and good for navigating in large solutions. File Finder shows up
as a new window after you install it from the .msi file. I docked mine with the
output and list panels at the bottom of the IDE window. Any text you enter in the
textbox will filter the list of files displayed by partial file name matches. For
some reason, I always seem to forget these two shortcuts: F7 -
Switch to code view Shift-F7 - Switch to design view Modifying
Code Ctrl-K, Ctrl-C - Comment out currently selected code Ctrl-K,
Ctrl-U - Uncomment currently selected code Ctrl-K, Ctrl-F
- Auto format selected code FxCop is a Static Analysis tool that can not only help
you come to terms with an unfamiliar code base (see previous post) but also to improve
existing code. FxCop runs over the IL generated from your source code and performs
a set of rule based comparisons on it. There are 2 rule sets that can help with
refactoring: naming and maintainability. One of the rules that can generate warnings
relates to something called ‘cyclomatic complexity’. Cyclomatic complexity is just
the number of branches in a method. The higher the value, the greater the likelihood
that a method could be reduced by having sections of code extracted into new methods
(refactored). Visual Studio 2005 contains a number of refactoring commands to help
you reorganise code: Ctrl-R, Ctrl-M - Extract method Ctrl-R,
Ctrl-E - Encapsulate field Ctrl-R, Ctrl-I - Extract
Interface F2 - Rename [Ctrl-R is the first ‘note’
in most refactoring key combinations, and there are other refactoring commands in
addition to those I've listed above] Debugging Code These are essential debugging
shortcuts: F10 – Step over Ctrl-F10 – Run to cursor
F11 – Step into Shift-F11 – Step out F9
– Toggle a breakpoint F5 – Run with debugging Shift-F5
– Stop debugging Control-F5 – Run without debugging Attributes
can make your debugging more effective by declaratively altering the behaviour of
the debugger: [DebuggerStepThrough()] is used to decorate a method or property to
prevent the debugger stepping into it whilst debugging. [DebuggerDisplay(“{propertyname}”)]
allows you to define the value which is displayed by default in debugger visualisers.
[DebuggerBrowsable(DebuggerBrowsableState.Never)] can be used to prevent the display
of data, such as private fields, in visualisers. In order to use the debugger attributes
you will need to import the System.Diagnostics namespace. You can find out more
about debugger attributes here: Enhancing Debugging with the Debugger Display Attributes.
One final debugging tip: you can hold down control key when drilling into a visualiser
to make it transparent while you inspect the code beneath it.