Visual Studio Useful Keyboard Shortcut Keys

04 Sep 2022

Intermediate

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7 min read

Shortcut keys play an important role to increase the output. Developers work at least 6 to 8 hours on daily basis on Visual Studio. If the developer knows the shortcut keys, he can keep away from using of mouse and absolutely it will enhance productivity and reduce headache to use of mouse again and again. I am sharing some interesting and useful shortcut keys to work with Visual Studio. For visual studio top shortcuts refer the article Top 10 Visual Studio Keyboard Shorcuts.

General Shortcut Keys

Shortcut

Description

Ctrl-X or Shift-Delete or Ctrl-L

Cuts entire line or Cuts the currently selected item to the clipboard

Ctrl-Del

Delete next "word"

Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Insert

Copies the currently selected item to the clipboard

Ctrl-V or Shift-Insert

Pastes the item from the clipboard at the cursor location

Ctrl-Z or Alt-Backspace

Undo the previous editing action

Ctrl-Space

To see intelligence dialog

Ctrl-Y or Ctrl-Shift-Z

Redo the previous undo action

Ctrl-S

Saves the current selected file

Ctrl-Shift-S

Saves all files and projects

Ctrl-P

Displays the Print dialog

Switches from the design view to the code view in the editor

Shift-F7

Switches from the code view to the design view in the editor

Shift-F8 or F8

Navigate to compile time errors

Alt-Shift-A

Add Existing Item(file) to selected project

Ctrl-Shift-A

Add New Item(file) to selected project

Shift-F9

Display the selected item quick output means contains value while debugging

F12

Moves the cursor to the selected method, variable, class definition.

Shift-F12

Finds the reference to the selected method, variable, class or the item under the cursor

Ctrl-}

Match curly braces, brackets or compiler directives

Ctrl-Shift-}

Select text between matched braces, brackets or compiler directives

Text Manipulation

Shortcut

Description

Tab

Indents the currently selected line or lines by one tab stop. If there is no selection, this inserts a tab stop

Tab-Tab

Complete the syntax of an item. Example- Write for and now press Tab-Tab, then for loop syntax will be automatically completed. Similarly it works for property, index, class syntax.

Shift-Tab

Moves current line or selected lines one tab stop to the left

Backspace or Shift-Backspace

Deletes one character to the left of the cursor

Ctrl-K, Ctrl-C

Marks the current line or selected lines of code as a comment, using the correct comment syntax for the programming language

Ctrl-K, Ctrl-U

Removes the comment syntax from the current line or currently selected lines of code

Ctrl-K, Ctrl-D

Do proper alignment of all the code of design view and code view

Ctrl-T or Shift-Enter

Swaps the characters on either side of the cursor. (For example, AC|BD becomes AB|CD.) Available only in text editors

Ctrl-U

Changes the selected text to lowercase characters

Ctrl-Shift-U

Changes the selected text to uppercase characters

Ctrl-Shift-Right Arrow

Select the entire word with space from start to end

Ctrl-Right Arrow

Move the cursor in forward direction word by word

Shift-End

Select the entire line from start to end

Shift-Home

Select the entire line from end to start

Shift-Alt-Arrows or Alt-Mouse

Column wise text selection for text manipulation

Ctrl-Delete

Deletes the word to the right of the cursor

Ctrl-Backspace

Deletes the word to the left of the cursor

Ctrl-G

Jump to line number or go to line

Project Related

Shortcut

Description

Ctrl-Shift-B

Builds the solution

Ctrl-N

Displays the New File dialog. Note: files created this way are not associated with a project. Use Ctrl-Shift-A to add a new file in a project

Ctrl-Shift-N

Displays the New Project dialog

Ctrl-O

Displays the Open File dialog

Ctrl-Shift-O

Displays the Open Project dialog

Ctrl-M-O

Collapse all the methods, classes, regions in the current code behind or class file

Ctrl-M-P or Ctrl-M-L

Expands all the methods, classes, regions in the current code behind or class file

Ctrl-F

Displays the Find dialog

Ctrl-H

Displays the Replace dialog

Ctrl-Shift-F

Find the reference of selected item into entire solution.

Ctrl-Tab

Move from one opened file to another opened file in visual studio.

Sets or removes a breakpoint at the current line

Ctrl-F9

Enables or disables the breakpoint on the current line of code. The line must already have a breakpoint for this to work

Runs the code with invoking the debugger.

Ctrl-F5

Runs the code without invoking the debugger.

F4 or Alt-Enter

Displays the Properties window, which lists the design-time properties and events for the currently selected item

Ctrl-Alt-S

Displays the Server Explorer window, which allows you to view and manipulate database servers, event logs, message queues, web services, and many other operating system services

Ctrl-Alt-L

Displays the Solution Explorer, which lists the projects and files in the current solution

Ctrl-Alt-X

Displays the Toolbox, which contains controls and other items that can be dragged into editor and designer windows

Ctrl-Alt-I

Displays the Immediate window, where you can find the controls or variables values or can do data manipulation during debugging