15 Tips to Boost Your Productivity in Visual Studio

hi my name is Daya I'm a product manager
on the visual studio team in this video
I want to share with you some tips that
will help you be more productive in
Visual Studio what you're seeing here is
a very simple application that I built
for this demo it's a rock paper scissors
game
the first tip I want to share with you
is the most fundamental one which is to
learn your keyboard shortcuts there's
lots and lots of keyboard shortcuts out
there the more you learn the keyboard
shortcuts and you keep your hands on the
keyboard instead of reaching for the
mouse the better because not only are
you saving time but you're also not
context switching one of the really
important shortcuts that I use all the
time is the control Q shortcut to search
for other shortcuts as well so for
example one of the shortcuts I had a
really hard time remembering is to
comment out the current line I'm on so I
would look up comment and find out that
it's not control slash it's control key
slash and I wasn't used to that in other
programs I would just use control slash
all the time so the other tip that I
want to share here is that you don't
have to go with the default shortcuts
what I ended up doing I actually ended
up overriding the defaults for
commenting out online and you can do
that by going to the keyboard settings
options page
it's under options environment keyboard
you can search for any keyboard shortcut
that you want to override in my case I
want to override the comment out align
shortcut you select it you'll see what
the current shortcut here is and you can
switch it out so for me I want to switch
it out to control slash assign it press
OK and now I can just use it to comment
out online I don't have to do Ctrl K
Ctrl sash anymore I can just use control
slash the other thing I want to point
out is I know a lot of people switch
back and forth between programs so if
you want to use shortcuts from a
different program you can actually do
that in visual studio so if you go back
to the keyboard shortcuts page that I
was on
you can switch the the shortcuts that
you're using to a different program for
example I know a lot of people use vs
code and switch between vs code and
visual studio if you want to use a
shortcuts from vs code in Visual Studio
you can select this option and do that
uh one of the ways that I've learned a
lot of shortcuts is using the visual
studio cheat sheet so you can access
that actually directly in Visual Studio
by going and uh looking up keyboard and
then you can do you can click on that
first reference here which is gonna find
the page that we have on keyboard
shortcuts
um what I ended up doing was I actually
ended up printing off this cheat sheet
and I would go through it every week and
learn a couple of shortcuts and just
force myself to use it all the time so
that next time my muscle memory is right
there and I remember how to use some of
those shortcuts and some of these you'll
probably already know so you can scratch
it off that's done but some others you
might be thinking oh I need to learn
that so next time you can try to use
those keyboard shortcuts so you're
building that muscle memory
my next tip is around navigating your
code quickly we actually spend a lot
more time reading code than writing code
so it's really important to learn how to
navigate your code quickly so let me
show you an example of how I do this
let's say I am in my test class and this
test is actually failing right now
so if you take a look at uh the expected
result and what it's providing it's
taking in scissors and it's not
assigning it to the right enum so
instead of going all the way to the
method definition and kind of going back
and forth between your test class and
your implementation what I like to use
is the alt F12 uh keyboard shortcut or
the peak definition feature and what
that does is it gives you the method
implementation or the definition right
within your view so you're not having to
go back and forth and if you want to
make any changes you can make it right
in here so for example in this case I
made a classic error of copying pasting
something without actually replacing the
value so in this case I'll change it to
scissors and what you'll notice now is
my tests are passing and if you're
wondering heydaya you didn't actually
have to run any tests I'm using this
really awesome feature that I found out
about recently called live unit testing
and the feature is a feature that allows
you to continuously run tests as you're
changing code I didn't even have to save
the file here and it's running the test
continuously the feature is only
available in Enterprise so if you have
access to the Enterprise Edition you
have access to this really cool feature
so back to navigation so Peak definition
alt F12 is one that I really like to use
the other one I like to use and by the
way you can use escape to get out of
peak definition mode
um the other shortcut that I really like
to use is the control shift backspace
and that shortcut goes to the last place
that you changed any code so for example
I just changed the code in the
implementation from paper to scissors
and when I use the Ctrl shift backspace
it took me where I changed the code and
I know sometimes you don't really want
to just change code and not look at the
contacts make sure that no one else is
using your code so in case you want to
go to the last place that you edit it
you can use Ctrl shift backspace the
other one I use all the time is control
minus and that one will just kind of
navigate through Visual Studio and go
backwards and then you can use Ctrl
shift minus to go forward so think kind
of a browser kind of situation where
you're just kind of going backwards to
where you were
um you can also use the control tab
shortcut to switch between
Windows just kind of similar to you know
alt tab in Windows you can use that
control tab in visual studio and switch
between the classes that you're writing
um I know there's a lot of navigation
shortcuts so if you're ever wondering
about more navigation shortcuts or what
they are there's this secret menu that I
recently found out about and it's the
alt back tick
um shortcut and it brings up this menu
that's different than what you do what
you get when you right click on a file
and it brings up some of the most common
uh shortcuts that I talked about and it
talks about some of the navigation
shortcuts as well so that's just kind of
cool just in case you don't know that
this secret menu exists the next tip
that I want to share with you is around
reading code and it's around the feature
that we recently added to visual studio
that I think is really helpful for
readability and it's called a sticky
scroll so the way that you can enable
these features by going to control Q
and searching searching for sticky
and you'll notice that it's under text
editor General There's a sticky scroll
section here and once you enable this
feature what's going to happen here is
that you're going to be able to see this
section at the top that shows you the
class or the method definition along
with the code block you can't really see
it in my test class let's go back here
because I think you can see it a lot
better here so for example when I was
writing the while loop for my play
Method it was really helpful to have
sticky scroll on because I could see
that I am in a while loop right now I
actually didn't have a way to exit out
of the game previously and then which is
really dangerous but because I saw that
there's I'm in a while loop I remember
to add my break condition in my while
loop generally it's really helpful to
have sticky scroll if you have long
methods I heard recently that it's a
code smell to have long methods if
that's the case any code base that I've
worked on is really stinky because
that's just really common everywhere so
if you have long code you know if you
have long methods or long classes you
could really benefit from sticky scroll
so that as you're writing code you can
kind of see what's the top level of the
code block that you're in the next set
of tips I want to share with you is
around editing code a lot of time when
I'm editing code I like to go into full
screen so I can limit any distractions
you can do that using the alt shift
enter key and that will take up as much
of your screen as possible with your own
code so you're not breaking your flow or
anything one of the fundamental keyboard
shortcuts to know when your editing code
is the control dot shortcut which is
going to bring up any quick actions that
Visual Studio is recommending for your
code for example in this case it's
recommending I replace my VAR to an
explicit type which is probably a good
idea so I'll take that suggestion
one more thing that I want to show you
around here is if you want to make
changes to multiple lines at a time I
really like to use the multi-select
feature
let me show you an example of that let's
say I have a few messages here and I
want the computer to be a little bit
more excited when someone wins what I
can do is I can select the line that I
want to change or the place that I want
to change the line in I can press Ctrl
alt and then click in the other
positions where I want the cursor to be
so I can make those changes and then I
can make the changes here so I want to
add some exclamation points here and in
order to exit out of the mode you can
just press Escape
and that will allow you to change
multiple lines at a time and I know
sometimes people have to do that
um one more thing that I learned about
recently is that a lot of times I'm in
the middle of the line and it's obvious
that I want to just start a new line so
I press enter and I'm like oh no I can't
do that well I recently found out that
you can actually press shift enter and
it will start a new line even if you're
in the middle of a line already so I
really like that shortcut the last tip I
want to share with you is to use code
cleanup a lot of times when I'm writing
code like this if statement it
originally looks something like this
where I just focused on getting the
logic right but not quite the formatting
the way that you can fix that is by
using the control K control e shortcut
which will invoke code cleanup but even
better I actually have it so that it
invokes code cleanup whenever I save my
file
um the way you can do that is to go to
your cleanup save setting
which is available under text editor
code cleanup and then you can enable run
code cleanup profile on save so
technically speaking if I had done this
and I saved the file it will format my
file automatically which I really like
because I don't like manually formatting
my files that's something that should be
automated
highly recommend turning that on and if
your team has specific like formatting
that they all use you can use the editor
config file in order to change the
formatting to whatever your team uses
you don't have to use the defaults that
Visual Studio provides you you can
customize the formatting that your team
uses so that it's consisting consistent
across repos
and that's all I had for you
um I hope you found any of those tips
helpful there's lots and lots of more
tips out there
um I will include a link in the
description to some more resources that
you could use and a place where you can
find more shortcuts so you can learn
more
um more ways to be productive in Visual
Studio thanks for watching