Visual Studio Keyboard Katas - II

Hopefully, if you read the last kata and have been trying it out, you may have found yourself needing to use your mouse less for common activities such as opening files and reviewing build status.  This kata builds upon those previous techniques, adding seven more handy shortcuts and a pattern to practice them.

Granted, the last Kata was a bit of white belt pattern: obvious and almost comical, but essential.  In Tae Kwon Do, the yellow belt patterns introduce forward and backward motion, so it seems logical that the next kata introduces rapidly navigating forward and backward through code.

Today’s Shortcut Lesson

Our mnemonic for this set of shortcuts is centered around two keys in the upper-right area of the keyboard: F12 and Minus (-).  The basic combinations for these keys can be modified by using the SHIFT key.

Also note, I’ve introduced another Tool window (CTRL + Window).  The Find Symbols Results is also displayed when you do a Quick Symbol search, which may help explain the “Q”.

F12	Go to Definition
SHIFT + F12	Find all References
CTRL + MINUS	Navigate Backward
SHIFT + CTRL + MINUS	Navigate Forward
CTRL + W, Q	Find Symbols Results Window
CTRL + LEFT ARROW	Move to previous word
CTRL + RIGHT ARROW	Move to next word

And as an extra Keeno bonus, an 8th shortcut:

CTRL + ALT + DOWN ARROW

Show MDI File List

Keyboard Kata

Practice this kata any time you need to identify how a class is used.

1. Open the Solution Explorer. (CTRL+W, S)
2. Navigate to a file. (Arrow Keys / Enter)
3. Select a property or variable (Arrow keys)
4. Navigate to the Definition for this item (F12)
5. Find all References of this Type (CTRL+LEFT to move the cursor from the definition to the type, then SHIFT+F12 for references)
6. Open one of the references (Arrow Keys / Enter)
7. Open the next reference (CTRL+W,Q / Arrow Keys / Enter)
8. Open the nth reference (CTRL+W,Q / Arrow Keys / Enter)
9. Navigate to the original starting point (CTRL + MINUS)
10. Navigate to the 2nd reference (SHIFT + CTRL + MINUS)
11. Navigate to any window (CTRL + ALT + DOWN / Arrow Keys / Enter)