Scott Cate: Family: Visual Studio Tricks

#67 Search in hidden text in the editor?

Scott Cate — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:07:00 GMT

Ever try to search for something you know exists, BUT … the Quick Find just can’t find it? Is it possible that the text you’re looking for is in a hidden region? This video shows you how toe search hidden text in collapsed regions.

[CTRL]+[F] brings up the Find and Replace tool window. You can then expand the Find options chevron control and select Search hidden text. This is usually the first option I always set (or ensure is set)

#66 Using Quick find in the Current Document

Scott Cate — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:06:00 GMT

The standard keyboard shortcut for finding text in most applications is CTRL+F. In Visual Studio, this kicks off a Quick Find in the current document. Quick Find will pre-populate the find what text with whatever text is selected in the editor or the word that the cursor is currently on.

Additionally, this find and replace window is actually a tool window (not a dialog), meaning that you can dock it somewhere and type in the editor with it opened.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

#65 Edit.WordComplete via Intellisense

Scott Cate — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:05:00 GMT

Whenever you can invoke statement completion, you can also execute the Edit.CompleteWord command. This command will complete a word that is partially complete with no other possibilities. And if there are other multiple possibilities, the command will invoke statement completion.

[CTRL]+[Space] or [ALT]+[RIGHT]

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#64 Keyboard Shortcut to Display Quick Info Tooltip

Scott Cate — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:04:00 GMT

As you mouse over a method in the Editor, a nice tooltip (as seen in the image below) is displayed for you showing you general information about the method, parameters, overloads, possible exceptions, and other documentation pulled from the meta data about the method (including your custom comments/documentation). This video shows you how to enable the tooltip, without having to leave the keyboard.

[CTRL]+[K]+[I] Invoke Quick Info. The command is Edit.QuickInfo, in case your keybindings are different.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

#63 Copy Paste Parameter Info from the Tooltip

Scott Cate — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:03:00 GMT

Intellisence is great. It shows us a lot, and mostly at the perfect time. When parameter info is being displayed in a tooltip, did you know you can copy or paste this information? This video trick shows you how.

[CTRL]+[ALT]+[SHIFT]+[P] Paste the default parameter names directly into the function.

[CTRL]+[ALT]+[SHIFT]+[C] Copy the info for some other line (see the commented line in the picture. Copying the parameter info will put the function name and all parameter information onto the clipboard.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

#62 Display parameter info for a function

Scott Cate — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:20:00 GMT

Intellisense is great – probably the greatest thing ever invented to help developers productivity. But ListMembers isn’t always what you want. If you have CTRL+Space embedded in your brain telling Visual Studio to “Show my what I can put here” you’re getting a ListMembers popup. What you sometimes want is a ListParameters Tooltip, and this video shows you how.

Press Ctrl+Shift+Space to display the parameter info. The command is Edit.ParameterInfo, in case you need to check the keybindings. To iterate through the possible parameters, press the down arrow to go to the next and up arrow to go to the previous.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

#61 Presenters Must Read .. Increase the Editor Tooltip Font Size

Scott Cate — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:10:00 GMT

If you’re presenting Visual Studio on a projector, one of the first things you probably do is downsize to 1024X768, and edit your font size to be larger so the people in the back can read your screen. BUT … most presenters forget to also change the Tooltip font size. Did you know that could be done? This video shows you how.

Go to Tools - Options - Environment - Fonts and Colors, and under Show Settings For select Editor Tooltip. Then you can customize the font and font size.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

#60 All and Common tabs on Intellisense (VB Only)

Scott Cate — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Once statement completion is up in Visual Basic context (sorry C-Sharpers) there is a tabbed view of options. One tab is Common (the default) and one tab is (ALL). You can switch between these tab from teh Keyboard - and this video quickly shows you how.

Press [ALT]+[.] to move to the All tab

Press [ALT]+[,] to move back to the Common tab

#59 Resize the Statement Completion Window

Scott Cate — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:59:00 GMT

You can resize the statement completion dialog box from any direction, once it’s open, grab a side or a corner.

Interestingly, there are max and min heights (max is limited to 1/3 of screen size) and while there are no limits on the max width, only the height is persisted.

#58 How to increase the statement completion font size

Scott Cate — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:58:00 GMT

Go to Tools - Options - Fonts and Colors. This is where you're used to changing the font size, especially those of us that present with Visual Studio on a projector. When you change the editor font size to 20 for the audience to be able to read it, only the editor changes. This video will show you how to increase the font size on the Intellisence window that pops up for statement complete.