Microsoft Visual Studio tips and tricks

Today I will discuss some Microsoft Visual Studio tips and tricks any web developer should be aware of. These tips and tricks will improve your productivity and ease your day-to-day development duties so that every developer can boost his output.

Keyboard shortcuts can save a lot of time. Microsoft Visual Studio ships with an arsenal of standard keyboard shortcuts for common tasks and allows for customisation (Tools > Options (Show All Settings) > Environment > Keyboard). As part of our in-house development and training programme, every developer is expected to know Visual Studio. Below is a list of useful standard keyboard shortcuts used in common day-to-day tasks:

1. F7: Toggle between code-behind and mark-up.
2. Shift + F7: Switch the designer between modes e.g. Source and Design Views.
3. Right Alt + Right Shift + Enter: Switch between full screen and normal mode.

This is particularly useful for code files, where every bit of display real estate is valuable.

4. Ctrl + K + D: Formats any code file's content with properly defined indentation for readability.

5. Debugging shortcuts: F5 > Run with Debugging, Ctrl + F5 > Run without Debugging, F10 > Step Over and F11 > Step Into.

6. Ctrl + M + L: Toggle code files between collapsed or expanded view.
7. Shift + Del: Delete the current line.
8. F12: Go To Definition of the current item.
9. Ctrl + K + C: Comment the current code block.
10. Ctrl + K + U: Uncomment the current code block.

Environment setup can hog a computer with unnecessary eye-candy robbing you of valuable development time. Here are a few tweaks to speed up Microsoft Visual Studio: (All these options are under Tools > Options (Show all settings))

1. Environment > AutoRecover: If you're in the habit of regularly saving your work and have a source control server, you can turn this option off and save precious hard drive access.

2. Environment > General: Adjust or turn off visual enhancements (VS2005: Animate Environment Tools and VS2010: Automatically adjust visual experience ... )
3. Environment > Startup > At startup > Show empty environment: Speeds up launch time and does not download content from the news channels.

3. Launch time: Right-click the Microsoft Visual Studio shortcut, click Properties > Shortcut and add -nosplash at the end of the Target. This will speed launch time even more.

4. Page file: Hard drive access has a significant impact on Microsoft Visual Studio. By default the page file is located on the system drive. To speed up the system, move the page file to another physical drive to take pressure off the system drive. Preferably the physical drive used for the page file should do only paging for maximum benefit.

5. ReadyBoost: If you are using Microsoft Windows Vista / 7, you could take advantage of the ReadyBoost feature. ReadyBoost keeps a shadow copy of the page file on a device with faster access time and burst read speed than a typical hard drive.

Normally, a flash drive would suffice this requirement and is a cost-effective means to speed up system performance without upgrading hardware.

There you go, a bunch of easy tips and tricks to make you more productive and maximize your development experience. Enjoy!