Sara Ford's Weblog
My adventures embracing open source on CodePlex and at Microsoft
Tips Inspiring Tips
I’ve been inspired by the Silverlight Tip of the Day series (which was originally inspired by this...
Author: saraford Date: 12/10/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+K, Ctrl+X inserts a code snippet - #103
In Visual Studio 2005, we introduced code snippets. The VS Editor Team Blog has a nice...
Author: saraford Date: 12/10/2007
Did you know... what's the difference between smart indenting and block indenting? - #101
Smart indenting is the option you want provided you want the cursor to be properly indented whenever...
Author: saraford Date: 12/06/2007
Did you know... How to reach the Navigation bar via the keyboard? - #100
At the very top of the editor and just below the File Tab Channel, you’ll find the Navigation...
Author: saraford Date: 12/05/2007
Did you know... How to change the Brace Matching color? - #099
A previous tip talked about what that automatic delimiter highlighting option does. A...
Author: saraford Date: 12/04/2007
Did you know... How to turn off Intellisense by default - #098
Just in case you ever need to do this… Go to Tools – Options – Text Editor – All Languages – General...
Author: saraford Date: 12/03/2007
Did you know... How to get syntax highlighting for a given file extension? - #097
On the Tools – Options – Text Editor – File Extension page, you can map a file extension to one of...
Author: saraford Date: 11/30/2007
Did you know... What does that Automatic Delimiter Highlighting option do? - #096
Honestly, I had to ask around what this one did. I couldn’t remember to save my life....
Author: saraford Date: 11/29/2007
Beth blogs about Sara blogging about Beth's Tip of the Day Browser as the Tip of the Day Today
I think I’ve blogged myself into a recursion....
Author: saraford Date: 11/28/2007
Heading to DevTeach for tonight's open source panel
At first, when I heard "come down to Vancouver", i thought Vancouver, WA. I didn’t...
Author: saraford Date: 11/28/2007
Third Helping: Visual Studio Tip of the Day Windows Sidebar Gadget! - #095
Hey, you know you went back for a third helping at thanksgiving. So what could follow a Tip of...
Author: saraford Date: 11/28/2007
Second Helping: Beth Massi's Visual Studio Tip of the Day Browser - #094
So what Turkey Day was last week? No reason why we can’t have a second helping of tip of the...
Author: saraford Date: 11/28/2007
Did you know... How to use undo to jump the cursor back to the last insertion point? - #093
In a previous tip, we learned more than we ever wanted to know about go-back markers. ...
Author: saraford Date: 11/28/2007
Highlander: The Source - Why Adrian Paul? Why?
Wow, I had recorded this the other day, because hey, it’s a Highlander movie with Adrian Paul, and...
Author: saraford Date: 11/28/2007
Did you know... How to jump to the beginning of some selected text when hitting escape? - #092
I hope this tip’s title makes sense. The idea is that you select some text and then hit...
Author: saraford Date: 11/27/2007
Did you know... How to create a command alias? - #90
To create an alias, open up the Command Window (or anywhere you can type in VS commands) and type in...
Author: saraford Date: 11/23/2007
Did you know... How to run external executables from the VS command line? - #089
The command Tools.Shell will run an external executable out of process from VS. To run, it is...
Author: saraford Date: 11/22/2007
Did you know... How to log your command window session? - #088
You can record your command window session via the log command. Just run log -on...
Author: saraford Date: 11/21/2007
Did you know... You can run Visual Studio commands with arguments from the command window? - #087
After the past several weeks of Find tips (i knew i would have a few tips, just not nearly a month’s...
Author: saraford Date: 11/20/2007
Did you know... how to browse Find Symbol results? - #086
The results of a Find Symbol or a Quick Find Symbol will appear in the Find Symbol results. ...
Author: saraford Date: 11/19/2007
Did you know... You can use Shift+Alt+F12 to do a Quick Find Symbol - #085
Similar to yesterday’s tip on Find Symbol… select a word in the editor you want to do a Find Symbol...
Author: saraford Date: 11/16/2007
Did you know... how to search for a symbol? - #084
The final search command is Edit.FindSymbol, bound to Alt+F12. You can search within your...
Author: saraford Date: 11/15/2007
Did you know... How to search from the command line? - #083
Almost all Visual Studio commands can be run via the command line (scope willing). Check out...
Author: saraford Date: 11/14/2007
Did you know... How to show and hide find messages? - #082
Far too often, we uncheck the "Show this message again" checkbox not knowing how to get...
Author: saraford Date: 11/13/2007
Did you know... How to do a replace all in files? - #081
You could say that all these find tips for the couple of weeks are building up to this tip… how to...
Author: saraford Date: 11/12/2007
Did you know... How to stop a find in files search? - #080
Press the keyboard chord Alt+F3, S (bound to Edit.StopSearch) to stop a background search, also...
Author: saraford Date: 11/09/2007
Did you know... How to use F8 to navigate the Find Results window? - #079
You’ve probably noticed that doing a Find in Files returns all the hits in a Find Results tool...
Author: saraford Date: 11/08/2007
Did you know... How to customize what files to find in? - #078
With the Find in Files window showing, change the Look In: combo box to anything except for open...
Author: saraford Date: 11/07/2007
Did you know... How to find in files? - #077
And yet another way of searching code in Visual Studio… it’s called Find in Files. It is the...
Author: saraford Date: 11/06/2007
Did you know... How to dock the Find and Replace window? - #076
The Find and Replace window is not a dialog, but actually a tool window. Thus you can dock it...
Author: saraford Date: 11/05/2007
Did you know... How to use wildcards and regular expressions while searching? - #075
Another little thing I completely forgot about… You can search using either wildcards or regular...
Author: saraford Date: 11/02/2007
Did you know... How to not automatically search for the currently selected word? - #074
Go to the Tools – Options – Environment – Find and Replace page, uncheck the automatically populate...
Author: saraford Date: 11/01/2007
Did you know... How to hide the Quick Find / Quick Replace window after the first search hit? - #073
Let’s say you are searching for some text, and you know about F3 and Shift+F3, so you want the...
Author: saraford Date: 10/31/2007
Did you know... you can use Ctrl+H to bring up the Quick Replace Window? - #072
Press Ctrl+H to pop up the Quick Replace window. The command is Edit.Replace, in case your...
Author: saraford Date: 10/30/2007
Did you know... You can bookmark all of your Quick Find results? - #071
It’s funny, when i was writing up this tip, i started at the Find and Replace window trying to...
Author: saraford Date: 10/29/2007
Going to Silicon Valley CodeCamp 2007 Tomorrow (Oct 27)
Tomorrow, I’m going to swing by https://www.siliconvalley-codecamp.com to watch my fellow...
Author: saraford Date: 10/26/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+F3 searches for the currently-selected string without brining up the find window? - #070
Just select some text (or just have the cursor on the word you wish to search for) and press...
Author: saraford Date: 10/26/2007
Did you know... F3 searches for the last thing you searched for? - #069
Obviously, you can press the Find Next button on the Find and Replace window, but you can also press...
Author: saraford Date: 10/25/2007
Did you know... How to search within the current project or entire solution? - #068
When doing a quick find, you can select the scope of your search, including the current code block,...
Author: saraford Date: 10/24/2007
Did you know... How to search in hidden text in the editor? - #067
By pressing Ctrl+F, you can bring up the Find and Replace tool window. You can then expand the...
Author: saraford Date: 10/23/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+F does a quick find in the current document? - #066
The standard keyboard shortcut for finding text in most applications is Ctrl+F. In Visual...
Author: saraford Date: 10/22/2007
Did you know... How to complete a word via intellisense? - #065
Whenever you can invoke statement completion, you can also execute the Edit.CompleteWord...
Author: saraford Date: 10/19/2007
Did you know... How to display Quick Info for a function? - #064
Type in the method name, like Console.WriteLine, then press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+I to invoke Quick Info on a...
Author: saraford Date: 10/18/2007
Did you know... How to copy / paste in a function's parameter info? - #063
Whenever parameter info is displayed, you can copy or paste this information. Press...
Author: saraford Date: 10/17/2007
My Channel 9 Interview: "Katrina Survivor: This box is all that is left of this person’s or her families belongings. Careful"
Yesterday, my Channel 9 interview went live that we did about a month ago on Blogging and Katrina (2...
Author: saraford Date: 10/16/2007
Did you know... How to display parameter info for a function? - #062
Press Ctrl+Shift+Space to display the parameter info. The command is Edit.ParameterInfo, in...
Author: saraford Date: 10/16/2007
Oops, I did it again (subtitle: I've joined the CodePlex team!)
I’m very excited to announce that today is my first day as the Program Manager for CodePlex,...
Author: saraford Date: 10/15/2007
Did you know... How to increase the editor tooltip font size? - #061
Go to Tools – Options – Environment – Fonts and Colors, and under Show Settings For select Editor...
Author: saraford Date: 10/15/2007