Sara Ford's Weblog
My adventures embracing open source on CodePlex and at Microsoft
Did you know... You can toggle between Common and All Statement Completion tabs via the keyboard? - #060
Once statement completion is up, press Alt+. to move to the All tab and Alt+, to move to the Common...
Author: saraford Date: 10/12/2007
Did you know... you can resize the statement completion window? - #059
all about the simple things in life… Yep, you can resize the statement completion dialog box from...
Author: saraford Date: 10/11/2007
Did you know... How to increase the statement completion font size? - #058
Go to Tools – Options – Fonts and Colors and change Show Settings For to Statement...
Author: saraford Date: 10/10/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+J invokes statement completion? - #057
In the default general development settings, the keyboard shortcut to invoke statement completion is...
Author: saraford Date: 10/09/2007
Did you know... you can show shortcut keys in toolbar tooltips? - #056
Right-click anywhere on any toolbar or toolbar region to bring up the context menu, and select...
Author: saraford Date: 10/08/2007
Did you know... how to navigate among bookmark folders in the Bookmark Window - #055
There’s a Bookmark Tool Window that allows you to organize and arrange your bookmarks. You can...
Author: saraford Date: 10/05/2007
Did you know... How to set a bookmark and navigate among them - #054
Press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+K to toggle a bookmark. This command is bound to Edit.ToggleBookmark,...
Author: saraford Date: 10/04/2007
Did you know... How to enable Emacs and Brief editor emulations? - #053
In VS 2005, we introduced Emacs and Brief emulations into the editor. Go to Tools – Options –...
Author: saraford Date: 10/03/2007
Did you know... How to enable URL navigation within the editor? - #052
This is enabled by default for most editors, but just in case you’re not able to click on a URL,...
Author: saraford Date: 10/02/2007
Did you know... How to cycle through the clipboard ring to paste different things? - #051
For me, this is yet another one of those, "why can’t I ever remember this tip?! It would...
Author: saraford Date: 10/01/2007
Did you know... how not to accidentally copy a blank line? - #050
There’s something about me that keeps hitting Ctrl+C instead of Ctrl+V whenever i’m on a blank...
Author: saraford Date: 09/28/2007
Useless Tip of the Day: There is no Ctrl+F in books - #049
You know you’ve thought about it at some point it time… "where’s the Ctrl+F to search for...
Author: saraford Date: 09/27/2007
Did you know... How to use the Undo stack on the standard toolbar? - #048
You’ll find the Undo and Redo stacks on the standard toolbar. Just make sure the cursor is in...
Author: saraford Date: 09/27/2007
Did you know... how to swap the current anchor position in the editor? - #047
Ctrl+K, Ctrl+A will swap the current anchor position. For whatever reason, when i tested our...
Author: saraford Date: 09/26/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+L cuts the current line and Ctrl+Shift+L deletes the current line - #046
Ctrl+L, bound to Edit.LineCut, will cut the current line, including EOL. Ctrl+Shift+L, bound to...
Author: saraford Date: 09/25/2007
Did you know... How to up to the top and bottom of the current view in the editor without scrolling? - #045
Ctrl+PageUp will jump the cursor to the top of the current editor view without moving the current...
Author: saraford Date: 09/24/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+Delete deletes the proceeding word and Ctrl+Backspace deletes the preceding word - #044
[a blog reader let me know that i had reversed preceding and proceeding. But the title is correct...
Author: saraford Date: 09/21/2007
Comment if you read Tip of the Day!
Writing tip of the day is really time consuming. So, today's extra post is a "go sara go" post. If...
Author: saraford Date: 09/20/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+= selects code to the last go-back marker? - #043
After yesterday’s tip on how Navigate Forward, Navigate Backward, and go-back markers work, did you...
Author: saraford Date: 09/20/2007
POP QUIZ: Under what condition does the file tab channel drop down button change its icon? - #042
I’m hoping this pop quiz is a little more challenging. Below is a picture of the right portion of...
Author: saraford Date: 09/19/2007
Did you know... How to navigate forward and backwards in the editor all because of go back markers? - #041
In the standard toolbar, there’s the Navigate Backward and Navigate Forward buttons. In the editor,...
Author: saraford Date: 09/19/2007
Did you know... How to do a Ctrl+G without the Go to line dialog box popping up - #040
Pretty straight-forward, pressing Ctrl+G will pop up the Go to line dialog. But, did you know...
Author: saraford Date: 09/18/2007
6 years at Microsoft today
6 years is like going from being 12 years old to starting college or going from a college freshmen...
Author: saraford Date: 09/17/2007
Did you know... Pressing the mouse wheel allows for scrolling in all directions? - #039
The tip before this tip is that you can press down on the mouse wheel and have it act as a 3rd...
Author: saraford Date: 09/17/2007
Did you know... you can hide the vertical and horizontal scrollbars in the editor? - #038
Today’s tip truly embraces the spirit of "Did you know?" Go to Tools – Options –...
Author: saraford Date: 09/14/2007
POP QUIZ: How do you show the Tile Horizontally and Tile Vertically buttons in the Windows Windows dialog? - #037
Obviously I’m not at work at 3am posting tip of the day (although i’ve had a nightmare that i forgot...
Author: saraford Date: 09/13/2007
Did you know... you can hide outlining (selection margin) without turning off outlining - #036
Yesterday’s tip was everything you ever wanted to know about outlining in the editor. Today,...
Author: saraford Date: 09/13/2007
Did you know... how to collapse and expand code? - #035
Yesterday’s tip talked about how to cut a collapsed block of code, but how do you collapse a block...
Author: saraford Date: 09/12/2007
Did you know... you can cut and paste a collapsed block of code? - #034
Following yesterday’s tip theme of code relocation, you can cut and paste a collapsed block of code,...
Author: saraford Date: 09/11/2007
Did you know... you can drag and drop code to a new location? - #033
I tend to be more of a keyboard user, probably because I’m too lazy to reach all that way for the...
Author: saraford Date: 09/10/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+W selects the current word - #032
Press Ctrl+W at any location on the word to select the entire word. You can have the cursor at...
Author: saraford Date: 09/07/2007
Did you know... How to change the editor background to black? - #031
Again, it’s all about the simple things in life. Go to Tools – Options – Environment – Fonts and...
Author: saraford Date: 09/06/2007
Did you know... How to change a bookmark color? - #030
I call out the bookmark color, since it appears at the top of the Fonts and Colors Display Items...
Author: saraford Date: 09/05/2007
Did you know... how to print the file path as the page header? - #029
Go to File – Page Setup. In the lower left-hand corner, there’s a Page header option. ...
Author: saraford Date: 09/04/2007
Did you know... To boldly print where no dev has printed before - #028
I apologize for the title. I think we all at one point in time have tried to customize our editor...
Author: saraford Date: 09/03/2007
Did you know... How to print line numbers? - #027
Back in the Visual Studio 2003 days, you had to go to File – Page Setup, and check “Line numbers”...
Author: saraford Date: 08/31/2007
Did you know... how to show line numbers in the editor? - #026
Go to Tools – Options – Text Editor – All Languages – General, and check Line numbers to show line...
Author: saraford Date: 08/30/2007
Did you know... You can increase and decrease the line indent from the text editor toolbar - #025
Not one of my finer tip of the day titles, but it illustrates the point. =) With either a...
Author: saraford Date: 08/29/2007
Did you know... There's a keyboard shortcut default to upper and lower case a word in the editor? - #024
Press Ctrl+Shift+U to make the current character or selected characters uppercase Press Ctrl+U to...
Author: saraford Date: 08/28/2007
Katrina 2 years later - My parents to be on NBC Nightly News Tuesday, Aug 28
Update: There was a trackback here to Brian Williams’s blog, but unfortunately, due to the 100s of...
Author: saraford Date: 08/27/2007
Did you know... There's a way to track changes in the editor? - #023
Yellow – you’ve edited these lines since your last save. Yellow becomes Green upon saving....
Author: saraford Date: 08/27/2007
Did you know... How to delete horizontal white space at the beginning of a line? - #022
On the Edit – Advanced menu, you’ll find the Delete Horizontal White Space (interesting, i thought...
Author: saraford Date: 08/24/2007
Did you know... How to transpose characters, words, and lines in the editor? - #021
Press Ctrl+T to transpose a character Press Ctrl+Shift+T to transpose a word Press Alt+Shift+T to...
Author: saraford Date: 08/23/2007
Did you know... Ctrl+Enter inserts a line above and Ctrl+Shift+Enter inserts a line below? - #020
In the above picture, note the location of the cursor in the middle of the current line. ...
Author: saraford Date: 08/22/2007
Did you know... How to convert spaces to tabs and tabs to spaces? - #019
There are four commands that involve converting spaces to tabs and tabs to spaces. Edit – Advanced –...
Author: saraford Date: 08/21/2007
Did you know... How to format the document, the selected text, or just the current line? - #018
Ever been typing in the editor, and for whatever reason, the text isn’t indented properly on the...
Author: saraford Date: 08/20/2007
Did you know... How to quickly comment and uncomment code using keyboard shortcuts? - #017
Ah, it really is the simple things in life, isn’t it? Use Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C to comment code and Ctrl+K,...
Author: saraford Date: 08/17/2007
Did you know... How to create or change Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts? - #016
The Visual Studio shell is a big place. I should know, since I used Visual J++ everyday for a...
Author: saraford Date: 08/16/2007
Did you know... How to enable Virtual Space - #015
Today’s tip is mutually exclusive to yesterday’s word wrap tip, meaning try as you might, you won’t...
Author: saraford Date: 08/15/2007