Visual Studio Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 24. Create Your Own Shortcuts

Visual Studio lets you do a lot with the
keyboard configuration. You can customize the keyboard mapping and
even copy these mappings from one machine to another.

Keyboard shortcut keys are a big part of
working with Visual Studio. Throughout this book, we have identified
a number of different shortcuts that are in Visual Studio by default,
but in this hack you will learn how to create new shortcuts as well
as edit the existing shortcut keys. Visual Studio provides an
excellent interface to edit and add new shortcuts. Everything in
Visual Studio works off the idea of commands. Although this is a
fairly common pattern, with Visual Studio you see it much more, since
you can create shortcuts for various commands and can also see
commands when using the command window [Hack #46] .

Visual Studio includes hundreds of different commands. A small
portion of these commands already have shortcut keys, but through the
Options screen (Tools Options), you can add a shortcut for
any of these commands. You can also remove shortcuts that you never
use, freeing up more key combinations for shortcuts you might use
more often.

4.2.1. Adding a Custom Keystroke

In this example, you will create a shortcut for the
Build.RebuildSolution command, which does
not normally have a shortcut assigned to it. The first thing you need
to do is go to Tools Options and select the Keyboard item
under the Environment folder. This brings up the interface (Figure 4-1) you will use to edit and create shortcuts.

Figure 4-1. Keyboard mapping options

Visual Studio does not allow you to make changes to the default
keyboard mappings. You need to first create a copy of the default
keyboard
mappings for yourself. Start with whatever keyboard mapping you are
currently using, then click the Save As button. This will prompt you
to name your new scheme. After you create a name, Visual Studio will
save the scheme and set it as your selected scheme. Now you are ready
to modify shortcuts.

The next step is to find the command that you want to create a
shortcut for. This is done in the long listbox of commands.
Thankfully, you can enter part of the command and the list will find
it for you as you type. In this example, you are going to select the
Build.ReBuildSolution command from the list. To add the shortcut:

Click in the Show Commands Containing box and type
Build.Re. The list will narrow to just a few
commands. Click once on Build.ReBuildSolution to select it.

Next, you need to decide at what scope you want your shortcut to
operate. This is configured using the drop-down list under the
"Use new shortcut in:" heading.
Leave the scope set to Global so the shortcut will work everywhere,
but for more specific shortcuts, you would limit the scope to a
particular designer or editor. (For instance, you might have a
shortcut that is specific to ASP.NET so you would want it to be valid
only while using the HTML Editor Design View.)

Your last step is to decide what shortcut key you want to assign to
the command. This is more difficult than it sounds. Because of the
number of commands and current shortcuts, it can be a task to find an
empty shortcut. You can test shortcut keys by typing them into the
Press Shortcut Key(s) box. The box below will then be populated with
any current mappings for this shortcut key combination. My initial
instinct for this rebuild command was Ctrl-Shift-R, since
Ctrl-Shift-B is used to build a solution, but Ctrl-Shift-R is already
used to record a macro. You could eliminate one of the current
mappings by simply overwriting it, but instead I am going to use the
unused Ctrl-K, Ctrl-R.

Visual Studio supports keystroke chords . Similar to musical chords, keystroke chords are the combination of two or more key combinations in quick succession. The Ctrl-K, Ctrl-R shortcut is performed by pressing Ctrl-K and then Ctrl-R immediately after it. This is a testament to the number of shortcuts already existing in Visual Studio that they came up with this solution. Ctrl-K is the default first key for chords, but you can create chords using any keys that you want. The only thing to remember is that after a key is used as the first part of a chord, it can no longer be an individual shortcut key because Visual Studio will be listening for the second part of the chord. In this book, chords will be shown separated by a comma, as in Ctrl-K, Ctrl-R.

Figure 4-2 shows your Options screen right before
you click Assign to add your new shortcut key.

Figure 4-2. Adding a new shortcut key for Build.RebuildSolution

Once you click the Assign button, your new shortcut will be added to
your keyboard mapping and you can start using it right away. Creating
shortcut keys is something that you should do over time as you notice
yourself accessing something over and over again through the menu
structure. Everything is faster with the keyboard, especially when
writing code. Developing your own set of keyboard shortcuts over time
is a great way to improve the speed of your development.

4.2.2. Hacking the Hack

So now that you have spent time to create
your own set of
shortcut keys, tailored to your own style of development, what
happens when you switch machines? While there is a way to save and
move keyboard settings manually, it is much easier and less
troublesome to use the excellent power toy


VSTweak to move the settings for you.
VSTweak provides an interface to export and then import keyboard
mapping schemes quickly and easily.

The VSTweak power toy is one of the more useful power toys for Visual
Studio and is the subject of a number of different hacks in this
book. The VSTweak power toy can be downloaded from http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/vstweak.

After you have downloaded and installed the VSTweak power toy, look
for the section dealing with keyboard mapping
schemesit's on the first tab, as shown in
Figure 4-3.

Figure 4-3. VSTweak keyboard mapping schemes

VSTweak provides an easy-to-use interface with which you can export
your keyboard bindings by selecting them in the drop-down list and
then clicking the Export button. VSTweak will save a
.vsk file to the location of your choosing. You
then need to copy this file to your other system, fire up VSTweak,
then use the "Import and select keyboard
bindings" button to find and import that file.

VSTweak makes this process relatively easy and painless, but if you
wanted to do it manually, you could. The .vsk
file is stored in your own profile located in the following
directory: \Documents and
Settings\<username>\Application
Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\<7.1>. You can take this
.vsk file and copy it to another machine. When
you restart Visual Studio, you will see the new scheme in the
Keyboard Options window and you can select it.