My good friend Michael Palermo today showed me the best keyboard shortcut ever. In fact, this is to a feature I didn't even know existed. When in a code window for Visual Studio, you can go full screen, hiding all the other windows, tool bars, title bars, and even your start bar. This is the same effect that Internet Explorer has when it's in "Full Screen" mode.

[SHIFT ]+ [ALT] + [ENTER] = Toggle Full Screen Mode

I'm sure this works in all versions, but I haven't tested it, as I'm running the 1.1 framework. I'm told it also continues to work in Whidbey.

[CTRL]+[i] = Incremental Search. I've stopped using [CTRL]+[F] to find. Incremental search works without a dialog box, and searches as you type. So you're in a class, and you want to find the word public. [CTRL]+[i] puts you into Incremental Search Mode, now just start typing. When you've found what you're looking for press [ESC] to get out of incremental search mode. Remember the famous [F3] is find again, and works with this incremental search also. : ) I love this one..... Thanks Simon.

[CTRL] + [-] = Move cursor back to it's last position. This works great when working with large pages. I commonly will [CTRL]+[Home] to enter a Using statement, then [CTRL]+[-] brings me rights back to my previous edit point.

[CTRL] + [}] = Toggle to Open/Close { }. This is great. If you're working with nested code (who doesn't) then you'll use this constantly. Place your cursor on any { or } and press [CTRL] + [}] and your cursor will jump to the opposite end of your code block.

[CTRL] + [C] = Copy.
[CTRL] + [V] = Paste.
Of course we all know that combination, but here's the trick. Copy two items in succession. You might know that these items are placed on a "Clipboard Ring" You can access them from the UI but that entails thinking, and clicking and dragging.

[CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[V] = Paste whatever is on top of the "Clipboard Ring". If you press [CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[V] again, since your pasted code is still highlighted, it will be replaced with the second item, and again, will be the third, etc. I love this. How many times do you have to copy two or three items from one page to another (none if you're refactoring; right)?

(Thanks Sreenth for this tip)
[CTRL]+[ALT]+[P] = Show Processes. This is a great, fast way to open the processes window. Why do that? I use it daily to attach to the ASP.net worker process. This let's me dive 15 pages deep into my web application, and attach to the process, so I don't have to run through the 15 pages every time I debug.

(Thanks Sreenth for this tip)
[CTRL]+[ALT]+[R] = Launch MSDN Home Page

If you have a favorite shortcut, you want me to list, e-mail me (see e-mail in header), and I'll get it up on this page.