Hot .Net Tip: This will save you a lot of time

In Visual Studio .Net, these two buttons are very useful:

'View Code' and 'View Designer'.

Unfortunately, (and wrongly, i think) they are only visible when the 'Solution Explorer' window is visible.

So here's what I just did to make sure they are "ALWAYS' available -- whether the solution explorer is shown or not:

I spent about three seconds customising the toolbar so that these two buttons are they very first thing that appears on the top left toolbar, like so:

I am very happy about this. I think it's neat.

'Aaron Robinson' on Fri, 03 Jun 2005 13:39:42 GMT, sez:

You use your mouse when you code?!? =)

'Jason' on Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:09:16 GMT, sez:

I don't know if the shortcuts keys are always the same but the default F7 for code window and Shift+F7 for designer window is much better than using the toolbar for me. Now if I can only move controls on the form by one grid unit at a time with the keyboard (like the ol' VB6 designer) instead of one pixel at a time.

'sara ford' on Fri, 03 Jun 2005 22:27:37 GMT, sez:

The "View Code" and "View Designer" commands are available from the context menu in the editor. I guess it just depends how you learned where these commands live, but my muscle memory is to invoke the context menu and click the command. I think i can do that faster than pressing F7 or Shift-F7 at this point =)

'secretGeek' on Sat, 04 Jun 2005 21:43:12 GMT, sez:

Hey i just read some of sara's blog -- and she owns:

"feature area testing [in Visual Studio .net] outside of Accessibility Testing. One of the feature areas i own is Window Management."

Thanks for dropping by Sara!

In response to Aaron: "You use your mouse when you code?!? =)" -- I appreciate the sentiment. I do use key strokes for a lot of things, but the mouse stays handy. I could perhaps look to identifying and replacing the mouse actions I use, where possible.

I've only recently started using F12 for 'go to definition' -- and it's a real boon.

F7 and Shift-F7 sound like a necessary addition to the 'muscle memory'

'Kyralessa' on Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:01:46 GMT, sez:

While we're on the subject, why do I have to use either F7 or Shift-F7 when I'm _already in_ the code or the designer? Why can't F7 just switch me to the one I'm not in yet? I can never remember which one takes me which place, so I usually hit both. :(

'sg' on Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:02:25 GMT, sez:

Yeh Kyralessa -- I'm with you.
'Use F7 to Toggle between the code and the designer' -- that would be handier.

In order to remember which is which I try to think like an IDE programmer: 'design good, code better'

'David' on Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:11:14 GMT, sez:

Seems like F7 actually now does switch between code and designer, at least in MS Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, Beta 2.

Nice.

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