#95 Third Helping: Visual Studio Tip of the Day Windows Sidebar Gadget — ????????

Hey, you know you went back for a third helping at thanksgiving (unless you are my uncle jimmy, who gets 4ths and 5ths on their first pass).  So what could follow a Tip of the Day Browser?

How’s about a Tip of the Day Windows Sidebar Gadget!  Special thanks to Rob Caron for making this happen.  I didn’t write the gadget… i just supplied the content =P

Hope you all enjoyed your extra servings Turkey Day specials (a week late, but we are all still eating left-overs.)

Docked State

image

Full Tip Flyout

Full Tip in the Flyout

Undocked (shows last 5 tips)

Undocked gadget

#094 Second Helping: Beth Massi’s Visual Studio Tip of the Day Browser — ????????

So what Turkey Day was last week?  No reason why we can’t have a second helping of tip of the day… but as an add-in!

Beth Massi, our VB community expert, wrote a Tip of the Day Browser.  But even better, she’s got a Let’s Build an Add-In walkthrough, which she’s demo’ed at the DevTeach conference.

Visual Studio Tip Of The Day Browser

Pretty cool.  I know i’m very happy to have an easy way to browse all of my tips.  Thanks Beth!!

#93 Use undo to jump the cursor back to the last insertion point

In a previous tip, we learned more than we ever wanted to know about go-back markers.  Insertion points are slightly different.  They are similar to the go-back markers, but it is anywhere you click the mouse or jump the cursor to.  The go-back marker 10 line rule doesn’t apply.

Move caret command in the undo list

To give it a try, just click somewhere, then click somewhere else (or do a find or a goto if you’re using the keyboard), then press undo.  You’ll move back to that previous location.

The option can be found at Tools – Options – Text Editor – General

Include Insertion Point Movements Tools Option

#92 Jump to the beginning of some selected text when hitting escape

I hope this tip’s title makes sense.  The idea is that you select some text and then hit escape.  Where do you want the cursor to go? 

Selected text with the selection anchor and cursor circled

If you want it to stay where it is, that’s the default behavior.  But if you want it to jump to the beginning of the selection (i.e. the selection anchor), you need to go to Tools – Options – Text Editor – General and check the Go to selection anchor after escape.

Go To Selection Anchor After Escape Tools Option

#91 fun with the Find Combo Box

It’s time for an old favorite from the Visual Studio 2005 days…

Remember How to search using the Ctrl+D Window from one of the earlier tips?  Now let’s have a little more fun…

Press Ctrl+D to go to the Find Combo Box and then…

Goto a line – type the line number and press Ctrl+G (i like showing this off as how you can do a "go to line" without popping up the go to dialog box) 
Goto a file – type the name of the file (either in your project or on the INCLUDE path)and press Ctrl+Shift+G
Set a breakpoint on a function – type the name of the function and press F9
Get help – type the keyword and press F1

And to continue from yesterday’s tip on command aliases

To get a callstack – type “> kb”
To go to a webpage – type “> nav http://www.microsoft.com