Visual Basic 2012 Programmer's Reference

MENUS

The IDE’s menus contain standard Visual Studio commands. These are generally commands that manipulate the project and the modules it contains. Some of the concepts are similar to those used by any Windows application (File ⇒ New, File ⇒ Save, Edit ⇒ Copy), but many of the details are specific to Visual Studio programming, so the following sections describe them in a bit more detail.

The menus are customizable, so you can add, remove, and rearrange the menus and the items they contain. This can be quite confusing, however, if you later need to find a command that you have removed from its normal place in the menus. Some developers place extra commands in standard menus, particularly the Tools menu, but it is generally risky to remove standard menu items. Usually it is safest to leave the standard menus alone and make custom menus and toolbars to hold customizations.

Many of the menus’ most useful commands are also available in other ways. Many provide keyboard shortcuts that make using them quick and easy. For example, Ctrl+N opens the New Project dialog box just as if you had selected the File ⇒ New Project menu command. If you find yourself using the same command very frequently, look in the menu and learn its keyboard shortcut to save time later.

Many menu commands are also available in standard toolbars. For example, the Debug toolbar contains many of the same commands that are in the Debug menu. If you use a set of menu commands frequently, you may want to display the ...