Visual Studio Hacks

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Chapter 6, Speed Hacks

#46 Master the Command Window

HACK

HACK

#46

Master the Command Window Hack #46

Although Visual Studio is, er…well, rather visual, command-line junkies

don’t need to fear it.

Visual Studio has hundreds of menus, windows, and dialog boxes. This you

are probably aware of; what you may not be aware of is that you can avoid

using all of these and use the command line inside the command window

instead. This hack looks at some of the different commands available to you,

how to use existing aliases, and how to create and manage your own aliases.

Command Window Basics

So why would you want to use a command window when you could just use

some part of the IDE? Using the command window is sometimes faster than

using the IDE, and when you are writing code with both of your hands on

the keyboard, it is often easier and faster to type a command than to reach

for the mouse. Many people who are used to the good old days of the com-

mand prompt find themselves right at home with the command window,

but whether or not you are one of these people, I encourage you to explore

its functionality.

The main keystroke to remember is Ctrl-Alt-A (View.CommandWindow);

this is the shortcut to open the command window.

The

open command is the first command I am going to cover. Using the open

command, you can open any file in either the filesystem or the current solu-

tion. (I think the real added value here