Shortcuts for me are the most productive thing that a developer can add to their repertoire that will aid them through their entire career. Learning how to use your system and tools will improve your productivity and in general make traversing all your windows and apps a breeze. The mouse is a great, tool, but if you can do it quicker, more effectively without your hands leaving your keyboard then you should! Here’s a list of my most used shortcuts, you’ll probably know or use quite a few of these already, hopefully there is one here you don’t!
Let’s get moving to Shortcuts people!
Generic Windows Shortcuts
These are generic shortcuts specific to Windows, these are the things you will use day in, day out, so get accustomed to these, and use them when you can.
Ctrl + C - Copy
Ctrl + V - Paste
Ctrl + S - Save
Ctrl + Z - Undo
Ctrl + Y - Redo
Ctrl + F - Find in window/app
Windows + D - Minimise all windows, goto desktop.
Windows + Up Arrow - Maximise current window/app
Windows + Left/ Right Arrow - Move current window/app to left/right side of/next screen.
Alt +Tab - Window Tab Move
Shift + Alt + Tab - Reverse Window Tab Move
Ctrl + Tab - Application Tab Move
Shift + Ctrl + Tab - Reverse Application Tab Move
As you can see, in the above two cases, the shift button, SHIFTS the direction of the tab! It’s really intuitive if you think about it this way!
Ctrl + Arrow - Move cursor across word to next special character or space.
Ctrl + Shift + Arrow - Move cursor across word to next special character or space, and highlight.
IDE Shortcuts (VSCode)
The following is a list of shortcuts that are baked into VSCode - most IDE’s will have the option to configure shortcuts, so if you use something else, have a go setting these up!
Alt + Left Arrow - Go back - Last Cursor Position, this could be in a different file.
Alt + Right Arrow - Go forward - Last Cursor Position the other way! Did you go too far? Don’t worry, undo your undo!
Ctrl + Shift + F - Find in all Files
Really useful if GoTo Definition is not working, or you’re looking for a String!
Ctrl + K + C - Comment
Ctrl + K + U - Uncomment
Alt + Shift + Up Arrow - Duplicate line above
Alt + Shift + Down Arrow - Duplicate line below
Ctrl + Shift + R - Refactor
F12 - Goto Definition
This one will save you a lot of time, if your codebase is a sprawling behemoth then this will come in very handy.
F2 - Rename
This will rename all instances of any variables you have kicking around, this won’t replace text strings or comments, just the variable declaration.
We all strive to become a keyboard ninjas!
Do you have any other keyboard shortcuts we should be using?