I hope you get the chance to try this Weekly Keyboard Shortcut if you don’t already use it. By choosing the best shortcuts for my workflow, I’ll get closer to taking advantage of the vast amount of help Visual Studio and ReSharper gives me. They give me the biggest benefit for my workflow because that’s where I’m the weakest in. Text editing shortcuts are my favorite to work on. Something you might notice with using this shortcut - it helps take your eyes out of the process of finding the start and end of the selection. If you go to far, press Ctrl + Alt + Left to shrink the selection back.Continue to press Ctrl + Alt + Right to continue expanding the selection.Ctrl + Alt + Right to expand the selection to the next level (statement, block, etc.).Select something (try to get there without the mouse).The Expand/Shrink Selection shortens the selection process to a few keystrokes: If so, the ReSharper 2.x/Intellij IDEA scheme's Ctrl + W / Ctrl + Shift + W will also work.
VISUAL STUDIO HOTKEYS FOR EXPANDING WINDOWS 7
This may clash with a Windows 7 shortcut to CHANGE YOUR SCREEN ORIENTATION. Quick heads up: ReSharper's Visual Studio default shortcut scheme will use: Ctrl + Alt + Right / Ctrl + Alt + Left. The Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + Right / Ctrl + Alt + Left or Ctrl + W / Ctrl + Shift + W
VISUAL STUDIO HOTKEYS FOR EXPANDING CODE
You might be so busy trying to get code written that you don’t realize you’re using the mouse to do something in Visual Studio/ReSharper over and over again. It’s actually hard to stop and be aware in a lot of situations, but that’s a whole other topic… If you’re new to my Weekly Keyboard Shortcut series - it’s hard to find the time to stop and be aware of what you’re doing in your Visual Studio/ReSharper workflow. Weekly Keyboard Shortcut #3: ReSharper's Expand/Shrink Selection