is now available! Read about the new features and fixes from November.

Productivity Tips

In this Visual Studio Code tutorial, we describe Visual Studio Code features that help increase your coding productivity. Learning just a few tips can speed up your workflow and help you discover the full power of the VS Code editor.

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  • Find features and keyboard shortcuts in the Command Palette
    • View > Command Palette... (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P))
  • Quick Open recent files or search by filename
    • ⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+P) to show the Quick Open dropdown
  • Go to Line in a file
    • type filename:line number
  • Go to Symbol in a file
    • type filename@symbol name
  • View Quick Open options
    • type ?
  • Quick Open multiple files
    • press Right Arrow to open the selected file but leave the dropdown available
  • Multi-cursor selection
    • Alt+Click on Windows and Linux, Option+Click on macOS to add a new cursor
    • ⌥⌘↑ (Windows Ctrl+Alt+Up, Linux Shift+Alt+Up) ⌥⌘↓ (Windows Ctrl+Alt+Down, Linux Shift+Alt+Down) to add a new cursor above or below the current position
    • ⇧⌘L (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+L) to add cursors to all matches of the current selection
  • Auto Save changes
    • File > Auto Save
  • Open the Settings editor
    • File > Preferences > Settings (⌘, (Windows, Linux Ctrl+,))
  • Set Format On Type
    • check Editor: Format on Type
  • Set Format On Paste
    • check Editor: Format on Paste
  • IntelliSense smart code completions
    • trigger IntelliSense with ⌃Space (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Space)

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11/18/2021