This is a series I started where I’m listing out some tips for Visual Studio users. Each tip makes life just a little bit better, I’m hoping the mass of them will add up to a big difference.

Unless otherwise noted all of these will work in the Community edition of Visual Studio.

  1. Debugger Display - Control what value an object displays in the watch window
  2. $exception Pseudovariable - View the details of a caught but uncaptured exception
  3. No Side Effect Function Evaluation - Evaluate a function in the Watch or Immediate window without any side effects
  4. Source Map Scroll Bar - See and navigate all the code in a file quickly in the scroll bar
  5. Breakpoints - Advanced breakpoint features
  6. Solution Explorer Search - Helpful features for searching in the Solution Explorer
  7. DataTips - You can do more with DataTips than just hover to view values.
  8. Tracepoints - Like Breakpoints, but they log to output and don’t stop execution.
  9. Keyboard Shortcuts for Debugging - Save a little time and stay focused on your code rather than hunting for that command.
  10. Window Management - Setup your perfect tool window layouts, save them and switch between them.
  11. Test Explorer - Sort, Group and Filter your unit tests so you can quickly run just the tests you need.
  12. Bulk Editing Shortcuts - Making a lot of repetitive changes? Here’s a few shortcuts to make that easier.
  13. Code Definition Shortcuts - Quickly get a look at the code you’re referencing.