Which features & shortcuts for Visual Studio 2008 I might be missing, and how can I find out?

Question

I recently got a job working for a company who uses several programming languages but mainly focuses on C#, and thus uses Visual Studio 2008.

As lame as it sounds, I don't know how to use it productively. I don't know any of the keyboard shortcuts, I didn't know you could restrict builds to certain parts of a solution until someone showed me. I'm sure there's a way to "Clean" "Build" "Run" without manually initiating each process, but I don't know what it is.

If it was just a "Search the help" problem, that'd be easy to solve, but I don't even know what I might be missing. Is there a productivity feature that everyone else uses and I don't? {Shrug}

So, what simple features of Visual Studio am I likely to be missing, and how can I find out other power-features to help me become more productive?

Answer 1

You can learn tons from walkthroughs, like the File/New/NerdDinner talk that Scott Hanselman gave at Mix 2009. The talk is online here:

http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T49F

Until I saw that talk I didn't realize that you could just drag a SQL Server data file into the Visual Studio APP_DATA folder, and it would automatically hook it up for you. A copy of the data file also goes along for the ride when you build your application.

There are several books that just talk about Visual Studio and how to use it productively. Here are some:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd285474.aspx

The problem with providing tips in an online forum like this one is that it can be difficult to "connect the dots." The walkthroughs are really good because you can see where things are in Visual Studio, and what sequences of steps are required to perform common actions.

Answer 2

As a start here is a poster which shows all the keyboard shortcuts for commonly used features of VS2008 (in C# mode).

In terms of tooling, ReSharper has a number of good features for improving productivity within VS2008.

Answer 3

Sara Ford wrote the book on VS tips and tricks: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft%C2%AE-Visual-Studio%C2%AE-Tips-PRO-Developer/dp/0735626405/

Here is a blog post with 24 of Sara Ford's tips http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2009/05/28/devdays-09-24-visual-studio-tips.aspx/

I also recommend James Avery's book: http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Studio-Hacks-Tools-Turbocharging/dp/0596008473

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Have a look at this question for a list of useful shortcuts.