views:

38

answers:

3

Many times I want to close the left bottom panel which includes build information, etc. by keyboard shortcut in Visual Studio IDE, is it possible? Or can I customize Visual Studio to support this?

+1  A: 

Press the hotkey that activates the tool-window (eg, Ctrl + W, O for the output window), then press Shift+Esc.

To see the hotkeys that activate different tool-windows, look at the View menu.

SLaks
+3  A: 

I am assuming you talk about the Output window? The Keyboard Shortcut to show the Output window is CTRL+W, O (so first press and hold CTRL and W, while holding tap O) - also CTRL+ALT+O works.

Now you can exit the window with Shift+ESC. I don't know any way to exit the output window directly.

Some more shortcuts:

  • CTRL+W, O Output window
  • CTRL+W, P Properties window
  • CTRL+W, T Task list window
  • CTRL+W, X Toolbox window

etc. for a complete list check this MSDN article about VS2010 default keyboard shortcuts.

moontear
bufferz
Thanks. It seems Ctrl+w,o doesn't work in my Visual Studio 2010. After this key sequence, the open file dialog is shown. But Ctrl+Alt+o works well. There is no change in the status bar of VS after I pressed Crtl+w.
Thomson Tan
That's weird. My status bar says "CTRL+W was pressed. Waiting for second key of chord". Check Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard > View.Output. Mine says "CTRL+W, O (Global)".
moontear
+1  A: 

You need to do two things:

  1. Go to Tools -> Options -> Environment -> General and deselect the "Close button affects active tool window only".

  2. Now go to Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard and bind a shortcut key to the Window.Hide command (I bound mine to CTRL + ALT + ESC when testing but it's a little cumbersome).

That's it. Now when you are any any tool window and press the shortcut key for Window.Hide it will close all the windows in that tab group.

WARNING: Like anything else this is good and bad. Now that you have "Close button affects active tool window only" it will close all tool windows that are grouped no matter where you are so be aware of how you are grouping your tool windows.

zainnab