In these upcoming posts we will explore how to become the keyboard ninja(definition 2). And you will feel slightly more superior to the mouse using population.

As software developers, more often than not we’re able to think ahead to a problem’s solution well before we can write the code, the only thing getting in our way is a mouse and keyboard.  Fortunately for the .NET development community, there are wonderful tools out there combined with Visual Studio to make our lives easier.

This series of blogs is going to focus on utilizing keystrokes and keeping our grubby fingers off of our mouse as it only serves to slow us down and annoy co-workers.  Once we’re all finished, you will sworn into the secret society of keyboard ninjas. We will also try to train ourselves to be more effective by taking advantage of advanced ReSharper commands and features.

You want to make sure that you use any command you learn right away. Try to use as many shortcuts as you can. Consciously recognize often used button clicks and find keyboard alternatives. One last thing, make sure your keyboard shortcuts are consistent across applications that you use.

To start here is my set up of the keyboard shortcuts and screen layout.

My screen layout is simple, I do not use toolbars. So every toolbar is turned off. On the right hand side I have my Solution explorer always open. That also acts like a tabbed pane for any other narrow windows that can fit there like the Team Explorer and Properties. On the bottom, always minimized are any wide panes like Error lists.

My keyboard shortcuts are set to “Visual C# 2005″ settings, visible in the Tools -> Options -> Environment-> Keyboard(Keyboard Options).

My ReSharper shortcuts are set to “Visual Studio” scheme, visible under ReSharper -> Options -> Visual Studio Integration.

To use the shortcuts we will introduce you should have your settings match ours. If a shortcut doesn’t work you can check what if anything is mapped to that shortcut key stroke. To check it go to the Keyboard Options and go to the “Press Shortcut Keys”, and check which commands are mapped to the shortcut.

We will be back to that screen plenty of times to assign and reassign shortcuts. I will provide the exact commands where I can, feel free to ask clarifications on any that are not straightforward in the comments.

Next: How to create a new file.