Essential Visual Studio 2022 Features for Robust and Efficient Code

Reprinted from my old blog

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Abstract

This article organizes some useful and complementary features in Visual Studio 2022 to embody clean code.

Code analysis

• Estimates the cleanliness of your code machinery
• It's better to reconsider the code architecture if the Maintainability Index falls below 40.
• Useful for:
  • Sniffing out the scent of technical debt
  • Use as a reference to determine standards to address
• Menu:
  • Analyze -> Calculate Code Metrics -> For Solution
    
• Result:
  

Code cleanup

• Clean up the code throughout the entire solution
• Apply it before committing
• Useful for:
  • Maintaining an integrated formatting standard across a team
• Menu:
  • Analyze -> Code cleanup -> Run Code Cleanup (Profile 1) on Solution
    

Performance profiler

• Can monitor the performance of various resources
  • Database
  • File I/O
  • CPU / Memory Usage
• Useful for:
  • Finding bottlenecks
  • Detecting anomalous behaviors
• Menu:
  • Debug -> Performance profiler -> Check the resources to monitor -> Start button

Configuration

Monitoring

Monitor

Metrics

Shortcuts

Search

Effect	Shortcut
Jump	Ctrl + G
Go To Definition	F12
Go To Implementation	Ctrl + F12
Navigate Backward	Ctrl + -
Find All References	Shift + F12
Quick search	Ctrl + F
Search in Folders	Ctrl + Shift + F
Code Search	Ctrl + T

Tips: Code Search is good, all the time.

What's the difference between Search in Folders and Code Search?

• The answer is:
  • Search in Folders: String-based search
  • Code Search: Signature-based search

So it skips searching for redundant lines like comments and navigates you to your target line more directly when you use code search.
I strongly recommend using code search if you don't require complex regex search or searching comments.

Edit

Effect	Shortcut
Format Document	Ctrl + K, Ctrl + D
Select word	Ctrl + W
To Uppercase	Ctrl + Shift + U
To Lowercase	Ctrl + U
Move row	Alt + ↑ or Alt + ↓
Duplicate row	Ctrl + D
Complete word	Ctrl + Space
Insert Block	Ctrl + K, Ctrl + S

Tips: Insert Block is God

Haven't you used it yet? Why not?
Insert block provides a variety of general snippets such as for or if.
Don't write them yourself; rely on your IDE instead. It will boost your productivity more than tenfold!

Refactor

Effect	Shortcut
Rename	Ctrl + R, Ctrl + R
Extract	Ctrl + R, Ctrl + M
Quick Action	Ctrl + .

Tips: Move a literal into a constant

1. Select the target literal
2. Press Ctrl + . to call Quick Actions
3. Choose Introduce constant
4. Rename the constant
   

Build / Debug

Effect	Shortcut
Build	Ctrl + Shift + B
Start Debug	F5
Step over	F10
Step in	F11
Toggle breakpoint	F9
Toggle enable breakpoint	Ctrl + F9

Presentation

Effect	Shortcut
Zoom In	Ctrl + Shift + >
Zoom Out	Ctrl + Shift + <

Conclusion

Visual Studio is a rich and reliable IDE for .NET developers. I love it and am honing my skills to be a good pilot for it.
However, I do have some frustrations with it and hope that Microsoft will modify or add new features like the following:

• Give me a default test coverage reporter.
• Why not add a CamelCase/SnakeCase converter?
• Let me jump to the implementation when I Ctrl + Alt + Left click a signature, just like in ReSharper!
• Keep the Quick Action menu displayed while I'm taking screenshots.