Working with Documents in Microsoft Visual Studio
- 8/24/2011
- 04.01 Insert Documents to the Right of Existing Tabs
- 04.02 Recent Files
- 04.03 Working with Documents on Multiple Monitors
- 04.04 Navigate Open Document Windows
- 04.05 Close the Current Document Window
- 04.06 Open a File Location from the File Tab
- 04.07 Open the File Menu Drop-Down List from Your Keyboard
- 04.08 Using the IDE Navigator
- 04.09 Multiple Views of the Same Document
- 04.10 Closing Just the Selected Files You Want
- 04.11 Understanding the File Open Location
- 04.12 Show Previous Versions
- 04.13 Using Custom File Extension Associations
04.08 Using the IDE Navigator
DEFAULT |
Ctrl+Tab (forward in Active Files); Ctrl+Shift+Tab (backward in Active Files); Alt+F7 (forward in Active Tool Windows); Alt+Shift+F7 (backward in Active Tool Windows) |
VISUAL BASIC 6 |
[no shortcuts] |
VISUAL C# 2005 |
Ctrl+Tab (forward in Active Files); Ctrl+Shift+Tab (backward in Active Files); Alt+F7 (forward in Active Tool Windows); Alt+Shift+F7 (backward in Active Tool Windows) |
VISUAL C++ 2 |
[no shortcuts] |
VISUAL C++ 6 |
Ctrl+Tab (forward in Active Files); Ctrl+Shift+Tab (backward in Active Files); Alt+F7 (forward in Active Tool Windows); Alt+Shift+F7 (backward in Active Tool Windows) |
VISUAL STUDIO 6 |
Ctrl+Tab (forward in Active Files); Ctrl+Shift+Tab (backward in Active Files); Alt+F7 (forward in Active Tool Windows); Alt+Shift+F7 (backward in Active Tool Windows) |
WINDOWS |
[no shortcuts] |
COMMAND |
Window.NextDocumentWindowNav; Window.PreviousDocumentWindowNav; Window.NextToolWindowNav; Window.PreviousToolWindowNav |
VERSIONS |
2005, 2008, 2010 |
CODE |
vstipTool0023 |
Navigating documents and tool windows in the IDE is a critical part of your development experience. You can easily move among active file and tool windows by pressing Ctrl+Tab.
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Some interesting things come with using this feature. For example, holding down the Ctrl key keeps the IDE Navigator showing once it is up. Also, you can select any item in this dialog box, while it is showing, by using your mouse or arrow keys.
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Navigator Areas
Let’s take a look at the two major areas in the navigator: Active Files and Active Tool Windows.
Active files
To navigate active files, press Ctrl+Tab to go forward and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to go backward though the list. The currently selected file is highlighted, and its name is displayed at the top of the dialog box. Also, notice that the full file path is shown at the bottom of the IDE navigator.
Active tool windows
This part of the dialog box shows all your tool windows that are currently open. To get to this area, you can use Alt+F7 or Alt+Shift+F7. The interesting part is that this list changes depending on when you use it. The following illustration shows what mine looks like while I am writing code.
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And here’s what it looks like when I’m debugging:
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