Visual Studio Tricks: Mini Command Window

Visual Studio has another well hidden feature, the Mini Command Window. You can use the “Find” TextBox on the toolbar to start commands.

Just set the cursor to the “Find” TextBox and enter a command. All the commands start with ‘>’. Here is a list of available commands:

• >alias (show commands)
• >g (start debug)
• >q (stop debug)
• >r (debug list registers)
• >t (debug step into)
• >u (debug list disassembly)
• >of (open file)
• >nf (new file)
• >op (open project)
• >np (new project)
• >closeall
• >d (list memory)
• >kb (stacktrace)
• >lcase (make lowercase)
• >ucase
• >| (Debug ListProcesses)

My all time favorite is “open file”. I use this one a lot. If you need to open a file you can use the ‘>of’ command to avoid browsing through the solution explorer. Just do this:

1. Press: Ctrl – §  (moves cursor to find window)
2. Enter: ‘>of FileName.cs’

Visual Studio will us autocomplete and after a few letters you can press enter to select the file needed. Nice!