Visual Studio.NET has hundreds of predefined keyboard shortcuts, as well as hundreds of additional useful commands lacking predefined keystroke sequences that you can customize.

One of the questions that I get in class on a regular basis is, "How do I toggle the code editor window to full screen?" The short answer is SHIFT+ALT+ENTER, but a more complete answer involves an introduction to all the other keyboard shortcuts.

Introduction to keyboard shortcuts
Search Help for "Default Settings Shortcut Keys", choose the Title that exactly matches the quoted string. Browse the results page and make note of any keystroke sequences that would be usefule to you. To see all the options available, make the following menu selections:

      Tools–>Options–>Select "Environment-Keyboard"

In the list you will see commands starting with "Action.Add". Using your "down arrow" key to scroll through the list, you will traverse about 80 items before you encounter the first item, "Build:BuildSolution", that has a predefined shortcut. You can define your own shortcut for any of the items in this list. Place cursor in the "Press shortcut key(s):" TextBox, and type a keystroke sequence such as Alt+D. If the keystroke is already in use you will be notified. If it is available, click the "Assign" button. You will be prompted to create a custom environment name because the Default Environment cannot be edited.

Bob Willsey, .NET Evangelist
QuickStart Intelligence

About Bob Willsey
As an accomplished professional, Bob brings over 25 years of industry experience to the classroom. His technical experience has breadth as well as depth, having taught classes ranging from application and web development, to networking, to Windows NT systems administration, mainframe support, and mainframe hardware troubleshooting to the component.

Bob has been teaching Microsoft Official Curriculum courses for 10 years. In the last 4 years Bob has taught .NET development courses which include Visual Basic.NET and C# as well as ASP.NET. Prior to this Bob taught previous versions such as Visual Basic and Visual Interdev.