VSCode Keyboard Shorcuts & Achieving Editor Fluency ⌨️

Mastering your text editor is crucial for increasing your productivity - and general bada$$ness. So says me, so says The Book (Pragmatic Programmer).

Emoji legend

• ✅ already mastered
• 🥊 needs more practice
• 📕 need to be learned
• 🤷‍♀️ not sure if useful

1. When editing text, move and make selection by:

Character

• 🥊 shift + (left/right) arrow

Select character by character.

Word

• ✅ alt + (left/right) arrow

Navigate word by word.

• 🥊 alt + shift + (left/right) arrow

Select word by word.

• 📕 option + delete

Remove word by word.

Line

• ✅ cmd + (left/right) arrow

Move to the beginning/end of the line.

• 🥊 cmd + shift + (left/right) arrow key

Select/unselect line.

• ✅ shift (up/down) arrow

Select line by line.

• 🥊 cmd + shift + k

Delete the current line.

• ✅ cmd + x

Cut a line.

• 📕 cmd + shift + enter

Insert a line above.

• 📕 cmd + backspace

Delete a line.

• ✅ option + (up/down) arrow

Move a line up or down.

• ✅ option + shift + (up/down) arrow

Copy line up or down.

Paragraph

• 📕 cmd + l

Select the current line; keep pressing -l to expand selection downward.

• 📕 option + shift + (left/right) arrow

Expand or shrink selection.

File

• ✅ cmd + (up/down) arrow

Go to the top/bottom of a file.

• ✅ cmd + shift + (up/down) arrow key

Select/unselect entire file.

• 🥊 ctrl + tab

Go to the next opened tab.

• 🥊 shift cmd + t

Open a previously closed file.

2. When editing code, move by various syntactic units (matching delimiters, functions, modules...)

• ✅ cmd + shift + \

Go to the matching opening/closing bracket.

• 📕 cmd + shift + o

Navigate by symbols.

3. Reindent code following changes

• ✅ cmd + [ or cd +]

4. Comment and uncomment blocks of code with a single command.

• ✅ cmd + /

5. Undo and redo changes.

• ✅ cmd + z and cmd + shift + z

6. Split the editor window into multiple panels, and navigate between them.

• 🥊 cmd + \

Split editor.

• 📕 cmd + num

Focus a specific editor window.

7. Navigate to a particular line number.

• 📕 ctrl + g

8. Sort selected lines.

• 🤷‍♀️ cmd + shift + p

(or F1) to access the command palette, then run sort lines.

9. Search for both strings and regular expressions, and repeat previous searches.

• ✅ cmd +f

Search in the current document.

• ✅ cmd + shift + f

Search in the current workspace.

• 📕 cmd + shift + h

Toggle replace mode.

10. Temporarily create multiple cursors based on a selection or on a pattern match, and edit the text at each in parallel.

• ✅ cmd + click

Insert cursor (press Escape to remove the temporary cursors).

• ✅ cmd + d

Select the next match.

• 📕 cmd + u

De-select previous match.

11. Display compilation errors in the current project.

• ✅ cmd + .

To open the quick-fix context menu.

• 📕 F8

Go to the next error warning.

12. Run the current project's test.

• 🤷‍♀️ cmd + shift + p

Open the command palette, then run all tests?

Bonus (added by me):

• 📕 cmd + k + z

Enter the zen mode.

• 📕 cmd +

Toggle between different VScode workspaces.

• 📕 cmd + option + s

Save all tabs.

I wrote about VScode Keyboard Shortcuts previously.