VS Code Shortcuts That I Would Teach Myself if I Had a Time Machine With Limited Fuel

— "Hey, it's me. Listen up, I don't have much time."

— "Wait, what?! What is happening?! Who are-How did you get in my house?! Wh-why do you look so much like me?!"

— "I am you, you dum-dum. I came from the future specially to teach you some VS Code shortcuts. Now..."

— "Wait. Are you serious? You could've brought back lottery results, stock market data, but you came all the way here to teach me freaking VS Code shortcuts?!"

— "Listen, I really don't have much juice left on this thing... Just sit and pay attention please, this is impor..."

— "Couldn't you have written these shortcuts, you know, on a piece of paper?"

— "Shut up! This is important!"

— "Okay, okay..."

— "So, you should stop clicking for files in File Explorer and start using Command/Ctrl+P, then type the file name. Add :N and it will open exactly at that line number"

— "Ooooh, we have hologram gifs in the future, nice example"

— "I know, right? Also, stop navigating the File Explorer with your mouse altogether and just use Command/Ctrl+Shift+E and arrow keys, ok?"

— "Ok, cool..."

— "Now, if you ever need to focus on the panel again, instead of clicking the edit area, just press Command/Ctrl+1 and it will focus the first open panel"

— "Cool, cool cool cool cool cool no doubt"

— "Use Command+Shift+[ and ] to navigate through file tabs, try Alt+Left and Right if you run Windows in this timeline. This will save you a lot of time"

— "Hard to think of it as a lot of time but, yeah, okay… You're the one with the time machine"

— "Use Command/Ctrl+B to toggle the editor sidebar, it will save you some space when coding on small screens"

— "I knew that one!"

— "Instead of scrolling so much, use Control/Ctrl+G to go straight to the line you want, do you copy?"

— "Roger that"

— "Use Command/Ctrl+Shift+L whenever you need to select all occurrences of some text

— "Handy! Next one please."

— "Command/Ctrl+W closes the current tab, Command/Ctrl+Shift+T reopens it"

— "The usual, nothing new he..."

— "Wait, I have to return now. Command/Ctrl+Shift+H is Find & Replace, you'll always forget this one, don't be too hard on yourself"

"Wait! I have so many questions! How did I even get a time machine? Does this creates a new parallel universe? Will 49ers ever win the Super Bowl again? Hey, wait! Waaait."

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EDIT: There is a whole lot of great shortcuts in the comments, you definitely should check them!

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Repo in the examples is forem.

Gifs (with a hard G) were recorded with Kap on a 680x416 size with 12 fps.

VS Code theme is Cobalt2 and the font is Envy Code R.

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Comments

[tranxuanthang]

I would rather tell my past self to learn Vim at the age 14. I use VSCode sometimes so it's still good to learn some nice commands though!

[Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin]

Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3 ... also work for focusing tabs. It also works in Chrome (both Ctrl+digits and Alt+digits), Firefox (only Alt+digits) and gnome-terminal (only Alt+digits), making this the one shortcut to remember! [Linux]

[Radu Pacurar Vasile]

Nice post and nice replies. I'll also add some shortcuts I'm using and I didn't see here.

1. Select several lines. SHIFT+ALT+i will create multicursor. Then CMD+LEFT/RIGHT to go to the beginning/end of the lines.
2. CMD+P. Then > to see the latest command, or : to jump to specific line. For example, if I have some text I want to uppercase it, I select the text, CMD+P, then type > and start typing uppercase. You will see a Transform to Uppercase command :)

[Theo Paris]

Is there a shortcut for creating a new file in the explorer SIDEBAR? I always have to right click first and then use my mouse to do this.

[leob]

Control-Shift-P (or Command-Shift-P) is the "master key" which shows your most recent commands, and allows you to search for any other command, including keyboard shortcuts - learn this one first, and then gradually you'll learn the rest ...

Control-Q is also one I use a lot - switching between the Explorer view, the Source Control view and the Debug/Run view.

Ah and then Control-] or Cmd-] (on OSX) to jump to end bracket/begin bracket is a powerful one.

[Melissa Manousos]

CMD + ] on my Mac causes the line to indent (like using TAB) rather than jumping to brackets. I wonder if you have mapped your hot keys differently.

[leob]

Ah yes maybe I remapped it, some key combos are unintuitive or conflict with other things so then I'd remap them.

[Phong Duong]

In my vscode, I use Ctrl+Tab to navigate between tabs

[Shane Robinson]

Funny and so helpful! Thank you and thanks to all the add'l added in the comments! I have a lot of muscle memory learnin' to do.

[Vitor Paladini]

Thanks, Shane! I'm very happy with all the comments, I learned quite a few new shortcuts as well 😄

[Nilay Mehta]

My favorite is Ctrl + D to select Next occurrence. And hold ctrl key for using multi cursor.

[Shimba]

You are so funny. Thank you for this!

[Vitor Paladini]

You're welcome, Elliot 😄

I wish I could write like this every time but I have to be particularly inspired to come up with something this silly haha

[Gio]

This is a great list! I Found myself referring back to this after reading it a few days ago :)

Quick observation:

Command/Ctrl+W closes the current tab, Command/Ctrl+Shift+T reopens it"

For me (I've made no edits that I can recall) this closes all "except" the current tab. And then pressing it again re-opens all. Did you customize this setting?

[Melissa Manousos]

That seems like specialized behavior, @Gio.
The default on VSCode (as well as most browsers and operating systems) is that CMD + W closes the current window.