Visual Studio
Recommended Key Shortcuts

While I dislike changing applications from default settings, I feel the following shortcuts are must-have — because code reading, navigation, editing are key. I hope this helps some of you. FWIW,

I recommend setting the following bindings for Visual Studio 2019 / 2022 for C#:

  • F2 = Refactor.Rename
  • Ctrl+W = Edit.SelectCurrentWord
  • Alt+Left Arrow = Edit.LineStart
  • Alt+Right Arrow = Edit.LineEnd
  • Ctrl+Left Arrow = View.NavigateBackward
  • Ctrl+Right Arrow = View.NavigateForward
  • Ctrl+/ = Edit.ToggleLineComment
  • Ctrl+1 = Edit.ToggleLineComment (alternate)
  • Ctrl+Up Arrow = Edit.PageUp (useful on laptop without dedicated Page Up)
  • Ctrl+Down Arrow = Edit.PageDown (useful on laptop without dedicated Page Down)

The following appear to be defaults, with no command name to assign them to. If you do not have them in your IDE, you may wish to set them:

  • Ctrl+Tab = next file tab
  • Ctrl+Shift+Tab = previous file tab

Also, you may also remove some shortcuts that you accidentally type (which you never use). Especially annoying are ones that pop up windows, but pressing again does not undo. Or toggling word-wrap, without any notion of how to undo it without searching through the menus. Therefore — search for these and click “Remove”!

  • F4 = View.PropertiesWindow
  • F6 = Build.BuildSolution
  • Ctrl+E, W = Edit.ToggleWordWrap

Note: You may have to delete existing shortcuts that are using these keys.

Welcome to The First Pixel

Welcome to THE FIRST PIXEL.

The First Pixel

The is the personal blog of Jason Doucette.

It can be considered somewhat of a subsidiary of Xona Games — my award-winning Xbox & PlayStation indie game studio, co-founded by twin brother, Matthew Doucette and I.  Our motto is “Empower the Player”, which has existed as the main pillar of game design since we first started designing & programming games from the age of 7.  Empowerment is a constant conscious presence.

As you can guess — I am into video games.

However I do not really play them.  In Grade II, a teacher allowed the entire class to play video games, so we lined up.  I asked the teacher “Do we have to play games?” and she said “No.”  Thus, when it was my turn, I shut off the video games and started coding.  The entire class booed, and I was legitimately shocked at the social faux pas I had just committed.

I have fit into society about as well as that ever since.

This blog will contain side projects and articles, including lots of retro stuff.  While most of my projects are hidden, you may view what I am working on on my GitHub page which will give up-to-date links to my YouTube videos.

— Jason Allen Doucette / THE FIRST PIXEL