posted on Thursday, December 02, 2004 7:23 AM
by
dfaceved
Keyboard Shortcuts in Visual Studio and Reporting Services PART 1 of 3
Switching Views
I have the task of designing and deploying hundreds of reports with Reporting Services and the Visual Studio designer. After wearing the underside of my sleeves of all my long-sleeve shirts from excessive mouse usage, I decided it was time to find some keyboard shortcuts (shortcut keys).
The main tasks that I repeat with each report are (1)Switching from Data to Layout to Preview. I also
(2)Check reports in and out of Source Safe and (3)Save and Deploy Reports. Deploying with a shortcut will not be as simple, but with a little help from the Macro functionality of Visual Studio, we'll get through it, no problem. Switching between views [Data,Layout,Preview] is easy enough, point and click. The problem is that I do it a thousand times a day and it requires a round-trip to the mouse every time.
Shortcut Keys:
(1) In the menu, choose Tools-Options.
(2) Under the Environment folder on the left, select Keyboard.
(3) Type Report into "Show commands containing". This will bring up all the commands that belong to the Report designer to which you can assign shortcut keys.
(4) Scroll to find Report.Data, Report.Layout, and Report.Preview.
(4b) If many of the reports you design require parameters, you may want to also assign a shortcut key to Report.Parameters.
(5) For each command, move the mouse cursor to "Press shortcut key(s)" and type in your shortcut key.
(6) Sometimes a shortcut key you want to assign is already taken. If this is the case, choose a different shortcut key or override the existing assignment.
(7) Click Assign. Assign Shortcut keys until your heart's content and click OK.
(8) If this is the first time you assign shortcut keys to any command, you should save the new Keyboard mapping scheme.
Whether you are advanced or a beginner, shortcut keys will save you time and money (on clothing).
PART 2 of this blog will cover Source Safe Checkin and Checkout shortcuts. PART 3 will cover saving and deploying reports. Knowledge of Macros preferred but not required.