6 Dec
2012

Easily set Visual Studio keyboard bindings with the Nuget Package Manager Console

Category:General PostTag: :

After a fresh install of Visual Studio, I often re-configure some options and setup keyboard bindings. This tends to be a bit of a pain as each and every time I have to remember what setting is in what U.I. configuration pane and how do I find/configure that again? I also will often forget about certain settings until the point I need them and it really breaks my coding rhythm down to go hunt for and reconfigure these options.

I recently found a simple solution to get my VS just the way I want it.

P.S. Some of you may want to tell me all about the VS import/export settings, and you may be right, but I just haven?t spent the time to use/understand/easily find a way to integrate it into my ?flow?.

So I present to you ?MY happy path? to Visual Studio Environment configuration.

1. Install the NuGet Package Manager Extension

You?re going to probably install this extension anyway, so go-ahead and install it now if you don?t already have it? We need this so you can get access to the NuGet Package Manager Console

image

2. Execute Function Set-VisualStudioEnvironmentConfiguration

Wait! What is ?Set-VisualStudioEnvironmentConfiguration??

This is a little function that I have in My PowerShell $Profile which gets setup on all development environment.

So what?s in this PowerShell script?

As of writing this, I only have two specific setup commands, but thought I?d share as an example of what you can do:

  1. Set a keyboard binding to a specific command.
    # Map Ctrl+W to close a tab
    $DTE.Commands.Item("File.Close").Bindings = "Global::Ctrl+W";
  2. ShowLineNumbers for all language files.
    # Turn on line numbers for ALL language types
    ($DTE.Properties("TextEditor", "AllLanguages") | where {$_.Name -eq "ShowLineNumbers" } ).Value = $true
  3. Turn on whitespace?
    # This doesn't work and I wish it did... 
    $DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.ViewWhiteSpace")
    # Fails with: "Command "Edit.ViewWhiteSpace" is not available."
    # Maybe one of you can help me out?

      How can I find and setup the settings I like?

    I?m no VS expert and only know as much about the $DTE object as what I?ve written about here, but I?ll give you some tips and you can go from there?

  • Google/Bing are your friends. Type ?DTE Visual Studio {TheThingYouWantToAccomplish}?
  • After your search, most examples you find will be VB macros and as it turns out VB (in this case) translates nicely to PowerShell (EX: 
      VB Macro:  DTE.Commands.Item("File.Close").Bindings = "Global::Ctrl+W"

    PowerShell: $DTE.Commands.Item("File.Close").Bindings = "Global::Ctrl+W"

    See the difference? (yep just the ?$? at the beginning of the PowerShell one) Nifty eh?

  • Don?t be afraid to use PowerShell to search/filter things in the $DTE. Try this:

    PM>  $DTE.Commands | where { $_.Name ?match ?Close? } | select { $_.Name }

    Happy VS Environment setting-uppers!

3 thoughts on “Easily set Visual Studio keyboard bindings with the Nuget Package Manager Console

  1. Yeah, export/import is much easier. Don’t have to install nuget package manager extension, and don’t have to write powershell commands–you can just use the built-in VS UI to edit commands/menus/etc.

  2. @peterritchie:disqus @d762c661517d3fec78da4c00d3a35fa0:disqus Have neither of you guys seen studioshell.codeplex.com yet? There’s a nuget package too – the entire VS DTE OM is mapped to a powershell provider – fully automatable with idiomatic powershell provider cmdlets.

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