CodeRush Cheat Sheet

I’ve been a big user of CodeRush & Refactor! Pro from Developer Express for several years now.  These are awesome code “productivity” tools for Visual Studio and I highly recommend trying them out if you aren’t familiar with them.  In fact, there is a free version called CodeRush Express that you can pull down.

One of the biggest things the products give you is a slew of shortcuts and templates to use when writing your code.  Type “vm” followed by a space and you get the definition for a void method/function inserted for you.  Type “ps” and you get a property definition for a string.  Go see it in action if you haven’t.

If you already own CodeRush, or now your sold about getting it and want to get good at using it, then you might find this Code Rush Shortcuts document handy.  It’s a great cheat sheet, but don’t forget you can turn on the “CodeRush window” under the DevExpress menu and you’ll get a context sensitive window that shows you the majority of the shortcut and template options available to you at any time.  

I put the word “Productivity” above in quotes because that is what the product is billed as.  I prefer the term “efficiency” instead.  It makes me a heck of a lot more efficient at getting code down (I know there is a fine line, but it’s one I draw for myself). 

Thanks to Jim Holmes for tweeting the link to the shortcut document.

I’ll end this rather sales-ish post with the statement that I don’t get kickbacks from DevExpress.  I recommend that every developer try tools like this (ReSharper, CodeRush/Refactor! Pro, etc.) to help them be more efficient in their work.  Try multiple of them and then go with the one you like.