Visual Studio: CTRL-TAB doesn't always work - visual-studio-2012

This post originally related to "Visual Studio", but affects other similar applications.
There are a number of posts dealing with a problem where the tab navigation panel appears but requires a click etc to dismiss. These seem to be solved by fiddling with the magnifyer, narrator etc. None of these solutions apply to my problem - which is that, in VS2012, ctrl-tab brings up the two-column navigation panel, repeated presses of tab moves through the lists as normal, but, on release of both keys, the focussed tab is NOT changed. With the nav panel displayed, you can click on it with the mouse and the focussed tab is changed as expected.
The issue seems to have arisen after installing VS2012. VS2010 is also installed and oddly now also exhibits the same problem, even though I have never had the problem until now. When you re-start VS, all works fine, but after a time ctrl-tab stops working normally. It has been seen to stop working without doing anything other than pressing ctrl-tab a few times i.e. not going to any other VS panel or doing a build etc.
This is a major problem with productivity as I use this constantly to switch between tabs. I know that I can change the shortcut to switch between documents without showing the navigation panel, but I prefer to see this panel, rather than switching 'blind'.
Does anyone know why this might be happening or how to fix it? I have done a full Windows update (Svr 2008 R2).
NOTE1 - I now see the same problem with a new installation of VS2013 and also in SQL Server Management Studio 2012 - on ctrl-tab you see the two-col panel but whatever you select doesn't change the pane in view (unless you click the panel with the mouse).
When ctrl-tab is not working in the VS-based apps, it DOES continue working in, say, Notepad++, which suggests an MS-VS problem.
NOTE2 - The problem does not exist when you use the on-screen keyboard! It seems that using the OSK causes ctr-tab to work again with the real keyboard, but it breaks quickly when you start almost any other application, but it always works with the OSK. The problem is unrelated to the physical keyboard as I have tried other keyboards.
Thanks

Related

Forward slash key not working in VS2019 code editor

Since a few days (I don't know exactly when it started) the forward key in VS2019 is not working in the code editor. No matter how many times I press it, it doesn't do anything.
It also doesn't work in the seach box in the menu bar (labelled 'Search (Ctrl+Q)') nor in the search box which appears with Ctrl+F.
It does work in other places, like the solution explorer search box (Ctrl+;) and in the resource editor.
The forward slash is working in any other application that I tried (including Visual Studio Code and MS Excel). The question mark (Shift+/) is working everywhere, including in the code editor window. Even AltGr+/ is working (producing the Spanish upside down question mark).
I tried all other keys, including the AltGr combinations. They all work fine. Keyboard layout is US International.
The foward slash key doesn't work in the code editor when typing it on the laptop keyboard, and doesn't work when typing it on an external keyboard, or via an RDP session.
I am running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, version 20H2, build 19042.685. System is up to date.
Visual Studio Professional 2019, 16.8.3, also up to date.
What is causing the forward slash key to fail?
How can I solve this problem?
(Too long for a comment.)
The OP indicated that the problem was resolved after resetting the keyboard shortcuts, which suggests that / was set as a keyboard shortcut either by accident or perhaps by an installed extension.
However, the question remains in such cases of how to identify what a particular keyboard shortcut is assigned to, in order to turn off just that one shortcut as opposed to resetting all.
Visual Studio does not appear to provide a place to see the list of all active keyboard shortcuts. An alternative is to go to Tools / Import and Export Settings / Export Selected / All Settings and save a .vssettings file with all the current settings. That is a plain text file with extended XML sections, and the keyboard shortcuts can be found under the following node (reformatted for readability):
<Category name="Environment_KeyBindings" ... >
<Version>16.0.0.0</Version>
<KeyboardShortcuts>
<DefaultShortcuts>
<Shortcut Command="View.ViewCode" Scope="Global">F7</Shortcut>
...
</DefaultShortcuts>
<UserShortcuts>
...
</UserShortcuts>
</KeyboardShortcuts>
</Category>
One of the <Shortcut> lines would have been listing / before the reset, and the Command attribute on that line indicated the assignment, so that it could be located and turned off individually in Tools / Options / Environment / Keyboard.
#dxiv Your comment made me check the shortcuts. Tedious job, scrolling through those hundreds of options). Nothing. Then I clicked the Reset button. That solved the problem.
In my case, the CodeRush extension was the guilty party. "Selection comment" gets set to use / upon installation. WTG DevExpress ......
https://docs.devexpress.com/CodeRushForRoslyn/120205/coding-assistance/selection-tools/comment-uncomment-selection
Update:
Also adding a screenshot of it in VS 2022 to help people find it:

VS Code keyboard layout change

I am using Visual Studio Code with English keyboard layout switched in Windows when programming, but when I am using my computer for general use I use Slovak keyboard layout. Sometimes it can get ridiculous when I switch from one to another multiple times in one minute. Is there a setting (or a plugin) that could set the keyboard layout in VS Code to English while Windows layout is still set to Slovak?
I will summarize for you the solution to this, hope it is still helpful for you or any other looking for this answer:
you have to press Ctrl+Alt+P
then in the display that will appear at the top, write the language you want in case it does not appear
once this is done, VSC will ask you to restart.
once restarted is done it should be fine.
It is the way to do it without changing windows configuration as you will see in ther similar posts.
Hope it helps

visual studio 2012 puts a small number in the top left corner of my screen

I am wondering if anyone else has had this issue with visual studio (or a VS extension because I have a few installed) and what is causing this? The number goes away when I close visual studio and I have not been able to figure our what is causing this. The number is overlayed on my desktop and not just visual studio. It covers all other windows I have open as well telling me it's set to be always on top.
Anyone else come across this issue or what is causing it?
I figured it out!
This has been bothering me for years. I finally just sat down and solved the problem. Basically, VS has this little known feature where you can navigate through code lens with just your keyboard. If you press Alt for a couple of seconds, you will see numbers just like the ones that appear at the top of your screen above your current method. To fix it, just long press Alt again and the number should go away. If you have many VS instances open you might have to go through them one by one.
I don't have significant reputation to comment, but I am experiencing this both with VS2013 and VS2015 too. The only extension I have installed is Resharper.
My research shows that it is caused by the hover text / overlays from various components. The only way I have found to get rid of them is to close the Visual Studio IDE window responsible.

Visual Studio: Undo-redo of replace-action does not scroll editor window

I did some find-and-replace actions in my C++ code with visual studio:
only single find-and-replace actions (did not use “replace all”)
only one file affected (did not change multiple files at the same time)
thus, a very simple case!
Then I wanted to undo these changes. So I pressed ctrl-Z one time. This had the desired effect. The latest change (which was still visible in the current screen) was undone.
But I also wanted to undo the remaining changes. These changes where currently not visible on the screen. So I expected the editor to scroll there when pressing ctrl-Z.
But unfortunately the editor did not scroll to the position of the undo when I pressed ctrl-z.
The undo worked, however. I checked by scrolling to the position manually.
Then I tried it with redo. Same result: Redo worked, but the editor did not scroll to the position of the redo.
Finally I tried if this also happens when I undo-redo other types of changes (not made by the “find and replace” functionality).
Result: Undo-Redo worked correctly and also scrolled correctly!
Thus: It seems only changes by the “find and replace” functionality are affected by this problem.
Did you also have this problem and found a solution?
Please help me!
Regards Gerhard
I am having the same thing happen in Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 (Version 11.0.60610.01 Update 3).
It might sound like it's not that important, but it is really hurting the usability of this otherwise great IDE!
PS I've been using VS since the 90s, I still haven't found anything better. I wish MS would put macros back into VS, even if it's VBA (or Python)

Ctrl-Tab behavior in Visual Studio 2012

Question: Is there a way to make "ctrl + tab" behavior the same in VS2012 as it used to be in VS2010?
Specifically, I noticed that when you hold control and hit tab a few times, the list on the screen now ALSO includes windows that you wouldn't normally care about (much less want to switch focus to) such as: "Find Results 1", "Error List", and "Output".
These are those standard windows you typically have positioned at the bottom of your Visual Studio environment. Before, in VS2010, these types of items would not be included in the list. It was simply and easy to Ctrl-Tab to only the documents you had open. I use this feature quite a lot in order to quickly navigate amongst open files.
But now in VS2012, when you hit Ctrl-Tab and suddenly your focus is down in the error list.... its like.... what were they thinking?? You have to hit tab again to get past these useless choices, which just slows me down. If anyone knows a way to turn off this horrible new "feature", please let me know! :)
This does not happen normally.
You probably docked those windows as documents rather than as tool windows.
To check whether that's true, try docking a regular document window to the side; if you can't, that would mean that you have a vertical document split.
To fix it, undock those windows, then re-dock them using the lowest arrow.

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