Brent was watching me fly through some FinalBuilder operations the other day and he suggested I write a blog post about the best keyboard shortcuts to use.
Even as a power user/developer, you can sometimes use a tool every day and not know the best keyboard shortcuts for it. I only learned many of the keyboard shortcuts for Visual Studio after I attended a special session at TechEd last year.
I don't want to drown you in information here, so I'm going to list four shortcuts that are essential to know, and another four that are very useful.
Essential
If you own a keyboard and use FinalBuilder or Automise, the following keyboard shortcuts are essential. They will improve your productivity ten-fold!
| Key |
Context |
Description |
| Ctrl-I |
Main IDE Window |
Focus the Actions filter field to search for a new action.
If the filter field is already focused, this keystroke hides the Actions sidebar instead.*
|
| Ctrl-Right |
Selected action(s) |
Indent the selected action(s) as new children of the action above them. |
| Ctrl-Left |
Selected action(s) |
Outdent the select action(s) relative to their parent action |
| Ctrl-Up/Down |
Selected action(s) |
Move selected action(s) up and down |
In my opinion, using the Ctrl-Arrow keys to rearrange actions is essential (drag and drop is just too fiddly!)
* The "hide sidebar if currently focused" feature is new in FB 6.
Very Useful
The following key combinations are very useful when you are typing in a text field while editing an action:
| Key |
Description |
| F3 |
Define a new variable on-the-fly. |
| F2 |
Pop up an advanced edit dialog with lists of variables, PropertySets, etc. |
| F12 |
Pop up a list of suggested variable replacements. |
| Ctrl-Space |
Automatic completion for variable and PropertySet names. |
For FB 6, we also did a lot of work on the Tabbing behaviour in the IDE. You should be able to use Tab to navigate the main IDE elements very easily.