Using structured navigation commands and tools available for Visual Studio make navigating code much quicker than scrolling through a file. These commands help you navigate and build your own mental model of a project's code. Developers that use structural navigation take less time to complete tasks (Fritz et al.).
Here are a few highlighted navigation commands that provide a structured navigation approach to locating relevant source code.
Navigate To (Ctrl+,)
: A fuzzy search interface that locates symbols matching your search
terms. To open the search window hold Ctrl and press ,.
Go To Definition (F12)
: Brings up the code where the selected symbol is defined. It provides a
quick way to brows the code graph or to get a quick refresh of what code is
about.
View Call Hierarchy (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+T)
: Provides a two way analysis of a symbol's dependencies and uses. It is a
good way to locate the relevant connections for a symbol you have already
located in the editor window.
Class View (Ctrl+W, C)
: If you need to search or browse the class hierarchy, then using the Class
View can help you maintain a view of the code structure. This window is
available in the View menu.
T. Fritz, D. C. Shepherd, K. Kevic, W. Snipes, and C. Braunlich, "Developers' code context models for change tasks" http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/seal/people/kevic/researchprojects/taskcontext/FSE2014.pdf