Use "Find As You Type" Search in Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 includes a great feature that they call Incremental Search, but I like to call “find as you type”, because that’s really what it does.

To start using this feature, just hit Ctrl + i once, and you will see the cursor change to an arrow with binoculars. At this point, you can just start typing, and Visual Studio will automatically start finding.

It’s tough to show this off in a screenshot, but here’s the basic idea:

To start an “Incremental Search” you just hit Ctrl + i, but there’s more keys that work with this:

• Ctrl + i – Start Incremental Search \ Find Next Instance
• Ctrl + Shift + i – Find Previous Instance
• Esc – Cancel Search
• Backspace – Works just like you’d expect.

This is a heck of a lot more quick than using the normal file search dialog.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. This article was written on 11/22/06 and tagged with: Programming, Visual Studio

Daily Email Updates

You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:

Name:
Email:

Similar Articles	Featured Wiki Articles
Configure AutoSave / AutoRecovery Of Crashed Projects in Visual Studio 2005 Fixing "Visual Studio 2005 SP1 requires an update for Windows Vista" See More Items in the Recent File / Project Lists in Visual Studio 2005 Configure Current Source Control Provider in Visual Studio 2005 Fixing "Please Wait While Windows Configures Visual Studio .NET" Error	Windows OS Code Names Get Diablo II Working on Windows Vista Why Codec Packs Are Bad Easter Eggs Tweaking a Dedicated Virtual Web Server Disable Smart Quotes in Word 2007
Latest Software Reviews	Quick Linux Tips
Parallels Workstation 2.2 for Windows and Linux Folder Castle 4.1 Wondershare PPT2DVD Sothink Video Converter for Adobe Flash	Copy Just the Last Two Days of Files to Another Directory Fixing Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory Mounting a Shared VirtualBox Folder from an Ubuntu Guest Change the Hostname on a Redhat Linux Machine
Geek Arcade	Popular Forum Threads
Frantic Boxhead: The Zombie Wars BubbleQuod Exorbis 2	POWER ON SELFTEST (POST) DOUBLE BEEF SOUND ERROR, Help! Help! Help!!! Vista: Boot Manager Problem New computer with solid state drive (Solved) - Antec 900 optical drive installation

Comments (4)

1. November 30, 2006 12:28 pm
   Marshall Mickelson

   You can do the same thing in VS.NET 2003 as well. No searching backwards though.

2. November 30, 2007 1:48 am
   tommy

   For me isn’t CTRL+i but ALT+i

3. December 14, 2007 8:37 am
   Dmitry

   Thanks for putting this together! I am actually working on an extensive presentation on the search features in Visual Studio IDE for both 2005 and 2008 and this reminded me of a feature i almost forgot about.

   I’m such a ctrl-f addict but as of recently i am trying to break the addiction and use the enhanced options available.

4. September 20, 2008 10:52 am
   arnab m

   This reminds me of VI editor. A forward slash “/” would be more helpful however in VS environment it can not be implemented.