IDE shortcuts for quicker navigation and edit of your codebase

Here's a list of the most important shortcuts that help me navigate and edit your codebase quickly. I use those in Webstorm, the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) of my choice.

I see two reasons for using shortcuts to navigate and edit your codebase:

  1. You're quicker. And speed matters for trying ideas quickly. Being quicker keeps you happier when you're coding. Nobody likes wasting time. Programmers just as much as the next person.
  2. Your code is less prone to errors. If you use a shortcut to select all occurrences, you make sure to select all occurrences. If you select each occurrence by hand until you have all, you really need to pay attention not to miss one. This point does not apply, if you have a neat refactoring feature in your IDE that makes sure to rename all occurrences.

Of course there are many more shortcuts you could use. Some people will argue that there are some missing here. Though I think these are the 20 % that bring you 80 % of the benefit.

NAVIGATING

recent Locations window
Ctrl + Shift + E

jump back (with caret)
Ctrl + Alt + left

jump forward (with caret)
Ctrl + Alt + right

navigate to last edited location
Ctrl + Shift + Backspace

find current caret location
Ctrl + M


EDITING

move line up or down
Shift + Alt + up/down

duplicate line
Ctrl + D

select next occurrence
Alt + J

select all occurrences
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+J

add caret using mouse
Alt + mouse click

add caret above or below using keyboard
Alt + Shift + Insert -> enable column selection mode
Alt + Fn + Shift + Insert -> on Asus Laptop
Shift + up/down