Visual Studio 2005 Clipboard Ring tip

Happy June! Here in Helsinki, it's getting really nice an warm. Which is just what I need. Now, a rainy day is still nicely spent programming with Visual Studio 2005, and here's my today's tip for the keyboard-oriented developer: the Clipboard Ring.

What is the Clipboard Ring? If you have used older Visual Studio versions, or, say, Office programs, you might have noticed that you can copy or cut multiple items, and then paste them all in the order you want.

This is how the feature works in Visual Studio 2005 (say, C#). First, copy (Ctrl+C) or cut (Ctrl+X) some text in the Code Editor to the clipboard. Don't worry about replacing the previous contents of the clipboard with your new stuff. Now, go to the location where you want to paste. Instead of pressing Ctrl+V, press Ctrl+Shift+V.

The selection will now match the contents of the latest piece of code you copied. At this point (don't move the cursor!) you can press Ctrl+Shift+V to cycle through all the (up to 20) previous things you copied. Very nice!