I know this is kind of trivial... It’s almost insulting to show someone how to open a file. I’ll do it anyway, because I’m willing to bet that there is someone out there who is not aware that a file can be opened this way. In Visual Studio 2008 there is a drop down list in the basic toolbar used for performing searches. This elusive toolbar item is packed with hidden usability.
If you type “> of “ followed by the name of a file, it will display a list of filenames that match your input, as well as their qualified locations within the current project. Using the arrow keys, you can select any of the results that come up. Pressing the enter key on any of the results will open the file. I like this because I don’t have to think as hard about where a file is located.
Okay, okay. You got me… What I’m really trying to present is that Visual Studio 2008 Commands can be executed from the Find/Command Box. Entering “>” into the command box indicates that this input is a command to be executed. In that open file example, “of” is a command for opening a file.
The following command will open a new tab with the specified Url directly in the IDE:
>nav http://www.stackoverflow.com/
The following command will create a new file with the specified name:
>File.NewFile MyNewFile.txt
MSDN has plenty of information about this topic. Enjoy 