Some tips and tricks for DrRacket

This document serves as a compilation of some of the things that you can do to make yourself a more efficient user of DrRacket.

Both panes

ctrl-i reindents the code. Reindentation is necessary for work you turn in. It also helps you find parenthesization errors.

ctrl-r runs the code in the definitions pane. This is just the keyboard shortcut for the Run button.

When syntax highlighting is working, you can right click (control click on the Mac) on any identifier and rename all instances of that identifier. (If this one doesn’t make sense, ask someone to demonstrate it.) This approach helps avoid errors in renaming.

Racket -> Comment out with semicolons does exactly what it says. (I don’t know why it doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut. In the Scheme editor SamR designed and helped build, ctrl-semicolon did this.)

Interactions pane

ctrl-up-arrow and ctrl-down-arrow let you navigate your expression history. You can also use esc-p and esc-n. The latter two are particularly useful on the Mac.

ctrl-enter evaluates the current expression, even if you are not at the end of the expression.

down-arrow navigates to the end of the expression (at least when you are on the last line of the expression).

Definitions pane

ctrl-t opens a new tab.

The (define) menu (hidden at the top of the definitions pane) lets you quickly navigate to any definition in that pane.

The View -> Program Contour menu item lets you see the big picture of your program.

The Insert -> Insert Large Letters… menu item lets you put some large “ASCII art” letters in your program. These are useful primarily for the program contour, and illustrate what happens when someone with strong opinions on organizing code gets to work on an editor.