SSMS Tips and Tricks 4-8: Setting shortcuts for your favorite stored procedures

In an earlier entry, I mentioned how useful the F1 key is. On its own, it provides syntax help, but when you highlight an object and hit Alt-F1, you get to see metadata about the object.

Under the covers, this just runs the sp_help system stored procedure. Alt-F1 has been mapped to that.

You can see where this is configured, change it if required, and/or configure other procedures as well.

In Tools, Options, Environment, Keyboard, then Query Shortcuts, you can see this:

Here we can see how the Alt-F1 command is configured. By default, only three shortcuts are configured. It’s easy to configure another one for your own use.

2025-08-13