Changes to the DAX editor

Ok, so you may never create calculated columns or measures in Power BI, but if you do this is the new feature this month which will change your life!

The most obvious change is that the DAX editor now automatically shows line numbers.

Notwithstanding the hint above, there are some great new short-cut keys, so I'll devote most of this blog to listing them!  But first ...

Better indentation

Or perhaps not better, but clearer:

The vertical lines make it much easier to see which bits of your formula belong together.

Jumping to the next bracket

If you're on a bracket, you can press Shift + Ctrl + \ to see where its twin is:

Pressing the keys above for this example would take you to the end of the AVERAGEX function.

Moving and copying lines

Suppose that you want to change the order of the arguments in a DAX formula like the one shown above.  You could select some lines:

Select the lines, then hold down the Alt key and press the up or down arrows to move them ... up or down.

Here's the result of pressing Alt and Up arrow a few times:

I love this feature, but am not sure I'll remember the short-cut key combination!

Inserting lines

You can press the following key combinations to insert a line:

Using the ALT key to make multiple changes 

If you hold down the Alt key and click, you get a new cursor:

A portion of DAX with no less than 8 cursors displayed!

So what, you might reasonably think!  Well, suppose you want to change the table/field reference 'tblPurchase'[PurchaseDate] in each of the 3 lines above.  You could do this as follows.  First hold down the Alt key and click to put a cursor at the start of each line:

This nifty idea might now be beginning to make sense ... !

You can now use standard cursor movement keys to select the text:

I've selected the same text on 3 lines by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the right arrow.

Any text that you type in will replace the selected text:

Here I'm starting to choose a different table.

As with so many changes, this provides a feature which has been available for ages already in Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio.

Selecting multiple words 

Suppose you have a word selected:

Here I've selected the word tblPurchase.

If you press Shift + Ctrl + L Power BI will select every occurrence of this word:

Whether this would ever be useful, I'm not sure!

Ctrl + F2 seems to do exactly the same thing, although Microsoft say that the first keystroke selects all occurrence of the current selection, and the second all occurrences of the current word.