In this post, I am sharing the list of 11 Visual Studio Extensions that you should check. Some of them might be useful for you and may serve you as productivity hacks.
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11 Visual Studio Extensions You Must Have
After getting many responses as well as few requests to suggest popular visual studio extensions for .NET developers, I have decided to club these extensions and create a list of visual studio extensions you must have.
#1. Productivity Power Tools
A set of extensions to Visual Studio 2012 Professional (and above) which improves developer productivity.
After using it for almost 2 years, I can’t imagine myself writing code without it.
It can be downloaded from this link.
In case if the link is not working search for “Productivity Power Tools” and you will get the download link.
#2. ReSharper
The legendary .NET productivity tool: find and fix errors and code smells; navigate and refactor; run unit tests and write quality code faster.
ReSharper is worth the buy (it’s free for students). You can also avail of the free 30-day trial to check it out on their website.
ReSharper offers n number of features some of them are:
- Code quality analysis
- Eliminate errors and code smells
- Safely change your codebase
- Code editing helpers
- Instantly traverse your entire solution
#3. Visual Studio Window Title Changer
Changes the Visual Studio Window Title by evaluating a user-defined expression.
Extremely helpful when working with multiple branches of the same project. Setting it up is a bit tricky.
However, for setting it up you can refer here and do let me know if you face any issues.
#4. Web Essentials
Web Essentials extends Visual Studio with a lot of new features that web developers have been missing for many years.
If you ever write CSS, HTML, JavaScript, TypeScript, CoffeeScript, or LESS, then you will find many useful features that make your life as a developer easier.
This is for all Web developers using Visual Studio.
#5. NuGet Package Manager
A collection of tools to automate the process of downloading, installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing packages from a VS Project.
You can refer to my post on the NuGet package.
#6. Microsoft ASP.NET and Web Tools
Provides the latest Web Developer Tools for ASP.NET. It now supports version 2015.
It offers many more features for web developers. Some of them are:
- Tooling support for ASP.NET for .NET Framework.
- Tooling support for .NET Core and ASP.NET Core.
- Tooling support for ASP.NET 5 RC1.
- Updated code editors, Bower/npm support, Task Runner Explorer, and web linters.
#7. Stop on First Build Error
StopOnFirstBuildError is an extension that stops a solution build immediately if one project fails to build.
There is a menu item in the Build menu that allows you to turn the functionality on and off, the menu item is only visible in multi-project solutions (since it would make no sense in a single project solution).
More information is available here.
#8. GitHub Extension for Visual Studio
The GitHub Extension for Visual Studio makes it easy to connect to and work with your repositories on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise from directly within Visual Studio 2015 or newer versions.
Clone existing repositories or create new ones and start collaborating!
#9. Visual Studio Spell Checker – Version 2013 onward
An editor extension that checks the spelling of comments, strings, and plain text as you type or interactively with a tool window. It can also spell check an entire solution, project, or selected items. Options are available to define multiple languages to spell check again.
#10. GhostDoc
GhostDoc is a Visual Studio extension that automatically generates XML documentation comments for methods and properties based on their type, parameters, name, and other contextual information.
#11. SwitchStartupProject
Another extension that deserves to be on this list is “SwitchStartupProject”. When you have multiple executables in your solution it allows you to easily change the startup projects.
You can avail more information about this extension here.
References
Microsoft .NET Framework
Hope you enjoyed reading this post and moreover it was useful and worth reading. Now you are familiar with the visual studio extensions you must-have if you are a .NET developer.
You may also have a look at our post on – Popular 12 Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts.
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Happy Coding!