Refactoring features in Visual Studio 2005 for VB

Question

Hi,

Does anybody know a good and free add-in for Visual Studio 2005 to get refactoring features in VB?

Thanks in advance

/Enrico

Answer 1

I could not recommend a free one but ReSharper will do the trick. If you're not planning to use it for commercial work it costs peanuts.

Answer 2

The default answer to this one is probably Refactor! since this tool is also endorsed by Microsoft as the “official” VB refactoring addin. However, being a free tool, it comes nowhere near the power of other commercial tools such as ReSharper or Refactor! Pro.

By the way: While I would definitely advise trying out all these tools, it must also be said that they make the IDE much, much slower. If your machine is fast enough to handle it, go ahead and enjoy the added productivity boost. However, I'm currently not using any of these tools (despite having spent money on a Refactor! Pro subscription) because my (virtual) machine can't handle the load.

Answer 3

I must also add that you have to be carefull with Resharper for VB and especially for the 2005 version (R# 3.1). The VB version of Resharper is far less complete then the C# version and especially in the 2005 version. In the 2008 version (R# 4.1) the difference is quit a bit smaller. But still not the same.

Answer 4

Thanks for your answers!

I tried Refactor! from Developer Express and it works fine for me.

One thing I found interesting, is that Microsoft originally pulled the support for refactoring in VB from Visual Studio 2005, counting on third-party vendors to supply that as an add-in, which is quite typical.
What's odd is that they later partnered with Developer Express to help them develop Refactor! for Visual Studio 2005. That partnership seems to have continued under the development of Visual Studio 2008 since there is still no support for refactoring in VB in the latest version of the IDE. So now Refactor! has become the "official" (alias supported by Microsoft) tool to do refactoring in VB with Visual Studio.
At this point I don't think that functionality will ever be built in the IDE, so I wonder why that isn't distributed along with the Visual Studio installation package, like it is for other "offical" add-ins like DotFuscator or Crystal Reports.

/Enrico