tags:

views:

3237

answers:

31
+85  Q: 

Visual Studio 2010 - recommended extensions

What are your recommended extensions for Visual Studio 2010? (Please indicate if its free or not)

Free:

Not Free:

+17  A: 

PowerCommands (free)

0xA3  2010-05-03 10:25:26
Whoo hoo for PowerCommands. The solution- and project-wide 'organize and sort usings' is so handy for code cleaning.
Jeff Wilcox  2010-05-11 08:41:02
+6  A: 

DevExpress CodeRush Xpress (free)

0xA3  2010-05-03 10:31:24
I love DevExpress and have it for VS2010. There is however a small annoyance with bringing up the refactor menu after you change an identifier. In VS2008 when you press the VS refactor command (`Ctrl+,`) it will let you refactor that identifier to the new name. In VS2010 that menu flashes up and disappears and gets replaced by DevExpress menu. You can get the original menu but it takes a bit of fiddling.
Igor Zevaka  2010-05-03 10:40:19
+36  A: 

Resharper (not free)

Satanlike  2010-05-03 10:39:15
I hope it doesn't absolutely murder the performance of my system like the VS 2008 version. It got so bad I uninstalled it.
Dave Markle  2010-05-03 12:56:48
I had the same problem in larger solutions (10+ projects) until I turned off Solution-wide Analysis.
jrummell  2010-05-03 13:42:46
yes, solution-wide analysis is evil if there are lots of projects in the solution
Satanlike  2010-05-04 09:44:19
I've used solution-wide analysis on solutions of over 100 projects and it still works pretty well!
PatrickJ  2010-05-14 05:56:23
give it the memory and reshaper wont let you down
almog.ori  2010-05-31 09:01:29
+12  A: 

AnkhSVN (free)

Even if you use other SVN shells outside VS (like TortoiseSVN), I recommend to install this Source Control Provider to automatically keep track of file renames, deletions and the like.

markus  2010-05-03 10:41:23
Unless it has gotten a whole lot more robust since I used it last (2 years ago) I will just stick with tortoise.
Sky Sanders  2010-05-03 12:44:45
It has gotten a lot more robust -- we have had no problems with it. I personally still stick with Tortoise because I don't like SCC in the IDE. It just gets too confused.
Dave Markle  2010-05-03 12:57:30
A: 

  1. Plugin to quickly go to any file in solution Sonic file finder (free)

  2. Fast switching between .h and .cpp file Macro available here (free)

And that's it =)

Viktor Sehr  2010-05-03 12:15:05
Does Sonic work on VS2010? (Haven’t tried, have VS2010 DVD but haven’t installed yet)
Martín Marconcini  2010-05-03 12:16:49
@Martin: haven't tried it either.
Viktor Sehr  2010-05-03 12:30:06
+1  A: 

ReSharper (not-free)

dimos  2010-05-03 12:35:56
+8  A: 

Ghost Doc (Free)

It takes a while to configure it properly, but it can be quite useful.

BartoszAdamczewski  2010-05-03 12:38:14
I am sure the tool is great and the commentator on the demo video is a great guy, but the voiceover creeps me out for some reason. At first I wondered if it was a play on the name 'GhostDoc' as if the demo was emulating a creepy movie. lol too much.
Sky Sanders  2010-05-03 12:50:26
I think this tool is horrible. It generates useless comments that are really useless. It might seem nice to generate automatic xml comments but "set or get a value indicating wether this instance is dirty" Is this really useful on a property named "IsDirty" ? It's adding useless lines in your code in my opinion. If you have to make an Xml comment that is useful, then this won't help you because you'll have to write it yourself anyway.
Stephane  2010-05-03 16:25:27
@Stephane: The comments aren't meant to be used as-is. They're designed to be a template for a human being to flesh out. As such I find it very useful.
TrueWill  2010-05-03 17:01:24
@Stephane TrueWill is right this is a template for generating nice documentations, besides if you look at NET framework comments, you cansee that all of them have a certain language template, I do that in my own component via gostDoc. This is very important when deploying a public API, the documentation has to be consistent, lexically.
BartoszAdamczewski  2010-05-03 20:12:44
Ok, you probably make a good point when it comes to a public API that needs a consistent wording. I still dont believe in a documentation that just describe each function one by one. any developer will ask for examples : "show me the code". Unit tests fits much better. Maybe an add-in that would generate documentation including the corresponding unit-test for each API call would be more useful :).
Stephane  2010-05-04 08:20:37
Have a look at http://www.atomineerutils.com/download.php as an alternative to Ghostdoc. Paid but it's only $10
CAD bloke  2010-09-04 04:44:29
As a "template for a human being to flesh out", the tool makes no sense. All you have to do is type /// (or ''' in VB) to get a template to flesh out. The only thing GhostDoc adds is text that it makes up from the name of the member...text which is therefore useless to any human being with half a brain.
Kyralessa  2010-09-25 04:18:09
+7  A: 

Visual Studio Color Theme Editor (free)

I can't code unless my VS2010 has a StackOverflow-like theme.

sunpech  2010-05-03 12:41:04
Pics (or, preferably, a downloadable color scheme file) or it didn't happen! ;-)
James McNellis  2010-05-03 13:48:15
+9  A: 

Visual Assist X(not free)

m_pGladiator  2010-05-03 12:46:44
Not free, but _well_ worth the price.
James McNellis  2010-05-03 13:47:30
IMO, the extensive deviation from standard VS UI practices make this product extremely frustrating. Even when I had a licensed copy at work I ended up disabling it.
280Z28  2010-05-03 15:52:56
Very good considering Intellisense doesn't work with /clr
PostMan  2010-05-04 09:15:25
I use the Visual Assist since VC6, and I really can't "see" anything anymore in the editor without it :)
m_pGladiator  2010-05-06 09:14:56
+1  A: 

If you are a Vim aficionado...

VsVim - free
ViEmu - not free (also not yet released)

Even Mien  2010-05-03 13:04:41
D'oh! I've been waiting for the 2010 version of ViEmu. But VsVim is free, looks like Symnum Systems (formerly NGEDIT, creaters of ViEmu) is going to have some problems.
Matt Greer  2010-06-05 07:16:54
+5  A: 

DevExpress CodeRush/Refactor! Pro (not free, $249.99)

It's way better than Resharper (which by the way always slowed down my VS to a crawl), it works with C# and VB.NET (including refactoring) and the support and community is excellent. Worth the price tag. And yes, it does support 2010 (in RC at the time of this writing).

Andrew Moore  2010-05-03 13:40:00
+6  A: 

VisualSVN (not-free)

I personally prefer this over AnkhSVN since its not an SCC provider and doesn't add extra files to my repository.

jrummell  2010-05-03 13:45:17
I use AnkhSVN and it didn't add any files to the repository. Visual SVN *server* is great, so I would imagine the client is as well. But I'm not sure what it would offer me over AnkhSVN.
280Z28  2010-05-03 19:00:53
The last time I tried it, it added .scc files to my project like SourceSafe would. I'm pretty sure that VisualSVN and AnkhSVN have mostly the same feature set, but VisualSVN is my preference.
jrummell  2010-05-03 19:49:13
A: 

I can't live without DPack - especially when working on large projects, makes navigating between files and members much easier. And it's free.

Favorite shortucts:

Alt+U : file browser, filters files as you type
Alt+G : code browser, filters all members as you type
Alt+M : code browser, filters methods in the current file as you type

...and so on. Much easier for me then finding my way around Project Explorer.

michalstanko  2010-05-03 13:49:20
But as I just found out today, similar results can be achieved by using Navigate To window (Ctrl+,) which is now built into Visual Studio 2010.
michalstanko  2010-05-03 16:17:27
+2  A: 

RockScroll (free) - Double-click on a word/symbol highlights all occurrences of that word/symbol. Also replaces the scroll bar with a preview of your code, with edit spots and "all occurences" lines highlighted.

Example of use: want to see whether a variable is used anywhere else in current source file? Double-click variable, look at scroll bar for any red highlights.

DarthShader  2010-05-03 16:17:54
Does it work with vs2010???
CD  2010-05-03 16:44:40
The Visual Studio 2010 equivalent is an open source and much better extension called AllMargins by David Pugh: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/465a0d53-5133-4edd-a0cd-94484fe3d853
280Z28  2010-05-03 19:04:21
+4  A: 

tangible T4 Editor plus modeling tools for VS2010 adds IntelliSense and Syntax Coloring to T4 Text Templates (Free)

CD  2010-05-03 18:49:49
awesome, trying it right away!
Stephane  2010-05-04 08:22:27
+10  A: 

From my blog post (all free):

Scott Dorman  2010-05-03 18:53:30
links would be nice. This is community content not traffic direction. what happens when your blog is down? Anyway thanks for the list.
Sky Sanders  2010-05-04 09:01:42
@code poet: Added links. Wasn't trying to drive traffic, just didn't want to have to copy and paste that many links.
Scott Dorman  2010-05-05 00:11:09
+ for the effort. ;-) your answer is now in my review list.
Sky Sanders  2010-05-05 00:32:51
The Color Picker Completion apparently causes some instability issues in VS2010, and has been removed from the Gallery (for now).
mos  2010-09-07 21:41:55
A: 

Mouse Zoom (Free)

Zoom at the mouse's cursor instead of at the top of the visible document. Always scroll 25% no matter what zoom level is currently set.

Ctrl + Mouse Wheel -> zoom in/out at mouse cursor. Ctrl + Shift + Mouse Wheel -> zoom in/out all the way (pausing at 100 percent). Ctrl + Middle Mouse Click -> zoom to 100 percent.

Visual Studio Gallery Home
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/6de43ab2-e65c-40b3-9986-b0351c28ce53

 2010-05-13 19:43:17
A: 

Search Work Items for TFS 2010 (free)

Anonymous  2010-05-26 20:33:23
A: 

Work Item Visualizer for TFS 2010 (free)

Anonymous  2010-05-26 20:37:02
A: 

What about the HelpViewerKeywordIndex... helps (a bit) with what is as I see it 2010's greatest flaw, the new help viewer.

Scott  2010-05-26 20:41:37
+5  A: 

VSCommands is simply one of the best FREE plugins ot there! (visual studio gallery link)

 2010-05-31 08:50:22
+1  A: 

VisualHG is a Mercurial Source control plugin that drives TortoiseHG from VS. I'm a big fan of Mercurial & DVCS. VisualHG makes it nice n integrated. Git fans - I'm not asking for a flame war. Hg is just my brand.

CAD bloke  2010-06-15 10:31:44
+2  A: 

AtomineerUtils Pro (not free, $9.99 USD) is, in my opinion, better than Ghost Doc. But, just like Ghost Doc or any automatic documentation generator, the generated documentation is meant to be edited to be of any real value.

Skoobie Du  2010-07-16 21:57:32
A: 

HQLAddin - for NHibernate HQL editor.

stacker  2010-08-02 21:01:15
+2  A: 

VS10x Code Map That is very cool. Easy jumping to property, method. And easy expand collapse region and more.

alt text

ebattulga  2010-10-01 08:34:45
+2  A: 

Code Contracts Editor Extensions, a free extension which provides information about inherited contracts for the method you're currently working on, and a list of contracts for any methods that you're calling. Unfortunately, the latter feature conflicts with Resharper, but the former still works fine.

Rich  2010-10-01 08:50:34
+1  A: 

WoVS Quick Add Reference

The “Quick Add Reference” extension augments the smart tag that VS shows for unrecognized types giving you a chance to add the corresponding assembly reference for that type plus corresponding “using” clause if needed in a single shot.

CD  2010-10-07 06:24:50
+4  A: 

NuPack

NuPack is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development.

Giorgi  2010-10-07 06:28:56
+1  A: 

Vingy (Free)

Vingy 1.0 is simple, but effective add in for Visual Studio 2010 so that you can search the web in a non intrusive way, and can filter results based on sources.

Vingy

You can bring up Vingy either by clicking View->Other Windows –> Vingy Search Window from the Visual Studio IDE, or just by high lighting some text in the document and then clicking Tools –> Search Selected Text (Ctrl + 1).

Searching with Vingy is pretty straight forward. You can initiate a Search in two ways.

  • By typing the text in the Vingy search box and pressing ‘Enter’ or by clicking the ‘Go’ button
  • By highlighting some text in the editor when you type in Visual Studio, and then pressing Ctrl + 1
amazedsaint  2010-10-07 06:34:40
+2  A: 

World of VS Default Browser Switcher for easily switching browser in web projects.

Giorgi  2010-10-07 06:42:01
+2  A: 

devColor (Free)

Small tool which underlines hex colors in stylesheets with the correct color. I really like how it integrates into the editor.

Nathan  2010-10-24 04:30:50

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