There are plenty of different Add-Ins for Visual Studio, see Visual Studio Gallery . Please share your experiences and favorites.
As motivation, here are some of my favorites:
- Versioning Controlled Build [F/O] - very handy extension for automatic build numbering,
- SlickEdit Gadgets [F] - useful editor gadget, build-in file explorer, ...,
- SlickEdit Tools [C] - editing and versioning tools,
- Refactor! for C++ [F/C] - C++ code refactoring like C#,
- WiX [F/O] - making windows installer setups using XML (will be included in VS2010),
- AnkhSVN [F/O] - use subversion from inside of your IDE,
- Visual Leak Detector [F/O] - helper for debug problems,
- Parasoft C++test [C] - suite for code quality assurance,
- Parasoft Insure++ [C] - runtime memory analysis,
- RockScroll [F] - helper for scrolling in long files,
- Axialis IconWorkshop [F/C] - icon and bitmap editor,
- PowerCommands [F] - adds some useful commands onto the context menu,
- IncrediBuild [C] - speedup your build process,
- Workspace Whiz [F/C] - many useful add-ins,
- Consolas Font Pack [F] - very nice font for programming,
- Intel Parallel Studio [C] - Intel optimized C/C++ compiler, analyser and debug-helper,
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements [F] - only for VS2005, Outliner / C++ Snippets /...
- codekana [C] - very similar with Visual Assist,
- Visual Local History [F] - local file history à la Eclipse,
- ResOrg [F] - Manage and Renumber Resource Symbol IDs,
- PVS-Studio [C] - static code analyzer, especially 64-bit code analysis (Viva64),
- ASP.NET/HTML Spell Checker for VS [F] - spell checker.
Tools
- Ranorex [C] - GUI testing and automation framework,
- OneTime [F/C] - Software project management,
- CppCheck [F] - Static analysis of C/C++ code,
- Online GUID Generator [F] - in case you need a GUID,
- WinMerge [F] - file / directory comparing,
- codepad [F] - online compiler,
- Cilk++ [F/C] - optimize your application for multicore processors,
- Microsoft Application Verifier [F] - runtime verification tool for native code,
- SourceMonitor [F] - simple code metrics measurement tool,
- WinUnit [F] - nice unit testing for native (C/C++) code on Windows,
- Very Sleepy [F] - simple code profiling tool,
- Visual Sidekick [P] - effective but cheap incremental search over symbols and files,
- CodeAnalyst [F] - code profiling tool from AMD (also partially works on Intel),
- Sisulizer [C] - Visual Software Localization Tool,
- Innovasys HelpStudio Lite [F/C] - create Microsoft Help 2.x help systems.
For coffe break
- Powder Toy [F] - build thrilling simulations yourself,
- OE-CAKE [F/C] - build fluid simulations yourself.
Your suggestions:
- ViEmu [C] - VI emulation,
- Visual Assist [C] - "La Crème de la Crème",
- VisualSVN [C] - very nice SVN provider,
- Visual Lint [C] - advanced static code analysis,
- VSFileExplorer [F] - self explaining,
- P/Invoke [F] - helps to find native code signatures for managed code.
[F] - freeware, [O] - open source, [C] - commercial.