Must Have Visual Studio Extensions or Tools - Part Two

You can find,

You must have Visual Studio extensions or tools. The second part will cover some more extensions.

There are lots of extensions or tools available that supports Visual Studio. Explore it.

Note: I am not trying to promote any extensions or tool here.

TFS Account Switch: A tool which is used to switch or change the account, used to access into the TFS. A very simple and useful tool. When you have multiple client projects configured on TFS and click “Change Account”on the menu, the Windows credential manager will pop up, asking for your credentials. I am using this tool extensively. I hope in the future, this will be a part of VS by default.

Assembly Info: To get the assembly information of the assembly files and executable files. I am not saying this tool is a must-have but it’s good to have and a quick way to find out the assembly's information.

Better Comments: How about a different way to present the comments in your code, using the different colors, fonts, highlighting etc… Yes, it’s a free tool. In hope in the future, this will be a part of VS, by default.

Find Change set By Comment 2015: Helps to find the change sets, which contain a specific phrase in a comment. Very handy when we need to find some change set with the comments, specific to a requirement or the defects.

Glyphfriend: This is awesome. Try it out. Sometimes, you will face issues in displaying the icons, but still the tool is under development.

I Hate #Regions: This is for all the region haters. I bet you'll love this, but before applying it to your project, better consult with your leads.

File Path On Footer: This helps to display the complete file path in the footer. Currently, the path displays as a tool tip, when you mouse over a docked file. I like this.

Voice Commands: This is fun, there is a good future for this tool. You can control Visual Studio, using your own voice. I tried once, but still found some bugs. I hope they will improve the tool.

JavaScript Snippet Pack: Completely works on the snippets, refer to the lists. Very useful for JavaScript or jQuery scripting. I rarely use it, but still keep it in Visual Studio.

Comment Remover: Used once, good to clean the unwanted comments from the code.

If you see most of the tools I used and listed here, were developed by Mads Kristensen (Program Manager on the Web Platforms & Tools team at Microsoft). You can explore and use other freely available extensions or tools from his Website.

Search Work Items for TFS 2010: This is something cool for VS 2010. I have  a few old projects still in VS 2010. This work item search helps me a lot but the new versions of VS already have this feature built into Team Explorer. Thus, this supports VS 2010 only.

I have a few more VS 2010 supporting tools, but nowadays the developers use the new versions of VS only. Thus, no use to list more.  

SlowCheetah - XML Transforms: Not yet used this, but would like to try it in the future. I've read lots of good reviews about this tool.

Try out these extensions or the tools in your projects, but also consult with your Leads.

Extension Manager lets you disable the installed extensions and then re-enable them, when you want to use them again. This feature is specific to the extensions in the VSIX format; MSI-based extensions cannot be disabled or enabled. Thus, remove or disable all the unwanted ones.


Similar Articles