Visual Studio 2010 Extensions I Use

by brad 8. June 2011 14:09

Productivity Power Tools (Microsoft)

The Productivity Power Tools extension is a collection of handy and nifty features from the Visual Studio team.  Some of the more useful features include an improved Find experience, a new Solution Navigator, an improved Add Reference dialog, colored tabs, vertical code editor guides, and keyboard shortcuts to move lines of code up and down. 

Download Productivity Power Tools

Team Foundation Server Power Tools March 2011 (Martin Woodward)

This extension adds a variety of tools to make working with TFS a better experience.  My favorites include Alerts Explorer and Process Editor.

Download Team Foundation Server Power Tools

ReSharper

ReSharper is so great I would be angry if I had to code without it.  The one downside is that over the years I have started to get confused as to where VS stops and ReSharper starts, but that’s not a problem as long as I continue to live in the ReSharper world.  Unlike the other tools in this list, ReSharper is not free.  But it’s well worth the price.

Download ReSharper

JScript Editor Extensions (Microsoft)

The JScript Editor Extensions adds a variety of useful features for editing JavaScript in Visual Studio.  The most useful feature is outlining and code-folding, even though the VS shortcut keys for outlining are not supported.

Download JScript Editor Exensions

NuGet Package Manager (Microsoft)

NuGet is such an integral part of my day-to-day development that it’s hard to imagine it’s not just part of Visual Studio.  Hopefully it will just be part of the next version of Visual Studio.  Until then, download it second, right after ReSharper.

Download NuGet

Web Standards Update for Visual Studio 2010

The Web Platform and Tools team has released an update for Visual Studio that adds better support for modern HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.  With these web technologies changing faster than the Visual Studio release cycle, it’s good that the team is able to sneak out these out-of-band updates for us.

Download Web Standards Update for Visual Studio 2010

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Comments

6/20/2011 7:49:57 AM #

Wallbasher

Thanks these where very helpful.  I didn't know about any of those first party plugins.  

Wallbasher United States

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About Brad

Brad Tutterow lives in Illinois and works in Missouri. He has 12 years of experience developing web sites and Windows applications using a variety of technologies and is most excited currently about Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, Halo Reach, and Visual Studio 2010.