{"id":1430,"date":"2016-01-13T11:33:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T10:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/?p=1430"},"modified":"2023-07-24T08:55:56","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T06:55:56","slug":"top-visual-studio-extensions-every-net-developer-should-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/top-visual-studio-extensions-every-net-developer-should-try\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Visual Studio Extensions every .NET Developer should try"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Visual studio is a powerful tool itself, but there is a lot of free and commercial extensions making a developer&#8217;s life easier. Below I put a list of extensions worth checking, hoping they fit your style of development:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/1269c9a1-fcfe-4b47-91e7-22c7027f3c41\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"ek-link\" rel=\"nofollow\" >KillCassini<\/a><br>A Visual Studio extension to kill all instances of Asp.Net Web Development Server (Cassini) or IISExpress with one click. It&#8217;s a lifesaver when IIS freaks out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vswebessentials.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Web Essentials<\/a><br>A must have for web developers, supports:&nbsp;CSS, HTML, JavaScript, TypeScript, CoffeeScript and&nbsp;LESS. Some of the cool&nbsp;features are: live css editing (your website updates when the css change), highlighting, intellisense,&nbsp;filling in missing standards&nbsp;and taking care of best practices. Read more <a href=\"http:\/\/vswebessentials.com\/features\" rel=\"nofollow\" >here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stylecop.codeplex.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >StyleCop<\/a><br>StyleCop checks&nbsp;C# source code to enforce consistency rules and best practices. This tool prevents writing spaghetti code by all team members, following the principle &#8220;don&#8217;t be lazy and refactor this dude&#8221;.&nbsp;It can be run from inside of Visual Studio or integrated into an MSBuild. StyleCop integrates into many third-party development tools including tortoiseSVN, so you can check the code before each commit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/dace3633-0b51-4629-85d4-c59cdce5bb3b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Code Compare <\/a><br>Very handy&nbsp;comparison tool, available&nbsp;as Visual Studio add-in or a standalone app, for comparing and merging files\/folders. Supports syntax highlighting and shows code line changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/a23de100-31a1-405c-b4b7-d6be40c3dfff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Spell Checker<\/a><br>An editor extension dedicated to people doing a lot of speling mistakes. Spell checker will highlight bad&nbsp;comments, strings or plain text. You can use it in&nbsp;different areas (entire&nbsp;solution, project or selected items). Settings allow to add multiple languages and define custom ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/a56eddd3-d79b-48ac-8c8f-2db06ade77c3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Image optimizer<\/a><br>Optimizes PNG, GIF and JPG file sizes without quality loss, working on a single file or folder from solution explorer&#8217;s context menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/4e84e2cf-2d6b-472a-b1e2-b84932511379\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Open command line<\/a><br>Nothing more, nothing less, just opens a command line at the root of the project. Supports cmd, powershell, bash. Provides syntax highlighting, Intellisense and execution of .cmd and .bat files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/4d809607-87dd-445c-8cd4-585da67c6beb?SRC=Home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >TextGenerator<\/a><br>Simple tool to quickly generate dummy text, you can choose<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> a <\/span>dictionary (including immortal &#8220;Lorem Ipsum&#8221;) and define how many words you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/16b9d664-d88c-460e-84a5-700ab40ba452?SRC=VSIDE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Regex Tester<\/a><br>Helpful application supporting work with regex syntax, including some interesting features like text replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com\/dbcb8670-889e-4a54-a226-a48a15e4cace\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Productivity Power Tools<\/a><br>A set of extensions which improve developer productivity, it&#8217;s free and has a lot cool features. Since I am using ReSharper, my favorite one&nbsp;is coloring open file tabs&nbsp;per project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jetbrains.com\/resharper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Resharper<\/a><br>Last but not least, in my opinion the heavyweight champion of all tools, an intelligent extension that supports C#, XAML, XML, ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC. Using this tool makes code cleaner and more efficient. It\u2019s not cheap but definitely worth it, try the 30-day trial version for free. <a href=\"http:\/\/piotrluksza.com\/2014\/09\/21\/power-of-resharper-shortcuts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\" >Here<\/a> you can find my favorite shortcuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a lot more, so feel free to mention your &#8220;must have&#8221; extensions in the comments!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"kk-star-ratings kksr-auto kksr-align-left kksr-valign-bottom\"\n    data-payload='{&quot;align&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;1430&quot;,&quot;slug&quot;:&quot;default&quot;,&quot;valign&quot;:&quot;bottom&quot;,&quot;ignore&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;reference&quot;:&quot;auto&quot;,&quot;class&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;count&quot;:&quot;2&quot;,&quot;legendonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;readonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;score&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;starsonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;best&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;gap&quot;:&quot;11&quot;,&quot;greet&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;legend&quot;:&quot;5\\\/5 ( votes: 2)&quot;,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;18&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Top Visual Studio Extensions every .NET Developer should try&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:&quot;139.5&quot;,&quot;_legend&quot;:&quot;{score}\\\/{best} ( {votes}: {count})&quot;,&quot;font_factor&quot;:&quot;1.25&quot;}'>\n            \n<div class=\"kksr-stars\">\n    \n<div class=\"kksr-stars-inactive\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"1\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"2\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"3\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"4\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"5\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n<div class=\"kksr-stars-active\" style=\"width: 139.5px;\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 11px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 18px; height: 18px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n                \n\n<div class=\"kksr-legend\" style=\"font-size: 14.4px;\">\n            5\/5 ( votes: 2)    <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Visual studio is a powerful tool itself, but there is a lot of free and commercial extensions making a developer&#8217;s &hellip; <a class=\"continued-btn\" href=\"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/top-visual-studio-extensions-every-net-developer-should-try\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1320],"tags":[1487],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hard-development","tag-visual-studio-en"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"republish_history":[],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/software-development_visual_studio_blogersii-1.jpg","category_names":["Hard development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23044,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions\/23044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sii.pl\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}