Hi,

After having to revive my laptop and start testing Windows 8 Developer Preview, because I take this opportunity to updatethe list of tools that I usually use with extensions for Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 11 install in development environment. I’ll see if the fact of working with Windows 8 makes that you shelved some of these tools (I discardedTeracopy for example) but for now leave the basics I install to begin work.

 

Extensions

ReSharper

ReSharper is simply the best add-on for developers integrated in the IDE of Visual Studio 2010. Since it makes several versions, it allows you to not only accelerate development time, but it also provides a very good quality of code that implements best practices to cholón (among other things).

Some people make excuses not to use it, for example: it consumes lots of memory, which is for payment, which makes slow IDE, etc.; but I personally do not have this opinion. Once you get used to using it, it is the IDEAL extension to work in Visual Studio. To Must Have.

I will forgive for not writing the ReSharperfeatures, but it is they are so many that you should dedicate a week of only posts to R #. Ranging from features to Web developers, where if you develop ASP.NET MVC is impressive (Word of web developers), incorporation of extended code analysis, etc. As said, take a tour on the official page and test the trialhttp://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/index.html.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/EA4AC039-1B5C-4D11-804E-9BEDE2E63ECF

Note: versions 4.x for Visual Studio 2008, are also essential.

 

Team Foundation Server Power Tools

You work with Team Foundation Server 2010 and you don’t have the TFS Power Tools?, because then I regret to inform you that you do not work with Team Foundation Server 2010. This pack includes several tools essential for working with TFS, for example:

• Browser alerts: a form integrated in the IDE can where her manage in a very simple way to TFS2010 events subscriptions.
• TFS 2010 BPA (Best Practices Analyzer): a tool for analysis and diagnosis for our servers TFS2010.
• CheckIn policy package: because new policies if we want to be more aggressive with the source code control.
• Editor processes: the most dangerous tool of the package. It allows us to edit the TFS process templates, from the definitions of the WorkItems until the complete template. Very powerful, and into the wrong hands, very dangerous!
• Team Members: is an extension of incoroporada within the panel of the Team Explorere that allow to interact with other members of the development team, for example with some system of instant messaging, or to know the status of the work of the same.
• Windows Shell Extensions: along with the process Editor is the best novelty, the ability to interact with elements ofTFS2010 from Windows Explorer. For example, adding items to Source Control, CheckIn, CheckOut, etc.

Download:http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.Microsoft.com/en-us/3e8c9b68-6e39-4577-b9b7-78489b5cb1da

Note: you should also download the TFS Power Tools for TFS2008 if you need them

Update: my comments on the latest version at https://elbruno.com/2011/08/19/tfs2010-Team-Foundation-Server-power-tools-August-2011-releases/

 

Productivity Power Tools, only if you don’t use ReSharper

Another great set of tools that are integrated into the IDE to make life easier. Among all those that they have, I would like to emphasize the following:

• Solution Navigator: an excellent replacement for Solution Explorer, where not only see the classes and elements of our projects, but we also see functions and properties, we can perform advanced searches, preview of resources such as images, etc.
• Quick Access: this feature presents a panel (which we access with Ctrl+3), where all the actions in the IDE, settings of the IDE, templates, etc.; are and we can access them with a search-style Windows Search filter. It’s essential.
• Add References: the window to add references in Visual Studio has not suffered changes since its inception. In VS2010have given him a little shove, but the radical change that propose the VSPro Power Tools is very good: filters, ability to add and delete directly from the form, etc.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/d0d33361-18e2-46c0-8ff2-4adea1e34fef

Note:Not so refuse, many of the features of VSPro Power Tools, “were inspired by R #”, but well, remains a great complement.

Update: Visual Studio 11 we already find many of these features built into the IDE, meanwhile add them “by hand” in Visual Studio 2010.

 

Italic Comments

The name of the extension already tells you to do: change the format of the comments to italic (Italic). Seems silly but aesthetically, my seems me very nice and the code is “(más_bonito).” In addition to changing the text to italic, resize a smaller point.

Applied both to the comments inline in the code, as to the sections of comments to generate documentation. and supports the publishers of C#, Visual Basic and C++ in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/0b439a8a-e21a-4e26-b82b-054fbf0acab7

Highlight all occurrences of selected word to

Visual Studio 2010 brings already incorporated the ability to highlight in a class, all occurrences of the selected element, either a function, variable, etc. This tool provides a similar behavior, but in addition to highlight the selected text (not works at the level of Member), shows a marker in the left margin with which navigation is faster.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/4b92b6ad-f563-4705-8f7b-7f85ba3cc6bb

Note: Look, if you have to rely on this functionality often, your code is probably an espaguethi of the Nice  

 

Hide Main Menu

This hidden extension automatically the menu of Visual Studio 2010, until you press the ALT key, or any combination as [ALT + F] to access the menu [File ]].

It seems something very silly, but win these pixels helps a lot when you don’t have a good resolution to work.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.Microsoft.com/en-us/bdbcffca-32a6-4034-8e89-c31b86ad4813

 

Go to Definition

This extension allows you to use the shortcut [CTRL + Click] to go to the definition of an object in Visual Studio 2010. What we usually do with F12, now has a more natural choice for those who use much mouse.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.Microsoft.com/en-us/4b286b9c-4dd5-416B-b143-e31d36dc622b

TFS Branched History

This extension allows you to see the history of an element in the branches that has spread it.

Download: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7d4f37b6-f9a4-44c6-b0a0-994956538a44

 

Tools

WinMerge: tool alternative to analyse differences and compare files

This post explains how to configure Visual Studio 2010 to use WinMerge as a tool to analyse differences and perform merge files. If not familiar with WinMerge, I recommend that you give a look because it is a much more powerful tool the default in Visual Studio 2010.

Download: http://WinMerge.org/

Notepad ++: the Notepad on steroids

Notepad ++ is one of those tools when you start them to use, you can never again return to the Windows Notepad. I can not say that because the post would be eternal, but from file comparison, up from Edition advanced capabilities, because it is an editor of the good good, without consuming many resources.

Download: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ 

Windows Live Writer: with what you think I write so much?

The publishers online blogs are very good, but for my Windows Live Writer is the ideal tool for the creation of posts.

Download: http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer

Ccleaner, Defraggler: 2 ideal tools to keep your optimized Windows

The people of Piriform are about cracks of the 4 tools that distribute, I’ll stick with 2 as compulsory. On the one handDefragglerfor defragmentaciones to your hard drive and Ccleaner to clean space with some interesting extras.

Download: http://www.piriform.com/

FileZilla: a very good FTP client

Firefox give, it has always been a very heavy browser for my taste. But FileZilla FTP client that I use for many years with very good results.

Download: http://filezilla-project.org/download.php

 

IrfanView – image viewer

Since the Cristhian back in 2001 introduced it me, because I’m a fan of this viewer. It supports almost all formats and allows for very basic editing tasks.

Download: www.irfanview.com

 

7Zip: file compressor

WinZip and WinRar are the classics, but 7Zip complies with everything I need.

Download: http://7-zip.org/

VirtualBox: management of virtual machines

Virtual PC is not classified as a product, but VirtualBox makes all necessary for the management of VMs in a SO of desktop.Obviously that would if he could use Hyper-V but for now just VirtualBox.

Download: https://www.virtualbox.org/

 

 

 

 

Greetings @ Home

The Bruno