Partly so that I remember, and partly to give credit where credit's due, I've decided to write a list of my favorite VS 2005 plugins.
1. DevExpress Coderush (www.devexpress.com)
This is my number 1 favourite visual studio tool. It just adds so much to the development experience. Why? Here's an incomplete list.
Cool visual hints (like an animated arrow overlayed on the edit window showing where a break; command breaks to),
Dropping and picking up bookmarks (simply press ESC to go back to the previous mark)
Automatic code structuring (add a ; to the end of the line and it will add correct spacing etc)
Automatic typo correction (this is so good that I only notice it when I use VS without it installed).
For Example: If you are filling in params like MyClass.MyMethod(true,false);
I would normally type MyClass.M and let intellisense do the rest.
Then type ( and CodeRush adds the ) and places the caret in between the ()
Then type true,false; and Coderush moves the ; to the end of the line - after the last ).
Effectively, I type MyClass.MyMethod(true,false;) and when I press the ; Coderush moves it for me.
I know it's only a small thing, but it saves time not using the arrow keys to move the caret to the right place.
Autocomplete - this suggests and tries to complete variable / method names that you've used previously as you are typing them. It means you can use good descriptive variable names (and make self documenting code) - names like ForgottenPasswordRecoveryPanel. If it sounds like intellisense, it's not,, it's more like predictive text on a mobile phone. It will even autocomplete in comments and strings.
Metrics - it shows code metrics next to each method (and also available in a separate dock-window) - Available metrics are cyclomatic complexity, line count or maintenance complexity. Useful as it gives a quick indication if a method should be Refactored.
The last thing is the new References window - this shows code snippets everywhere a variable or method or class is used (and of course you can hyperlink to them), and is much faster using the VS "Find" command.
2. DevExpress Refactor! (www.devexpress.com)
This is another cool product (infact everything they do is cool - this post sounds a bit like a devexpress love-in so far. I also use their .net components).
The refactoring is much better than the VS implementation (allowing you to position the extracted method, synced renames (rename the variable, and it renames all references simultaniously) and other funky features.
3. TestDriven.Net (www.testdriven.net)
Another cool product - allows testing of individual unit test methods from the code window. Also links to NUnit and NCover executables, and complete unit testing from within the editor.
4. Resource Refactoring Tool (www.codeplex.com/ResourceRefactoring)
This one is a freebie from the codeplex site (Microsoft's open source effort). It allows you to extract strings from code and turn them into resource strings. Useful if you're running FXCop.
5. FogBugz for Visual Studio (www.fogcreek.com)
FogBugz is the bug tracking software from fogcreek - there's enough on the web about it already, but they do a useful little plugin to visual studio so that you can see (and manage) your cases from within VS.
6. Slickedit Gadgets (www.slickedit.com/gadgets)
Another freebie, the only one of the gadgets I use regularly is the "Command Spy" - this shows you the alternative keyboard shortcuts to whatever action you're taking in the IDE. Useful for speeding up you IDE usage as you can quickly ditch the mouse and keep all hands on the keyboard. It also has a quite nice pie chart that shows lines of code, lines of comments and whitespace. My current project has 87,984 lines of code. Nice.
[tags]visual studio[/tags]