Tweaking Visual Studio 2010
It is not my current habit to re-blog the interesting things I read on the web but I just can’t resist to pass on some gems that I ran into while trying to get to grips with Visual Studio 2010. Don’t get me wrong; I like this release a lot but some things are pretty awkward.
First thing that hit me was the new help system. I like the lean Lightweight experience but why oh why did Microsoft use the browser?! When I am coding I have loads of web pages open and somewhere in between them is my help. Scott to the rescue: he points out a (still in beta) standalone Help Viewer. Thank you Scott!
When you read Scott’s post you will run into the Extension Manager. A new feature in Visual Studio that makes it much easier to install tools and templates for Visual Studio. After browsing for a while here are the extensions I use:
- Visual Studio Color Theme Editor
- I dislike the default blue and made an Expression style theme
- PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010
- The automatic formatting features should really be a part of Visual Studio and “Open Containing Folder” is very useful too.
- tangible T4 Editor
- Writing T4 templates can be such a pain but this is making it a lot easier.
I just wish they did not include the modeling tools (or make them optional)Read this!
- Writing T4 templates can be such a pain but this is making it a lot easier.
- Snippet Designer
- Managing and writing snippets is much easier this way.
- Code Compare
- It is great to have this available but again: why isn’t this a standard part of VS?
Two things I would like to change or become available in the Extension Manager:
- A clear (mandatory) statement with each extension whether it is free or not.
- A more advanced way of filtering; the sheer number of items is getting out of hand. I do not know how to fix this but I would like to get a filter that allows me to see what is new or at least a sort by date.
What are your favorite extensions for Visual Studio 2010?
BTW: I really like this initiative. And even though I am sticking to the default coloring for now, this is the place for me to look for alternatives!