21.9.09

Best free addins for Visual Studio 2008

Visual Studio 2008I have subscribed to the Microsoft Download Notifications weekly newsletter and it was only yesterday that I clicked something which I had never clicked in any newsletter before - Visual Studio Gallery. It is a list of addins - both free and free trials - for Visual Studio 2008 and if you are a .NET developer, you should not miss this!

Here's a list of the best 5 free addins I came across on that site. Hope you like them. Anyways, here's the site. Visual Studio Addins Gallery.

  1. Copy as HTML
    Forget SyntaxHighlighter and all other online JavaScript tools you'd require to paste code in your blog without giving up all the indents and formatting. After installing this lightweight addin a "Copy as HTML" item is added to the context menu on code selection in VS 2008. The generated HTML can be played around with, so you can provide your own custom feel to the markup. The only issue is that it copies < as &lt; and > likewise. So copying XAML code is an issue.

  2. WPF NotifyIcon
    This is the WPF equivalent of the WinForms NotifyIcon. With this, you do not need to initialize a system tray icon for your WPF application in code but in XAML itself.

  3. WPF AboutBox
    This is the WPF equivalent of the WinForms AboutBox. Detailed instructions on how to use it are available on the site itself.

  4. MRU Cleaner
    This add-in allows you to manage the MRU (Most Recently Used) list of projects which can get irritatingly long and unwieldy in Visual Studio 2008. However, positive reviews of this add-in have not been forthcoming on the Add-In Gallery site, so here is an alternative download link.
    Download MRU Cleaner

  5. The CodeProject Add-In
    Perhaps the best add-in in this list, the CodeProject add-in searches MSDN, CodeProject as well as the Web (Live Search) for articles based on what you enter in the search box. It may sound not too useful, but if you use it properly and to maximum advantage, you won't be able to code without it. Download link is here.
    Download The CodeProject Add-In

3 comments:

  1. When I or say any developer reads through this blog he/she realizes as to how very helpful, exciting and time-saving these Add-Ins can be.

    Though Joel has put light only on a chosen few but they are good enough to make our imagination click -- There are more Add-Ins in store at the following link :

    http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Check out Recently Used Files

    https://recentlyusedfiles.codeplex.com/

    This manages your open files in the Visual Studio editor by providing a flat list.

    Very helpful, as it quickly lets you navigate to the files you are working with, without tabbing or searching.

    Also has support for keyboard shortcuts.

    Supported for Visual Studio 2010 and 2012.

    ReplyDelete
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