3 Free Useful Visual Studio 2010 Add-Ins

Here are three add-ins for visual studio 2010 that I have found particularly useful

1) Productivity Power Tools  

Includes many useful features, but here are a few of my favorites.

• Allows you to control+click on an item to navigate to its definition.
• Adds Solution Navigator (similar to Solution Explorer) to navigate through files, methods, variables, etc.
• HTML Copy – Allows you to copy text from the editor and paste while maintaining the style of the code.
• Add column guides by right clicking on any line in the code and using the appropriate context menu.
• Move entire lines of code up and down by pressing alt + up arrow/down arrow

2) GhostDoc

Allows you to document classes, methods, variables by right clicking on the item and selecting “Document this”.  Base documentation is created for you based off of the name of the method, variables, class, etc.  GhostDoc is very handy for creating documentation quickly when you are already naming items descriptively.

3) PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010

PowerCommands provides some functionality in VS 2010 that is much needed and surprisingly not present in the IDE by default.  Here is a short list of my favorites…

• Copy and paste project references
• Open Command Prompt at directory of items folder
• Open Containing Folder
• Right Click -> Close ALL from the document tab.

Visual Studio 2010 Vertical Line Guides

This Visual Studio extension assists you with creating vertical line guides in your IDE editor.  The typical registry hack that worked in old versions of Visual Studio didn’t work for me until I installed this extension.  Then it automatically recognized the registry hack I created.  This extension allows you to create guides by right clicking in the editor window and selecting “Add guideline” so you no longer have to manually edit the registry to add or remove guides.

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/7f2a6727-2993-4c1d-8f58-ae24df14ea91