Customizing Visual Studio [closed]

Question

I have been working with Visual Studio (WinForm and ASP.NET applications using mostly C#) for several months now. For the most part my IDE is set up fairly standard but I have been wondering what are some suggestions in terms of plugins/settings that you find to be the most useful?

Update: Thanks for all the great suggestions. It looks like a general consensus that I should look into 'Resharper' along with some eye-candy with themes and custom fonts.

---

Themes

• Consolas Font Pack for Visual Studio 2005/2008
• Scott Hanselman's Visual Studio Themes Gallery
• Visual Studio Theme Generator

Free Tools

• PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008
• GhostDoc
• HyperAddin
• RockScroll
• CodeRush XPress
• .NET Reflector - (Not a plugin but still useful)

Paid Tools

• Resharper - Free (Open Source), $49 (Academic), $199 (Personal), $349 (Commercial)
• CodeRush with Refactor!™ Pro - $249

Answer 1

I can't coding without Resharper and GhostDoc, both are very good, i love that.

Answer 2

Resharper

Answer 3

Master the built-in keyboard shortcuts (links to C# and VB keybinding cheatsheets can be found here)

Answer 4

I agree with the customizing of the theme - it makes the environment a whole lot easier to deal with.

You can choose some of the ones from the gallery at Hanselman's site, or create one with this online generator.

Answer 5

You could try Resharper from JetBraing (http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/), the ultimate when it comes to code refactoring. I also use GhostDoc (http://www.roland-weigelt.de/ghostdoc/) for helping me with documentation.

Answer 6

1. GhostDoc and HyperAddin provide automatic generation and formatting of XML comments.
2. RockScroll is really great for browsing legacy classes or just getting a visual feel for your own code.
3. Install TestDriven.NET to get Reflector in your Tools menu (or you could follow these instructions).