TestDriven.NET
Test-driven development is the practice of writing unit tests before you write code, and then writing the code to make those tests pass. By writing tests before you write code, you identify the exact behavior your code should exhibit and, as a bonus, at the end you have 100 percent test coverage, which makes extensive refactoring possible.
GhostDoc
XML comments are invaluable tools when documenting your application. Using XML comments, you can mark up your code and then, using a tool like nDoc, you can generate help files or MSDN-like Web documentation based on those comments. The only problem with XML documentation is the time it takes to write it you often end up writing similar statements over and over again. The goal of GhostDoc is to automate the tedious parts of writing XML comments by looking at the name of your class or method, as well as any parameters, and making an educated guess as to how the documentation should appear based on recommended naming conventions. This is not a replacement for writing thorough documentation of your business rules and providing examples, but it will automate the mindless part of your documentation generation.
Smart Paster
Strings play a large role in most applications, whether they are comments being used to describe the behavior of the system, messages being sent to the user, or SQL statements that will be executed. One of the frustrating parts of working with strings is that they never seem to paste correctly into the IDE. When you are pasting comments, the strings might be too long or not aligned correctly, leaving you to spend time inserting line breaks, comment characters, and tabbing. When working with strings that will actually be concatenated, you have to do even more work, usually separating the parts of the string and inserting concatenation symbols or using a string builder.
CodeKeep
Throughout the process of software development, it is common to reuse small snippets of code. Perhaps you reuse an example of how to get an enum value from a string or a starting point on how to implement a certain pattern in your language of choice.
PInvoke.NET
P/Invoke is the process used to access native Win32 API calls within the .NET Framework. One of the hard parts of using P/Invoke is determining the method signature you need to use; this can often be an exercise in trial and error. Sending incorrect data types or values to an unmanaged API can often result in memory leaks or other unexpected results.
VSWindowManager PowerToy
The Visual Studio IDE includes a huge number of different Windows, all of which are useful at different times. If you are like me, you have different window layouts that you like to use at various points in your dev work. When I am writing HTML, I like to hide the toolbox and the task list window. When I am designing forms, I want to display the toolbox and the task list. When I am writing code, I like to hide all the windows except for the task list. Having to constantly open, close, and move windows based on what I am doing can be both frustrating and time consuming.
WSContractFirst
Visual Studio makes creating Web services deceptively easy You simply create an .asmx file, add some code, and you are ready to go. ASP.NET can then create a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file used to describe behavior and message patterns for your Web service.
VSMouseBindings
Your mouse probably has five buttons, so why are you only using three of them? The VSMouseBindings power toy provides an easy to use interface that lets you assign each of your mouse buttons to a Visual Studio command.
CopySourceAsHTML
Code is exponentially more readable when certain parts of that code are differentiated from the rest by using a different color text. Reading code in Visual Studio is generally much easier than trying to read code in an editor like Notepad.
Cache Visualizer
Visual Studio 2005 includes a new debugging feature called visualizers, which can be used to create a human-readable view of data for use during the debugging process. Visual Studio 2005 includes a number of debugger visualizers by default, most notably the DataSet visualizer, which provides a tabular interface to view and edit the data inside a DataSet. While the default visualizers are very valuable, perhaps the best part of this new interface is that it is completely extensible. With just a little bit of work you can write your own visualizers to make debugging that much easier.
Wrapping It Up
While this article has been dedicated to freely available add-ins, there are also a host of add-ins that can be purchased for a reasonable price. I encourage you to check out these other options, as in some cases they can add some tremendous functionality to the IDE. This article has been a quick tour of some of the best freely available add-ins for Visual Studio. Each of these add-ins may only do a small thing, but together they help to increase your productivity and enable you to write better code.
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