My Visual Studio 2010 Setup

This post is about the extensions that I've used to make Visual Studio suit my personal needs.

Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools

The Solution Navigator, one of the highlights of the Productivity Power Tools

In my oppinion, at least a stripped-down version of this extension should come built-in with Visual Studio. It's developed and maintained by Microsoft in the first place, so it shouldn't be hard.
Some of the features it has:

Solution Navigator

An enhanced Solution Explorer, provides a quick search feature and allows you to browse classes within files.

Quick Access

A tool for executing common tasks from the VS IDE, such as main menu and context menu commands, showing tool windows, tab navigation etc.

Tab Well UI

This feature greatly improves tab navigation and management. You can pin tabs, stack them on multiple lines, configure the order in which they are removed and much more.

Searchable Add Reference Dialog

This feature improves the Add Reference dialog, allowing you to quickly find assemblies within your projects or GAC folder. What i like is the fact that it doesn't automatically close after adding a reference, and that it provides a quick search feature.

And much more...

HTML Copy, Triple Click, Ctrl+Click Go-To Definition, Auto-Brace completion and many more features are what make this addon a must-have for any developer using Visual Studio, in my opinion. For more info, check out this link: Productivity Power Tools.

Atomineer Utils for Visual Studio

A simple addon that allows you to quickly create beautifully structured xml comments for your code. I love documenting my code when using this tool. It comes in both free and paid versions, the advantages of the former mainly revolving around customizing the generated xml structure, and of course, supporting the developer team behind this addon. Try it out:Atomineer Utils add-in for Visual Studio.

Telerik JustCode

While i'm saving money for Resharper, i'm using Telerik's JustCode product. Here's a highlight of what it provides:

Background Solution-Wide Code Analysis

This basically analyses your code while you work, eliminating the need for a full build to detect compile-time errors.

JavaScript Support

It supports JavaScript code analysis, detecting potential errors in your .js code, along with basic refactorings, such as rename, introduce field, introduce variable or inline variable.

Unit Test Runner

Supports MSTest, NUnit, xUnit and MbUnit, and provides a nice UI encapsulating them. It also automatically detects unit tests within your solution.

You can try it out here: Telerik JustCode. Note that this is not a free addon, but it comes with the Telerik Software Bundles.

Another adddin that i'm constantly using is the Gemini BugTracker Visual Studio Integration AddIn, but this one deserves a separate post along with the Gemini BugTracker software.

There's no 'one-size fits all' solution for software developers, but you can go a long way by customizing your Visual Studio to be your Visual Studio.