VS 2015, Getting Resharper Experience Without Resharper
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Resharper has long dominated the c# landscape as the tool of tools. Roslyn shipping with VS 2015, the quick actions light bulb, and the community analyzers, all combine to produce a resharper-like experience.
Showing Overloads/Param Info
Automatically showing documentation for parameters, and overloads for some reason is always off for me. To get the parameters information you must turn it in in Text Editor -> Lanuage -> General -> Parameter Info The parameter info should show auto-magically, but you can also type Control +Shift+Space to invoke the dialog.
Refactoring
Refactoring is a huge part of Resharper. I recently stumbled across a [fantastic] refactoring extension called Refactoring Essentials
You can install this into your project as a nuget package or install it as a visual studio extension.
Refactoring Essentials does not just include refactors, but it also includes a bunch of code quality analyzers, and adjustments.
Code Analysis
There are 2 fantastic code analyzers I really enjoy. The first is Code Cracker Code cracker has lots of refactorizations to produce higher quality, more readable code.
The second one I like is the FxCop analyzer produced by the Roslyn team. This one uses rules from FxCop to produce refactors to suit best practices in the CLR.
Auto Format
I have had good luck with the Continuous Formatting, but its a paid product. If you don't want to pay for code formatting, I'd suggest using the Code Maid Extension. Both extensions are fantastic, and I think Code Maid does a really good job at reorganizing code. To say the least I have both extensions installed.
Working without resharper
The first thing that I realized is that intellisense does not auto complete as many classes as resharper. I notice that resharper auto completes classes even without any using statement in the current file. However the new Roslyn quick actions will suggest using things from different namespaces if the names are close enough.
Invoking the Light bulb
I find the best way to invoke the light bulb is by hitting Control+. you can then hit Enter to select the action in the list.
Other Extensions I cannot live without
This is an additional list of VS extensions that make me happy.
- NDepend Paid product, totally worth it. view my blog post about it
- Sando Code Search Great little code search tool
- Web Essentials Great web tools for vs
- Web Compiler auto web compiler (less, js, etc.)
- C# Methods code snippets method code snippets
Let me know what your favourite VS tools are below.