Thanks to everyone who attended my session at the Philly .NET Code Camp 2008.1. Here is a list of the tools I covered:
Microsoft Tools
Visual Studio SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=30402623-93ca-479a-867c-04dc45164f5b&displaylang=en
The Visual Studio SDK is the mothership of all Visual Studio add-ins. Among other things, it provides project templates to create add-ins and managed packages. It also adds DSL tools and text templating.
Modeling Power Toys
http://www.codeplex.com/modeling
If you do much modeling, check out these tools. I use the mover toy the most.
Enterprise Library
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480453.aspx
The Enterprise Library provides, you guessed it, a library of enterprise building blocks from cryptography to logging to caching. If you build apps a bit, check this out.
Visual Studio Tools for Office Second Edition
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905543.aspx
VSTO, as outlined in a previous post, is a set of tools for extending Microsoft Office. VSTO adds the necessary class libraries as well as project and item templates for developing Office solutions.
Third-Party
Resharper
Seriously, I don't know how I live without this one. So many helpful features. Unfortunately, it doesn't yet support the .NET 3.5 language features.
.NET Reflector
This is the tool everyone is talking about. Actually dive in and explore an assemblies source code. Great for debugging or simple curiosity.
Clarius T4 Editor
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Quick Facts |
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Supports: |
Visual Studio 2005, 2008 |
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Vendor: |
Clarius Consulting |
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Price: |
Free |
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URL: |
http://www.t4editor.net/ |
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Note: |
Text Templating requires the Visual Studio SDK |
If you are using text templating, which is part of the Visual Studio SDK, you need this add-in. It provides color coding and IntelliSense for .TT files.
Postbuild
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Quick Facts |
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Supports: |
.NET Framework versions 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 |
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Vendor: |
Xenocode |
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Price: |
From $499 |
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URL: |
http://www.xenocode.com/ |
A fantastic tool for obfuscating .NET assemblies. If you're an ISV, you need this one.
Project Line Counter
I'm a metrics geek. This tool counts how many lines of code there are in my project or solution.
Smart Paster 2005
Smart Paster provides several code editor context menus to paste clipboard text as a string, StringBuilder or a comment.
Visual Local History 2005
Visual Local History has saved me many times. It saves a backup copy of a file each time you save it. I've used it more than once to restore something I deleted, saved, and closed.
For more great tools and add-ins, check out Scott Hanselman's list.