Boost your productivity with Productivity Power Tools Extensions in Visual Studio 2022!

Visual Studio 2022 is here and is more customizable than ever. However, that experience may not be complete without the essential extensions you know and love.  As existing extensions continue to be migrated, we’re excited to announce that one of the most popular and anticipated sets of extensions is now available to download today: Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2022!

Designed by the VS team, the Productivity Power Tools (PPT) pack is a suite of extensions that improve your overall productivity and efficiency across Visual Studio.  This extension pack kickstarts your productivity from the get-go, allowing you to install the entire suite at once instead of individually.  Not sure if PPT extensions are for you?  Let’s look at some of the pack’s extensions that can save you time and tedium in your VS developer environment.

Match Margin

The Match Margin extension lets you highlight text in your code and view all the locations where that text is used within the editor and within the editor margin.  There are several internal and external tools allowing you to perform a similar action via context menu options or selecting the entire word.  However, Match Margin allows you to do this simply by moving your cursor to the desired text.

Match Margin example

Copy As HTML

At first glance, a simple part of drafting a spec, work item, or documentation should be copying/pasting code snippets.  Unfortunately, this “simple” task quickly becomes tedious when the original formatting of the code is lost while pasting it into a document, leaving you to manually correct it.  The Copy As HTML extension solves this problem by keeping the code’s formatting when pasting it in a text document.

Copy as HTML example

Solution Error Visualizer

Checking the Error List window for issues in your code may not be ideal for your personalized dev environment.  As an alternative, the Solution Error Visualizer extension adds squiggles to the VS Solution Explorer and lets you view error messages that you’d traditionally see in the Error List window simply by hovering over a corresponding solution, project, or code file.  If your focus is solely on fixing errors, you can even use this extension to filter out any extensions currently lacking them!

Solution Error Visualizer example

Peek Help

In Visual Studio, you can set your cursor on language or framework keywords and hit F1 to redirect to a browser window containing corresponding help info about them.  However, swapping between the browser and VS IDE can feel inefficient.  The Peek Help extension addresses this by embedding the same help info in the editor window when you use ALT + F1 so you never need to navigate away from your work.

Peek Help example

Are Certain PPT Extensions Missing?  Check in Visual Studio!

If you’re a long-time user of the PPT extensions, you may have noticed that some long-time extensions like Go To Definition, Quick Launch Tasks, and Power Commands are no longer included in the PPT extension pack. This is because these former extensions have all become built-in VS features!  So, where are they now?

Go To Definition

Want to quickly navigate to the definitions of the classes and types you’re using in your project? CTRL + Click a class or type to be redirected to the corresponding definition in an instant using Go To Definition!

Go to Definition example

Quick Launch Tasks

The Quick Launch Tasks extension has become the global VS Search tool!  Like the former extension, you can use (CTRL + Q) to locate IDE menus, options, and code.

VS Search example

Power Commands

The Power Commands extension provided a set of useful, miscellaneous commands and refactorings that are now being added to Visual Studio by default.  This includes:

• Sort usings
• Copy Path (Right-click file in Solution Explorer, select Copy Full Path)
• Show All Files (Solution Explorer)
• Edit Project (.csproj) File
• Close All Documents (Right-click tab, select Close All Tabs)

Productivity Power Tool extensions always have the potential to become built-in VS features in the future. So, let us know which PPT extensions you’d like to see become mainstays next!

Download Productivity Power Tools Today!

The highlighted PPT extensions above are just a few productivity-enhancing options, so download the full extension pack to learn more!  These small-but-mighty extensions are a perfect way to round out your essential dev environment in Visual Studio 2022.  As always, feel free to share your feedback on PPT extensions, and let us know how we can further improve your VS 2022 experience!