In the previous article, I described 10 VS code extensions that are a necessary minimum for you as a user. Especially, when you are a junior developer like me, it’s very helpful to know what you should use. Today I’d like to expand this list and show you another batch of useful features you may not have heard of that are available in VS Code. However, before I start, I’d like to mention that recently, I’ve encountered some issues with the efficiency of my code editor. It turned out that it was caused by a conflict of some extensions. Therefore, once again I’d like to emphasize the fact that your IDE doesn’t like too many of them! Week by week when I learn programming, I convince myself how important it is to have a good package of extensions in your IDE and how much time you can save because of them. So let’s start!
Setting Sync
When it comes to changing computers, everybody knows that setting up your new workspace can be tedious and a real pain in the neck. Especially, if your editor has gained a lot of personal settings, keyboard shortcuts, snippets and extensions. This is when Setting Sync starts to play a role as a real game changer. This extension allows you to upload all your VSCode configuration as a GitHub Gist, which means that you’ll be able to use it on other devices and restore the complete setup very easily.
Download here: Setting Sync
VSCode-styled-components
Nowadays, most projects written in react use styled-components in order to implement styles into react components. Styled-components require writing pseudo css code in backticks (“) which makes VSCode treat this as a string. Therefore, our style code doesn’t have color. Thanks to VSCode-styled-components extension our code starts to look friendly and very familiar.
Download here: VSCode-styled-components
CodeSnap
Next recommendation I would like to make is a CodeSnap. Maybe it’s not a must-have or even very useful extension for developers in general. However, there are some times when we need to share a piece of code with someone else. It can be some documentation files or just an article similar to this one. Whatever you do and need to make a screenshot of your code you should add CodeSnap to your extension’s list. Results are awesome, just take a look at it:
Download here: CodeSnap
Markdown Preview GitHub Styling
Many of us have some experience with preparing README.md files for projects. This extension makes it so much easier because it lets us preview the final version of these files with GitHub style. If you haven’t used it yet, go get it!
Download here: Markdown Preview GitHub Styling
Live Share
The pandemic and new reality forced many developers to start working remotely. It turned out very quickly that this new work style can be challenging. Especially when we ask somebody for help and this person can’t just sit next to us and explain the issue in question. Live Share seems to be the remedy for this inconvenience. This extension is a tool which gives us a lot thanks to which we’re able to share with other colleagues not only our screen but also we can code and debug our work together! Sounds cool? For sure!
Download here: Live Share
Better Comments
When it comes to putting comments in the code, sometimes it would be very helpful to have comments spelled out in different colors which suggest their meaning. The Better Comments extension will help you categorize your comments and make them more readable for your colleagues.
Download here: Better Comments
Code Spell Checker
Last but not least, Code Spell Checker is a great tool to validate spelling in our code. It’s very handy, especially if you’re not a native speaker like me. However, even if you are, remember that everybody makes mistakes 🙂
Download here: Code Spell Checker
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this article and found something interesting for you. If you haven’t already read my previous article about VS Code extensions, I highly recommend it! At the end I’d like to leave you with a quote which we all tend to forget:
“Simplicity is the soul of efficiency.” – Austin Freeman
