My Top 10 VS Code Extensions — First Draft

Over the years I’ve been involved in a wide variety of industries, and I would say one thing that comes with jumping into any new industry is becoming comfortable with the new tools you’ll have to learn. With software development you’re gonna be spending a lot of time in your text editor, and there are a few VS Code extensions that I’ve come to enjoy that save me a ton in terms of time, and mental resources. Here are some of my favorites along with why…

• Spotify

I’m a big fan of Spotify and I hated having to leave my editor to skip to a new song. This extension lets me skip songs, select playlists, and do most of the things I would want to do in my Spotify Desktop app. Music is key to my productivity so when I found this I fell in love. Its lightweight and just does what it’s supposed to do.

Cobalt2 Blue Theme

This is my favorite color scheme at the moment. Created by Wes Boss it’s designed to be not so hard on the eyes and to make those long code hours less painful. Apparently Wes Boss invested a lot of time in design

Installation

1. Open Extensions sidebar panel in VS Code. View → Extensions
2. Search for Cobalt2 - find the one by Wes Bos - there are a few other half-baked one so make sure you have the right one!
3. Click Install to install it.
4. Click Reload to reload the your editor
5. File > Preferences > Color Theme > Cobalt2

Gitlens

• This lets you know who exactly wrote the line you’re working on. Imagine you pull down a project and it’s your job to add a feature. After sometime ya might lose track of who wrote what, and you could find yourself wasting time trying to figure out whose code you’re working on. This extension does it for you.

Live Server

Live Server is a great extension that reloads the changes made to the code onto the server automatically, you no longer have to shut your server down then switch back to your browser or vice versa, you make changes and they’re instantly available on the page.

• To Install Open VSCode Editor and Press ctrl+P, type ext install ritwickdey.liveserver.

Indent Rainbow

This one is fun, it color codes your indentation, I have mine set to subtle, you can barely notice it. But I found it useful for staying on top of my indentation.

Rainbow Brackets

This one is another favorite, it changes the colors of my nested brackets so I can keep track of what’s closed or not within a param.

Vs Code Icons

This extension enables you to have specific file icons for almost every extension. Im a fan of this because it helps me scan my directory and know what kind of files I’m working with.

Code Spell Checker

Auto Rename Tag

• This extension allows you to automatically rename paired HTML/XML tag.

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