Productivity Power Tools is a Visual Studio 2010 add-in, developed by the Microsoft Visual Studio Platform Team and available in Visual Studio Gallery. Of course, you can also download it using Visual Studio Extension Manager, from the Tools menu in Visual Studio 2010.
Its list of features is detailed on the add-in page and I will not enumerate them here. I just want to list the features that I find most useful (at least so far). All these features are enabled by default, but the add-in is very customizable. To enable/disable features or change current settings use the Options dialog and go the Productivity Power Tools page.
Highlight Current Line
The line where your cursor is displayed is highlighted so that you can easily spot it. Here is a screen shot.
Go to Definition
If you press the Ctrl key while the cursor is over a symbol, the symbol appears as a hyperlink and clicking it will take you to the definition.
Move Lines
You can move the current line or an entire selection up with Atl + Up Arrow, or down with Atl + Down Arrow. Useful to avoid Ctrl + X and Ctrl + V, unless you have to move too many lines up or down.
Modified Document Mark
Modified, but yet not saved documents, are indicated with a red dot on the tab.
Pinned Tabs
You can pin tabs on the tab bar. When you hover the cursor over a tab, a pin indicator appears. You can click it and then the tab is pinned on the tab bar, from left to right, so that no mater how many documents you open, the pinned tabs remain visible and you are able to quickly access them.
Undo Close
Recently closed documents are listed in a new tool window called Undo Close. You can double click them and they will be re-opened (and removed from the undo close list).
Floating Tabs
Many developers use two monitors (or even more). Now it is possible to dock floating tabs on a second monitor just as you’d do with a tool window. The following screen shot shows two tabs docked into a separate window on a second monitor.
Solution Navigator
A brand new solution explorer has been created allowing you to easily navigate the solution. You can search it, filter it to see only opened, unsaved, edited or all files, view related information about classes and members, preview images, etc.
The following image shows: the entire solution (left), only the items that contain the word thumb (middle) and only the opened items shown within their projects (right).
Another cool feature is the image preview. All you have to do is hover the cursor over an image and you get a preview of it, as shown below.
Looking forward to seeing these features by default in Visual Studio and not available through an add-in.
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