Best VS Code extensions that makes you productive 2023

In this article, we discuss about the best vs code extensions that makes you productive and you can carry out your work way faster with higher efficiency in 2023

What are best productive extensions in VS Code ?

On the surface, VS Code appears to be a conventional code editor. However, there are a few distinct features that tip the scales in favor of Visual Studio Code.

There are best vs code extensions productive, of course available in 2022, vs code is a free, open-source, cross-platform development environment. This means that it is compatible with Windows, Linux, and macos.

Why VS code is the best productive IDE ?

Unlike many other code editors,  Visual Studio Code includes an in-built debugger, which makes the development flow less 'clicky' and keeps the code and debugger in a single view. This makes bug tracking and code run-throughs much easier and faster. You don't need multiple screens to run the various consoles and rearrange them every time you need to minimize something. It's built into the design and the layout of your desired workspace.

Top 10 best vs code  Productive Extensions for 2022

In this article we shall look my personal top 10 most used vs code extensions. I'm going to break up these extensions into two categories visual and functional extensions. So Visual extensions help you to code through visual representation colors and formats. Functional extensions help you to do something faster

Let's look at the vs code best productive extensions and these are in no particular order. I have made this list:

Material Theme

The first one is actually two extensions but they're very similar so these first few extensions are going to be the visual extensions. For my theme I use the material theme and for the icons I use the material icon theme. So these are the icons that will show up in your file menu and at the top in your tabs.

Prettier

The next best vs code productive extension  is Prettier and prettier does exactly what it says it makes your code pretty. If formats your code uniformly throughout all of your documents so there's one setting that I would recommend on this and that is the format unsaved. So to get there I can press ctrl or command , and then just type format on save and by default this is unchecked so just check that and then when you save your file I twill automatically format it for you.|

Bracket pair colorizer

All right the next visual extension is going to be bracket pair colorizer. Now there is the original and next too. And I have the second one installed , differences between version 1 and 2 is that : 2 uses the same parsing engine as vs code which greatly increases speed and accuracy the new version was released because settings were cleaned up breaking backwards compatibility so the second one seems to be the way to go. Now what it does is it colorizes   your parentheses brackets and curly braces so you can easily see its beginning and end. And also adds this line and makes a bit of a box around the content that is within the bracket that you've highlighted.

Indent rainbow

The next extension which I'm sure you've noticed to be the productive extension is these colors here in the margins and that extension is called indent rainbow. And all it does is add these colors to the margin to easily identify what portion of the code you should be looking at. So sometimes the indentations get a bit out of hand and you're kind of confused as to where you're at and so these help.

That's all of the visual extensions that doesn't help you much to increase the productivity then too they are important. Now let's get into the functional extensions.

Auto rename tag

 The first one is Auto rename tag. If you rename the beginning tag it will automatically change the ending. Same with the ending if you change it, it automatically changes the beginning tag. So this just saves time you change it on one you don't have to go change the other .Sometimes the other one may be way down the page. You don't want to go search for it. So when you change the opening tag it automatically changes the closing tag. It increases your productivity as a extension.

Rest client

 The next extension that we're gonna look at is called rest client. So this extension is very helpful for a front-end developer or even a full-stack developer. When you're working with a back-end API so if you want to see what that API’s response is. We can get that response from within vs code. Now this extension is very similar to a program called postman, which is an external program. The main benefit of using this  productive extension is that it's all in vs code. You don't have to go to another program.

CSS Peak

The next one that we'll look at is called CSS peak.  This one allows you to peak your CSS definition from your HTML file. So this is very helpful if you have a large CSS file and it's hard to search through. We can actually hit control and hover over a class and it automatically Peaks the definition for us, shows us what it is and then if we click it, it will take us directly to the CSS file to that actual class. It very helpful. It  speeds up the process and then if there is one that happens to have multiple definitions it'll tell you click to show and if we click that it will actually stay within the HTML file and pop up new window where we can actually make alterations.
This best productive extension helps you to navigate between your HTML and your CSS much quicker. Doesn't that increase your productivity ?

Which among these so far you have decided as yours best vs code productive extension ?

HTML CSS Support

The next productive extension of vs code is HTML CSS support. So this adds class completion to HTML. Without this extension you would have to type  entire class every single time you want to use it. So again this extension just speeds up the process.

Saas Compiler

 Next extension is live sass compiler.  Live sass compiler will compile your sass into CSS. It's going to minify and compress automatically your CSS file and then  save path, doesn't this extension make you productive ? My personal preference is I always set up a distribution folder and then within that I'll have my HTML CSS and JavaScript. My main sass file or s CSS file is going to be in the route outside of the distribution folder.

Live Server

Next extension is live server. Live server basically just creates a local development server with live reloading capabilities. I use this in just about every one of my project. It's very helpful whenever you're creating a website. And once you've installed that extension you'll see  button at the bottom “go live”. So if we hit that,  the Browser window pops up and we see our web page. It changes as you change the code in your vs code instead of you scrollling and saving frequently and thus helps you make productive.