10 Powerful VS Code extensions that'll boost your productivity in 2023

With the change in the technological environment, theres been a drastic change in the way we build and code applications. No matter, what code editor you use, using the best resources and shortcuts can really save a whole bunch of time for you. I personally prefer VS code over other code editors because VS Code is much more versatile, handy, user-friendly, and very convenient to use and implement. It is, however, one of the best Code editors in the world since it consists of many useful and powerful extensions that can save a whole lot of time in your coding and development and can take your productivity to the next level.

So, here are some of the best powerful VS Code extensions every programmer can use to make their life easier.

Live Server

With the help of the latest Live Server extension in VS Code, You can easily manage and track your code changes because every time the code changes are saved, the changes are instantly reflected in the browser. This allows you to spot errors or issues and easily experiment with your code.

Best Features:

• You can start or stop the server with a single click from the status bar.
• Support for quick development using a live server.
• Hotkey control.
• Support for excluding files for change detection.

Remote- SSH

Remote SSH extension helps you to simplify the development or troubleshooting processes in different scenarios. The source code is not required for your local machine as this extension directly executes commands and other required dependencies on the remote machine.

Remote SSH best features:

• Debug an application running somewhere else on the customer setup or cloud.
• You can quickly swap between remote environments with the required updates without impacting the local machine.
• Access the existing development environment using multiple locations or machines.

Bracket Pair Colorizer

Bracket Pair Colorizer is a unique and best VS Code extension that matches the corresponding brackets in your code with the same color. This is helpful when working with multiple components, such as nested components, objects, classes, or functions that use brackets or parentheses.

Best features:

• Locate matching pairs that help you understand code better.
• Improved navigation and accessibility.
• Read code faster and quicker.

Peacock

Peacock VS Code extension Subtly change the color of your Visual Studio Code workspace. Ideal when you have multiple VS Code instances, use VS Live Share, or use VS Codes Remote features, and you want to quickly identify your editor.

Best Features:

• Use your preferred colors to quickly distinguish each of your Visual Studio Code instances.
• When you utilize the remote integration features, your Visual Studio Code editor will have a distinctive color.
• Color your Visual Studio Code editor uniquely when you are in a Live Share session as a Guest or a Host.

Lets see Peacock in action!

• Create/Open a VSCode Workspace
• Press F1 to open the command palette
• Type Peacock
• Choose Peacock: Change to a favorite color
• Choose one of the pre-defined colors and see how it changes your editor.

Snippets

Code snippets are templates that make it easier to enter repeating code patterns, such as loops or conditional statements.

In Visual Studio Code, snippets appear in IntelliSense (Ctrl+Space) mixed with other suggestions, as well as in a dedicated snippet picker (Insert Snippet in the Command Palette). VS Code has built-in snippets for a number of languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Markdown, and PHP. You can see the available snippets for a language by running the Insert Snippet command in the Command Palette to get a list of the snippets for the language of the current file.

Best Features:

• Works out of the box with zero configuration.
• Detects programming language Automatically from the current editor window.
• Makes it easier to enter repeating codes.

CSS Peak

If you love practicing CSS a lot, youll gonna love this extension. With the help of this extension, you can manage to pull requests in your IDE and perform code reviews with complete source-tree context. This allows you to navigate directly to the right CSS code if you know the class or ID name.

Best features:

• You can go through the CSS definition and symbol in the workspace with just a few simple clicks.
• The symbol provider option is also provided.
• You are flexible to comment on any line.

Prettier

It is an opinionated code formatter. It enforces a consistent style by parsing your code and re-printing it with its own rules that take the maximum line length into account, wrapping code when necessary.

Best Features:

• You can easily install this extension without too many hassles.
• It ensures that every code adheres to a uniform style and removes all original styling.
• Prettier uses your code and recreates it from scratch while considering many lines.

Relative Path

This extension helps you to locate or get the relative path to your file in your workspace. It also allows you to write import statements. Instead of searching for the file location, you only need the file name; this extension does the rest by providing the relative path from the current location to that target file.

Best Features:

• Improve search performance when you switch to a file from a different folder.
• Simply Press Ctrl+Shift+H (Mac: Cmd+Shift+H) and start typing the file you want.

VS Code Icons

It allows you to create descriptive icons to categorize files and folders easily. This extension helps to make code more visually appealing so that it is easier for teams to work in close collaboration. This means you can always come back after some time and concentrate on your code with undivided attention resulting in a great end-user experience.

Best Features:

• The extension allows you to change how the icons look or even what icons are associated with each extension.
• Automatically determine the kind of project you have active in your workspace and switch the icons accordingly.
• Custom Configuration.

GitLens

This extension combines the dual functionalities of Git with VS Code. You can easily visualize your code and understand it a lot better. This helps you to understand the who, why, and when aspects related to the code. You can explore the history and evolution of the codebase as well.

Best Features:

Highly customized extension where you can turn off a particular setting if not needed.
The current line blame annotation is displayed at the end of the line.
Status bar blame annotation showing the commit and author detail.

Thats a wrap. Thanks for reading.

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