Productivity++
Thought I'd share my review of James Avery's latest book ...
If you spend a fair amount of time writing code in Visual Studio.NET, then Visual Studio Hacks will definitely improve your productivity in writing, debugging, and maintaining code. You'll find everything from using (and the practical uses of) built-in features (such as the Clipboard ring) to in-depth explanations of downloadable add-ins.
One thing I love about the book is how easy the hacks are to implement. For example I've always been annoyed at the output from the build results window but never took the time to even think about changing it. It seemed to be just easier to deal with it than fix it. After reading Hack #35 (Modify the Build Output and Navigate the Results), I'm confident I can take a few minutes to write a macro and customize it as needed.
Worried about difficulty in writing a macro? Hack #51 explains it step-by-step.
Although I don't consider myself to be an Über-user of VS.NET, I do use the development environment quite a bit and know my way around fairly well. That said, Visual Studio Hacks has definitely augmented my knowledge of not only what VS.NET does, but what *good* 3rd party add-ins are available. I've had too many bad experiences with *bad* add-ins killing half-a-day of work after requiring a reinstall of VS.NET. The ones listed here work well and are documented well.
By the way, I have to say that I liked Hack #7 (Make Pasting into Visual Studio Easier) the most. But then again, it's pretty hard *not* like a hack that you contributed to the book ;-).