How to drive a developer insane

Further to my post about the two dozen add-ins I have loading into Visual Studio (wonder what Scott's startup looks like) I have no less than *3* Refactor menus available to me.

First there's the built-in refactorings from Visual Studio (including an additional one, refactor to resource that I added via the VS PowerToys):

Refactor menu from Visual Studio

Next there's ReSharpers Refactor menu that has a million options:

Refactor menu from ReSharper

Finally there's Developer Express' Refactor! Pro menu which is context sensitive so the options change based on what element you pick in the Editor (but I'm sure it's got as many as ReSharper or more):

Refactor menu from Refactor! Pro

Round that out with GhostDoc (Document This), the test options (TestDriven), a bunch of other options ReSharper and who knows what else threw in there, plus an addin that let's me jump to a method in Reflector, and all those silly "Create Unit Tests..." options that Team Suite added for which I swore I would never use.

It's enough to drive a guy batty (which really does explain my state of mind after a day working in this environment). Never really noticed it before but Holy Options Batman, that's a crapload of stuff to deal with.

Excuse me while I reboot my brain.

P.S. there is an answer to this madness which makes complete sense. Collapse all "Refactor" menu options into a single menu and filter the refactorings to only show what I can do (like how DevExpress does it, good job guys!). Don't show me stuff that I can't do (even if it is grayed out). It's useless to me if I can't click on it. 

In fact, do that to the entire context menu system in Visual Studio.

Orcas anyone? Can you hear me guys!

Wake up and give us code monkeys some screen real estate back please!

4 Comments

  • You can disable standard VS refactoring menus in ReSharper:

    Resharper -> Options -> General -> Replace Visual Studio menu items by respective ReSharper ones

  • the real way to drive a developer insane is by enticing him/her with WPF, WCF, WF, etc in CTPs and having them fail at installation. Then the Visual Studio guys point the finger at the .NET3 guys who in turn point the finger at the Installer guys.. Of course, they all recommend that you reinstall VS.NET or .NET3 or both..
    for any product to fail during installation is unforgiveable.. getting shot down even before the starting gate leaves one very disheartened and tortured..

  • Two questions:

    1) where can I get the "go to reflector" plugin?

    2) how did you manage to get both resharper and Refactor Pro running on the same machine? I've been trying to get that to work for ages.

  • also can't find the "go to reflector" plugin

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