Top 10 VS code extensions for web developers

VS code extensions are one of the most popular code extensions out there. It is very popular because it comes with a lot of additional features like extensions. In today’s blog, we are going to discuss some of the best extensions. So let’s get started

Introduction

Extensions are additional tools that are developed to improve the developer experience and make your job easier. Some of the benefits include an increase in productivity, etc. I guess you must be familiar with the VS Code interface. So to install the extensions you need to click on the extension’s icon available at the top left or simply click ctrl+shift+x on windows and cmd+shift+x on macOS. There you can check out the all extensions present in the VS Code

Extensions

Live Server

Often while testing our websites it’s quite annoying to reload every time to check the results. Well, you never have to do it again. Just install the live server extension, make your changes save them in VScode(ctrl+S) and go to your HTML page, and right-click on an open area now at the bottom you can see the open with the live server option click on it you will automatically open in a browser no need to locate you are file in the desktop and then open it. The live server extension has a lot of other features as well you can check out them if you are interested.

Auto Close Tag

With the help of the Auto close tag extension, you never have to close an HTML or XML tag again. The extension will automatically complete the closing tag once you have opened a tag. You don’t have to click on those greater than and lesser than (<, >) symbols once again.

Auto Rename Tag

It’s quite similar to the Auto close tag extension. When you can change the opening tag name to a different name the closing tag name will automatically change and vice versa. For example, if you want to change the main tag to a div tag just change the opening tag, and no need to search for the closing tag it will automatically get changed.

Bracket Pair Colorizer

This extension colorizes the pairs of brackets in the same color so that we can easily identify them. We have all been in situations where we have misplaced our javascript code in some other bracket. And trust me it will take a lot of time to figure out that mistake. With this extension, you are not going to do it again. Personally, this is my favorite extension. Here in the example, you can see every new pair of brackets is differently colored.

CSS Peek

On to CSS now, CSS Peek allows you to see the CSS code from your HTML file itself. Just you need to hover over the specific tag that’s it. You can see the CSS from the HTML files itself

Prettier code formatter

You know It’s quite annoying to read the code if it is not the formatted way. If you are the type of person who takes care of formatting the code you are doing it wrong. Just install the extension and let the tool take care of it. Prettier helps us to format the code and make it look nicer and easy to use. Here is an example you can see in the second image the code is very well formatted.

JavaScript (ES6) Code Snippets

This extension just provides code snippets of JavaScript code(ES6 syntax). If you’re using the ES7 syntax or you’re a react developer then you need to install the ES7 React extension. They have code snippets for imports, exports, functions all kinds of stuff. Make sure to install the ES7 one for React JS.

Polacode

This extension is useful for every developer no matter what field you are in. As a developer, we often share code snippets with our friends and colleagues. With the help of Polacode, you can share them easily. To use this extension open the command palette (ctrl+shift+p, cmd+shift+p) and open the Polacode extension. Now copy the code you want to share and paste it into Polacode and now click the camera icon to save it on the desktop.

GitLens

As the name suggests it is a GitHub-related extension. It is by far the most powerful extension for working with source control, git, and GitHub out there in visual studio code. It shows a whole bunch of information like who committed it last and when was it changed, etc. For example Here when you put the cursor on these lines you get a faint message showing that I made a commit a month ago. And when you hover over this information you will get a lot of additional information.

Quokka.js

This extension allows you to test the javascript code easily in Visual studio code itself. We often use the chrome console window to check our code. It’s a hectic process isn’t it coming to the browser clicking on inspect and then going to the console window now here you can write and check you’re code. Instead, just open the quokka extension and you will be able to run the javascript code inside the editor itself.

Conclusion

These are some of the best visual studio code extensions that a web developer should be using. They are very helpful increases productivity and giving the access to a whole lot of options that we can’t find regularly. Try out all of these extensions and let me know you’re favorite one in the comments section. If you have any problems or issues installing please let me know. Thank you

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best extensions in VS Code?

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a popular code editor that is highly extensible, meaning that it can be customized with additional functionality through the use of extensions. There are a lot of extensions available for VS Code, and which ones are the “best” will depend totally on what you’re using.

What should I install in VS Code for web development? 

Well, you don’t have to install any additional features to write code in VS Code. If you want to add more features to our IDE then you can install the extensions mentioned in this article

Is VS Code suitable for web development? 

Yes, Visual Studio Code is absolutely suitable for web development. As of 2022, it is the most popular code editor. It is popular because it comes with a lot of additional features that you can install and use them. And VS Code has a very large developer community. So I highly recommend anyone to use the VS Code.

What extensions are available for VS Code?

There are thousands of extensions available on VS code. For Web development related you can install the above-mentioned extensions and start using them.