Best 5 vs code extensions for salesforce developers

Visual Studio Code is one of the greatest assets we have as Salesforce Developers. Times are gone days when you had to code in Developer Console, Notepad++, or heavy IDEs like Eclipse.

VS Code Extension For Salesforce

Being an open-source VS code community is emerging so fast and many contributors are contributing to it. Thanks to Open-Source!

It can be hard to find out the best extensions that are suitable for us. Having around two years of experience of using the VS Code for Salesforce Development.
I have found some extensions very useful. I am sharing those with you.

Install Link included for each of the extension at the end of each section.

1. Salesforce Lightning Code Snippets

This is the time saver for those who have a hard time remembering the syntaxes. Personally, I hardly remember the syntaxes, rather I remember the concepts (that is why it came at first position 😀).

Anyway, this Extension gives you various boilerplate code snippets of Lightning Web Components, Aura Components, SLDS, and JavaScript on your fingertips.

It can generate not only the plane examples of the components but also provides the possible property values for that.

Examples:

Type lwc and you get all available options, see below snapshot

LWC Code Snippets

Now try aura

Aura Code Snippets

Apart from LWC and aura components it also supports JS array functions, LWC imports, wire, promises, and a few others. so don't wait and...
Get it straight into your VS code.

2. Code Spell Checker

Its a simple spell checker that supports camelcase, pascal case. It highlights the variables, function, class names, and comments as well. It has a user and workspace specific dictionary where you can add your own words. It automatically suggests the relevant words for the misspelled word.

Other than English it also supports dictionaries for Dutch, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Medical Terms.

Examples:

Sharing some screenshots of it.

Spelling Mistake Highlights

Words Suggestions By Code Spell Checker

Get Code Spell Checker here.

3. Apex PMD

This allows you to run static code analysis/review on the apex code in VS Code. It supports Apex Classes, Triggers, and Visualforce Page. Below are the features of it:

• Run analysis on specific files, open files
• Analysis of the complete workspace
• You can define your own rulesets

Get Apex PMD here

4. Bracket Pair Colorizer

This extension matches and highlights the matching brackets with colors. This is very helpful to understand which bracket starts and ends where. We can define custom colors and custom characters to match, personally, the default setting worked best for me.

Get SLDS Validator here

5. Salesforce Package.xml Generator Extension for VS Code

This extension lets you create package.xml files very easily without writing any code, you just have to select the components from the list and, wallah!! 

Once you installed this, open the command palette (ctrl/cmd + shift + p) then type package.xml
See the below image.


Run Package.xml Generator

Now, you will see the below screen.

Package.xml Generator for Salesforce

On this screen, you can select the type of metadata from the left side, for example, ApexClass.
On the right side, there is a list of all metadata of the selected type. So, in this case, all the apex classes.

Once you are done with the selection of metadata of your choice, you can update the package.xml of the currently open project or you can copy it to the clipboard.
Get Bracket Pair Colorizer

Bonus: TabNine

This is most favorite of mine, I got to know about this after I posted this article, so I am adding this at the end.

Tab nine is All language auto-completer,  it suggests the semantically correct code while we are writing the code for any language. TabNine plugin uses machine learning to suggest the code. Especially its deep learning is very effective that I feel like it is reading my mind.

Also, TabNine does not need any configurations or setups, you need to install and that's it.

Get TabNine 

Conclusion

Skills are a must for any professional, but having the right tools enhance your productivity. I find these extensions great tools to improve my productivity, they save a lot of my time, make me a better developer!

So what are your favorite extensions, tools? How they make better, maybe the best?

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Enable code formatting for apex in vs code