Visual Studio 2019 Tricks and Techniques

Hot off the press! Paul Schroeder and Aaron Cure’s new developer productivity guide: Visual Studio 2019 Tricks and Techniques, published January 2021.

If you use Visual Studio or VS Code, this book is for you.

If you are a Microsoft C# developer with a fresh Visual Studio 2019 download, then this book is for you! Whether you are using Visual Studio Code or Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019 you can learn all the core knowledge required to be productive. Modern topics like Visual Studio Live Share and Visual Studio Codespaces are touched upon as well.

Pretty much every programmer is sure to pick up a few new tricks by going through the topics in this book and have as a reference to come back to when the time is right. But don’t take our word for it, read the PDF excerpt of this book’s forward written by Ed Price,  Senior Program Manager (of Architectural Publishing) at Microsoft for the Azure Architecture Center.

Or, view it on the publisher’s site here:

https://www.packtpub.com/product/visual-studio-2019-tricks-and-techniques/9781800203525

Chapter 1 answers the question, “What is Visual Studio?” from the perspective of an IDE. Differences between Visual Studio Community vs Professional, Visual Studio vs Visual Studio Code, and even Visual Studio for Mac are covered. The different product tiers available with Visual Studio subscriptions to help you install the right “flavor” of Visual Studio.

Readers learn about basic to intermediate-level functionality through numerous hands-on tutorials and exercises that cover:

  • Useful shortcuts and tricks to using the interface (chapters 2 and 3)
  • How to use a repo (all about Git and GitHub in chapter 4)
  • Database connections and data concepts (chapter 6)
  • Tips on compiling and debugging (chapter 7)

More experienced developers and readers looking to tackle advanced topics will enjoy:

  • Intellisense Code Snippets, including making your own custom code snippets (chapter 5)
  • How to become a legend with templates (chapters 8-10)
  • How to take full advantage of extensions (chapters 11-16)

As a mobile developer that switches between Visual Studio 2019 for PC and Visual Studio for Mac (because I like to build directly to the iOS and Android phones). I also use VSCode regularly to write firmware for IoT devices. I was thrilled to see that this book covers ALL THREE IDEs!

— Mobile Dev from Illinois

Fans of automatic code generation of RESTful API’s, repository patterns, and interfaces will appreciate the coverage of the CodeGenHero™ Visual Studio extension (chapter 14). Developers who are serious about writing secure code will recognize the value of the Puma Scan extension (chapter 15).

Chapter Listing:

  • CH1 – Flavors of Visual Studio
  • CH2 – Keyboard Shortcuts
  • CH3 – IDE Tips and Tricks
  • CH4 – Working with a Repository
  • CH5 – Snippets
  • CH6 – Database Explorers
  • CH7 – Compiling, Debugging, and Version Control
  • CH8 – Introduction to Project and Item Templates
  • CH9 – Create Your Own Templates
  • CH10 – Deploying Custom Templates
  • CH11 – VS 2019 Extensions Overview
  • CH12 – VS Code Extensions Overview
  • CH13 – CodeMaid is Your Friend
  • CH14 – Be Your Team’s Hero with CodeGenHero
  • CH15 – Secure Code with Puma Scan
  • CH16 – Other Popular Productivity Extensions

Authors

Paul Schroeder

Paul has been working with Visual Studio since the early days of .Net . In this book, Paul shares countless productivity tricks for all flavors of Visual Studio. He also walks the reader through the importance of code generation in enterprise software development settings. For more information on Visual Studio code generation, visit CodeGenHero.com.

Aaron Cure

Aaron has extensive experience with Visual Studio. He is a security training specialist, consultant and author of three technical books.