Code OSS, (or VS Code) as an IDE are both really powerful when you get to leverage their available extensions. If you follow the VS Code tiktok you always find helpful tips and extensions that come in handy. In this series I will try and highlight some of my favourite extensions.

Thunderclient

If you develop APIs and you want to test as you go, Thunderclient is a great alternative to Postman or Curl. With it being within your IDE you don't have to jump between applications whenever testing is required. I came across it when I was building a rails backend for a react application I was working on. Their documentation is easy enough to understand. If you are in any way versed with Postman, you will feel right at home with Thunderclient.

Todo Tree

I write a lot on paper when I am working on a problem. The problem is usually that when I need to move around my work always gets messed up. I have also been in meetings where I add all my todos in a todo.txt file. Todo Tree however is a bit of a saving grace. By just adding a comment starting with the word todo for instance

// TODO write tests for this function

I can then check the todo side tab and see all the todos left for me to do. Just don't forget to clear your todos before pushing to prod :)

Drawio Integration

During my college days I used to use Drawio to draw wireframes and flowcharts. When I found that there is a VS Code extension that allows me to do it in the IDE it was a no brainer. I have found it is also useful whenever I am screen sharing to use it as a whiteboard during meetings. All you have to do is create a new file with the .drawio extension and you're off to the races. You can then export to .svg and .png as you see fit. However, it is an unofficial extension, so you should beware.

Tailwindcss Intellisense

This was a recommendation from a friend. Tailwindcss Intellisense provides insight into which CSS properties your tailwind code affects. Great for anyone who does a lot of frontend with tailwindcss.