Productivity tips for developers using Windows 10

I’ve been a Windows user ever since I got my first computer. Over the years I’ve accumulated some best practices, tools and techniques that might help you be more productive. Here are some of them:

OS

• PowerToys - In build 17134, Microsoft reintroduced PowerToys - a suite if utilities that help with productivity. At present only two have been launched - Windows Key Shortcut Guide and Fancy Zones. The former launches a handy overlay which lists various useful OS shortcuts. The latter allows users to create custom layouts for you app windows.
• WSL - Need to use a tool that requires Linux? VMs can be bothersome. With WSL you can run a Linux distro in e terminal within Windows and not worry about virtualisation. The upcoming WSL2 promises massive improvements in features and performance.
• Open command window here - Are you browsing a directory in File Explorer and want to run a command in it? Opening a new terminal and navigating to the directory can be cumbersome. With this easy Registry update you can enable an option in File Explorer’s context menu that opens a new command prompt with the the directory already set.

Additional context menu features

• Command line alternatives - If you use a lot of commands you’re probably frustrated by the built-in tools. Cmder is a console emulator that adds useful features like aliases (here are some that I use), unix commands, tabs and others. Yes, it can also be added as a context menu option.

Chrome

• Toggle dev tools - F12
• Inspect DOM element - Ctrl + Shift + C

• Toggle docking position - Use Ctrl + Shift + D to toggle the DevTools dock state between the last two recently used states. Dock options are:

  • Dock to right
  • Dock to bottom
  • Undock DevTools

Visual Studio Code

• Integrate Cmder into VSC - Follow this guide if you use Cmder as VSCode’s integrated terminal
• Open with Code context menu - Want to right click a file or folder and open it in VSC? Make sure you enable those options when installing the code editor. If you’ve already installed without selecting those options - you’ll have to reinstall it with the additional tasks selected.

VSCode context menu features

Recommended Visual Studio Code Extensions (in no particular order)

• Settings Sync
• Code Spell Checker
• change-case
• Create Files & Folders : On The Go
• File Utils
• expand-region
• Bracket Pair Colorizer

Written by Boris Yordanov.