Top VSCode Extensions for Streamlining React and React Native Development

Visual Studio Code

Microsoft created the well-known source code editor Visual Studio Code (VSCode) to meet a variety of programming requirements. Developers on a variety of platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, like it because of its rich features and lightweight design. Developers frequently choose Visual Studio Code (VSCode), particularly when working with React and React Native. The development process is streamlined, productivity is increased, and code quality is improved by the large library of extensions that are available.

Popular Extensions

One of VSCode’s best features is its extensibility. The following crucial additions improve its functionality:

ES7+ React/Redux/React-Native Snippets

For developers working with React, Redux, and React Native, the ES7+ React/Redux/React-Native Snippets extension for Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is a vital resource. By offering a large collection of code snippets that enable the rapid compilation of boilerplate code, this addon greatly speeds up the development process, increasing productivity and decreasing repetitive work.

This extension is essential for speeding up development by providing a wide array of shorthand snippets for common tasks in React, Redux, and React Native. By typing short prefixes, developers can quickly generate boilerplate code for components, hooks, and more.

Key Features:

The addon offers shortcuts for a number of frequently used React and Redux patterns. For example, entering RAFCE saves setup time by generating a complete functional component structure. There are also snippets for GraphQL queries, Redux actions, and hooks.
It is adaptable to a variety of project kinds because it supports both TypeScript and JavaScript. Because of TypeScript’s type safety features, many developers are switching to it; therefore, this is very advantageous.
Users have the ability to alter snippet behavior to suit their tastes. Because of its adaptability, developers can modify the extension to better suit their workflow.
Supports JavaScript and TypeScript.
Generates code snippets for functional components, imports, and Redux operations.
Your code will be both functional and well structured thanks to the extension’s seamless integration with Prettier. Your codebase will remain consistent thanks to this integration.

Installation

Launch Visual Studio Code in order to install the ES7+ React/Redux/React-Native Snippets plugin.
Press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P on a Mac).
Press Enter after typing ext install dsznajder.es7-react-js-snippets.
Another option is to look it up directly in the VSCode Marketplace.

ESLint

A robust linting tool for JavaScript and JSX, ESLint, assists developers in finding and resolving issues in their code and identifying syntax mistakes. Developers can make sure that their code follows best practices, enhances readability, and remains consistent across projects by incorporating ESLint into Visual Studio Code (VSCode).

ESLint is essential for preserving the quality of code. It enforces coding standards throughout your project.

Key Features:

Configurable rules for team-wide consistency.
Works alongside Prettier to ensure that your code is both formatted and linted.
By checking your code for syntax mistakes and possible difficulties, ESLint helps you identify issues early in the development process.
ESLint can be set up by developers to enforce particular coding standards and styles based on the requirements of their project.
ESLint can streamline the development process by automatically resolving some problems when files are saved.

Installation

Launch VSCode and install the ESLint extension from the VSCode Marketplace.
Click the Extensions icon or press Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to open the Extensions view.
Look up “ESLint” and install Dirk Baeumer’s extension.
You must configure the extension for your project after installing it. Your project root contains an eslintrc.json file that you can build with the configuration you want.

Prettier

Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that formats your code automatically based on preset guidelines. It lessens the need for manual formatting by preserving a consistent style across your project. It ensures readability and cuts down on the amount of effort spent on manual formatting by automatically formatting code in accordance with a set of standardized principles. When several developers work together to contribute to the same codebase, this tool is quite helpful.

Key Features

Supports multiple languages, including JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, and CSS.
Can be configured to format on save, ensuring that all code adheres to the same style guide.
Numerous file types and programming languages are supported by Prettier, including: JavaScript, JSX, TypeScript, HTML, SCSS, CSS, JSON, Markdown (which includes MDX and GFM), YAML, GraphQL And more.
Prettier helps ensure a consistent style across your project by removing all of the original styling from your code and reprinting it with its own guidelines.
Prettier can format your code automatically each time you save a file by connecting with Visual Studio Code’s “format on save” feature. By guaranteeing that your code is always formatted appropriately without extra work, this feature increases efficiency.
Through configuration files (such as.prettierrc), developers can alter Prettier’s behavior, enabling teams to provide formatting guidelines relevant to their project requirements. This guarantees uniformity in various settings and configurations.

Installation

Use these steps to begin using Prettier in VSCode:

Get the Prettier Extension installed: Launch VSCode.
Click the Extensions icon or press Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to open the Extensions view.
Look up “Prettier-Code Formatter” and select “Install.”

React Refactor

One effective solution for making the process of restructuring React code within Visual Studio Code easier is the VSCode React Refactor plugin. Refactoring is frequently a difficult undertaking, particularly for large projects where preserving the structure and quality of the code is essential. With the aid of this extension’s many features, developers may effectively reorganize their code, making it clearer and easier to maintain.

Key Features

Supports TypeScript and JavaScript.
Provides options to extract functions or components with just a few clicks.
The ability of the VSCode React Refactor plugin to extract certain JSX into new components is one of its most notable capabilities.
The addon may manage all the difficulties associated with the transition by automatically converting class components to functional components.
To maintain uniformity throughout the codebase, developers can rename state variables and the setters that relate to them at the same time.
To improve efficiency, the extension enables wrapping JSX with hooks like useMemo, useCallback, or useEffect.
Because the extension works with TypeScript, developers may easily refactor TypeScript files. It can improve type safety by creating prop interfaces for extracted components.

Installation

Launch Visual Studio Code in order to install the VSCode React Refactor plugin.
The command palette can be accessed by using Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P on Mac).
Install planbcoding by typing ext. Press Enter after typing vscode-react-refactor.
As an alternative, you can install it straight from the VSCode Marketplace.

Import Cost

A Visual Studio Code feature called Import Cost allows programmers to monitor the size of imported JavaScript packages right in the editor. Front-end developers that need to control the performance of their applications by reducing bundle sizes will find this tool especially helpful. By emphasizing how each import affects the total bundle size, it assists developers in making well-informed decisions on dependencies.

Key Features

Inline display of package sizes.
Helps identify unused imports that can be removed to optimize performance.
In your code editor, Import Cost shows the size of imported packages inline. As they code, developers can see the effects of their imports thanks to this instant feedback, which helps them spot big dependencies before they become an issue.
The addon is flexible for a range of applications because it can be used with both JavaScript and TypeScript files.
Import Cost makes use of webpack’s tree-shaking features, which allow it to provide sizes depending on the actual contents of a package rather than the package’s overall size. This makes it easier to see how much a library is actually used.
To get a better idea of how much space the imports will take up in production, developers can set Import Cost to show the minified size, the gzipped size, or both.

Installation

Launch Visual Studio Code in order to install Import Cost.
Click the Extensions icon or press Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to open the Extensions view.
Install “Import Cost” after searching for it on the marketplace.
As an alternative, you can install it using the command palette by typing ext install wix.vscode-import-cost and pressing Enter after pressing Ctrl+P.

Simple React Snippets

Burke Holland developed the Visual Studio Code extension Simple React Snippets, which greatly increases developers’ efficiency when using React. This addon streamlines the process of developing React components and other common patterns by enabling users to produce boilerplate code rapidly with succinct shortcuts. With little typing, developers may easily incorporate frequently used patterns into their code.

Key Features

Easy-to-use shortcuts for importing React and creating components.
Over 2 million downloads indicate its popularity among developers.
Developers can write brief prefixes and expand them into whole code snippets with simple React snippets. Like Emmet, this feature makes it simple to add frequently used code structures without having to type them by hand.
Included are common snippets: ‘imr’, ‘imrc’, ‘cc’, ‘fcc’,’sfc’, and ‘cdm’.

Developers can concentrate on functionality rather than boilerplate code by using these snippets, which are made to address the most common activities in React development.

Installation

To install Visual Studio Code, launch it.
Click the Extensions icon or press Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to open the Extensions view.
Install “Simple React Snippets” after searching for it.

Auto Close Tag & Auto Rename Tag

For developers working with HTML and JSX (used in React), the Auto Close Tag and Auto Rename Tag extensions for Visual Studio Code (VSCode) are indispensable resources. By making managing HTML/XML tags easier, these additions increase developer productivity, lower error rates, and improve the JSX editing experience.

Auto Close Tag: When you input an opening tag, Auto Close Tag automatically adds the closing tag. In HTML and JSX files, where failing to close a tag might result in rendering problems and errors, this functionality is especially helpful.

Auto Rename Tag: When one of the paired HTML/XML tags is changed, the Auto Rename Tag automatically changes the other tag’s name. This feature makes it simpler to manage your markup and is similar to behavior seen in other IDEs, such as Visual Studio.

Key Features

Reduces manual tag management.
Ensures consistency in tag names throughout your codebase.
The plugin automatically creates the matching closing tag (</div>) as soon as you input an opening tag (⁣<div>).
Although this functionality is mostly intended for HTML and JSX-based react, it can also be used with other languages that make use of comparable tag structures.

Installation

For Auto Close Tag:

Open VSCode.
Click the Extensions icon or press Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to open the Extensions view.
Look up “Auto Close Tag” and set it up.

Auto Rename Tag:

Open VSCode.
Open the view for Extensions.
Look for “Auto Rename Tag” in the marketplace and install it.

GitLens

GitLens is a robust open-source addon for Visual Studio Code that improves the editor’s integrated Git features. GitLens, created by GitKraken, is a vital tool for anyone working with version control since it gives developers a comprehensive collection of tools to traverse repositories, view code authorship, and learn about code changes, which enhances your Git workflow in VSCode. It makes it easier to comprehend who made modifications to files and how they were done, which is very helpful for group work.

Key Features

Inline blame annotations.
Detailed commit history exploration tools.
You can check who last changed a line of code and why with GitLens.
You can quickly discover authorship details and recent modifications thanks to this feature, which shows contextual information at the top of each file and code block.
GitLens offers a visually appealing commit graph that lets you examine the history of your repository.
An whole file’s extensive annotations, including authorship details and recent modifications displayed in a heatmap format, are viewable. This makes it easier to see which sections of the code have undergone frequent modifications.
You may filter commits using a variety of parameters, including author, message, and date, thanks to GitLens’ powerful commit search capabilities. This is very helpful for locating particular modifications in big projects.

Installation

Launch Visual Studio Code in order to install GitLens.
Click the Extensions icon or press Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to open the Extensions view.
Do a search for “GitLens” and select “Install.”

As a React or React Native developer, you may greatly increase your productivity by adding these extensions to your VSCode configuration. From producing clean code to effectively managing complicated projects, each tool tackles a certain development difficulty. Try out these extensions to see which combination works best for your workflow, and you’ll see that the development process becomes more efficient and enjoyable.