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VSLive! Dev Conference Tip Leads to New IDE Extension: Sql Formatter
New features for Visual Studio come from all manner of sources, with IDE extension author extraordinaire Mads Kristensen being near or at the top of the list. He solicits feature feedback regularly from many sources including social media, and that's where he recently revealed that his latest creation came from attending the VSLive! developer conference at Microsoft headquarters.
"During the VSLive! conference last week, it was brought to my attention that Visual Studio has no support for formatting SQL files. So, I wrote an extension. Give it a try!" he said.
[Click on image for larger view.] Sql Formatter in Marketplace (source: screenshot).
The tool is fittingly called Sql Formatter and it logically "Formats T-SQL code to a consistent and readable layout" with the Format Document command invoked by keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D). Released on Aug. 9, it has 95 installs at the time of this writing on Aug. 13.
[Click on image for larger view.] Sql Formatter (source: screenshot).
It can be downloaded from the Visual Studio Marketplace at the link above or devs can get the CI Build in the Open VSIX Gallery.
The social media post had 12 comments a day after it was posted, with several voicing enthusiastic approval.
"I will absolutely try this," said one comment. "I installed a SQL formatting extension but it chokes on postgres parameters (starting with : ) and the intellisense is hopeless. Please consider the workflow with pgtyped. We're still miles from the devx of the tsql window and queryfirst."
Follow Kristensen, principal product manager, Visual Studio, on social media, Microsoft developer blog posts, video channels and elsewhere to keep up with his latest creations and updates in the form of extensions, whose functionality often gets baked in to the IDE.
The VSLive! series of developer conferences is presented by the parent company of Visual Studio Magazine.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.