How to Connect Visual Studio with Gitlab

Visual Studio is a platform that Microsoft developed for app creation. It uses platforms like Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, and Windows Store to develop new software solutions. As a free extension for Visual Studio, Gitlab offers managing tools to integrate, configure, and maintain your code.

In this article, we’ll explain how to connect Visual Studio with Gitlab, as well as suggest other great extensions for developers to use with this platform.

How to Connect the Tool

Instead of using multiple apps to follow your program’s whole life cycle, Gitlab can do all that work for you. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Gitlab website or your Gitlab server.
2. Type your email, username, and password.
3. Use “GitLab ApiV4 Oauth2”.

If you’re willing to add an existing solution to GitLab, here’s the process:

1. Open the code in Visual Studio.
2. Open “File” and choose “Add to Source Control.”
3. Find the “Team Explorer” tab and using “Local Git Repositories, click on three dots to navigate your project folder. Then click “Add.”
4. On the top, you’ll have to open a dropdown menu and click on “Sync.”
5. Under the “Gitlab,” find and click “Publish.”

Other Useful Virtual Studio Extensions

Glyphfriend

Glyphifriend is a Visual Studio 2017 extension that can enhance the Intellisense to display glyphs. You can easily find it and install it through the “Tools” area in Visual Studio – and that’s how Glyphfriend can become a part of your toolkit on VS.

After installation, this extension will successfully detect when a valid HTML flavored file is appended and add supporting icons.

File Icons

If you want to use file icons for specific file types, this extension is ideal for you. On File Icons, you can also suggest new icons for file types that you’re often using. That way, you’ll always know what kind of files you have in your folders.

File Nesting

File Nesting allows you to group files automatically and manually according to their names. You can also change the nesting rules and quickly apply them to your entire project or some of its parts. Its key features are:

1. Manually nesting or unnesting files
2. Auto-nesting based on different naming rules
3. Auto-nesting for added or renamed files

Magical C# Debugging – OzCode

OzCode is a VS extension that makes your debugging process faster and more productive as its tracking down and isolating code bugs. This way, you can quickly fix them without losing precious time. OzCode gets integrated with the Visual Studio debugger to expand its features. With OzCode, you can predict future code functionality, have insights, and evaluate expressions.

The usual debugging process allows you to see how your app is functioning in the present. Every time you get to the breaking point, OzCode can evaluate your code lines and predict the result with a Heads-Up display.

OzCode even came up with a “Simplify” option that makes code visualizations for a developer to see which expressions are true or false instantly.

Import Cost

The Import Cost plugin is made for JavaScript and TypeScript, and it helps you keep track of new or recently added dependencies to your project. It can show you the size of dependence and help you with its management.

Project Manager

Managing multiple projects is never easy; that’s why this extension immediately creates a sidebar to make all your projects accessible. It helps you with Git, SVN, and Mercurial repositories and manages remote repositories as well. It’s possible to tweak all the Project Manager’s settings and customize the extension to work best for you.

SVG Viewer

SVG are usually text files that store vector images for the web. Since all of them are in text format, you’ll need a way to render those files in Visual Studio to see all the vector photos. It saves you a lot of time as you don’t have to switch apps to review what you’ve done.

Debugger for Chrome

Every developer that works with JavaScript has to test code in a browser. Chrome Dev Tools provides you with an effective way to debug any JavaScript through Chrome. Since Visual Studio can be integrated, many debugging features can save a significant amount of time and quickly identify code bugs without ever leaving VS.

SideWaffle Template Pack

This extension is offering project templates for building websites, Windows apps, and a lot more. All templates are written by talented developers to help Visual Studio users be more productive and create well-structured code.

Keep on Coding

Visual Studio enables developers worldwide to integrate their development tools with new apps to increase productivity and ensure they’re ready for launch. With an abundance of plugins and extensions, the core functionality of Visual Studio is continually growing.

Now that you’re able to connect Visual Studio with GitLab, you can use its features to be more successful at coding. That’s why many developers use it as it offers a lot more than the competition.

Was it easy to connect Visual Studio with GitLab? What are your must-have extensions for VS? Let us know in the comments section below.