If I turn off ReSharper 5's IntelliSense, what am I missing?

Question

During my trial of ReSharper 5, I noticed its version of IntelliSense falls behind Visual Studio 2010's in three ways that were key to me:

1. ReSharper doesn't support IntelliSense in the "QuickWatch..." debugger utility.
2. ReSharper's IntelliSense seems to break down for me in .aspx files between the <%= %> tags.
3. I couldn't find a way to get a listing of properties within an object initializer block. (VS does this if you hit the space key.)

Thankfully ReSharper lets you use Visual Studio IntelliSense alongside its other great features. Am I missing out on anything great by not using ReSharper's IntelliSense?

Answer 1

Well you're losing quite a bit. Here are some quick facts about ReSharper code completion: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/webhelp/Coding_Assistance__Code_Completion.html

Smart Completion (Ctrl+Shift+Space in IntelliJ IDEA keymap) is especially useful because in common scenarios it gives you a narrow selection of symbols that you most likely want to complete, and in some cases acts as a shortcut to code generation features

By the way, Smart Completion is the kind of completion that you should use with object initializers: www.jetbrains.com/resharper/webhelp/Coding_Assistance__Code_Completion__Smart.html#object_initializers

As for completion within the <%= %> pair, this should work fine. Please let us know what exactly went wrong by submitting an issue to youtrack.jetbrains.net/issues/RSRP Thanks!

P.S. I work at JetBrains

Answer 2

No you're not missing much apart from a test runner that supports NUnit. I've had the same problem and also (rather worryingly), hideous performance. I tend to use the productivity power tools extension and the native refactor stuff instead. Info here:

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/d0d33361-18e2-46c0-8ff2-4adea1e34fef

R# also does stuff which I plainly do not want to do and my code ends up littered with commented resharper hints.

Answer 3

A five minute comparison I'd say that ReSharper's gives you a bit of help in the typing.

So if you have a method that's A(int a, int b) and you hit ctrl+space when you select A it will add (), will place you in the middle of the brackets and will show you the information about the method. Other than that you're probably not missing much.

For me that is quite helpful, but if you're having trouble doing ASP.NET and those are known bugs / limitations its always best to pick the best tool for the job.

Answer 4

I find the CompleteCodeSmart functionality something I use frequently and save me alot of typing.

Answer 5

Personally I turn it off. It is annoying and slows me down. Here is a prime example: