CodeRush builds an internal source tree of your C# or VB.NET code. It also has code generating ability - that is, you can take a portion of the tree and generate C# or VB.NET code from it. That got me to thinking about a way of leveraging this ability to build a simple code translator so you could do something like open up a C# file and view the VB.NET equivalent in a tool window (or vice-versa). It turns out the code to do something like this is really straightforward; it's a single method call once you have a reference to the code elements. It doesn't always generate the correct set of code, but it's still really helpful. You basically move the cursor around and the window will display the translated code that is currently "in scope". That is, if you're inside of a method it will show you code for that method. If you move the cursor out to the class, it will show you that class.

To install it, just copy it to your plug-in directory (usually C:\Program Files\Developer Express Inc\DXCore for Visual Studio .NET\2.0\Bin\Plugins\). When you start up Visual Studio a new menu option will appear under DevExpress > Tool Windows > Translator. The window shows a number of different .NET languages, but in reality CR only supports VB.NET and C#.

BTW - I've mentioned CodeRush/Refactor! and while that's a commercial product you can also download CodeRush by itself for free (and use any third party plug-ins or write your own). You just don't get any of the built-in templates or refactoring tools that the commercial product offers.

Oh, you can download the plug-in from here: http://www.rcs-solutions.com/Download.ashx?File=CR_Translator.zip or from the community plug-in site in a few days.

Links:

http://www.devexpress.com
http://code.google.com/p/dxcorecommunityplugins/