Web Essentials 2012

Free

Adds many useful features to Visual Studio for web developers.

(148) Review
Visual Studio
"12", 2012
Download (426,803)
5/5/2013
2.7
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Description
Reviews (148)
Q and A (246)
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by Jacco M | Sat 10:02 AM

Great tool. Esspecialy Less support! Thanks!

by D. Chatterjee | Fri 10:28 PM

I try to download this but an error shows "The extension manifest is Invalid"

by Fduch | May 14 2013

This "thing" pollutes the context menu for the non-web projects by adding a top menu item where the "Build" item used to be.

Why do some developers think that their shiny gizmo needs to jump at the user at every click?

Uninstalling.

by christensen.rob | May 10 2013

Love this extension!

by Allco | May 07 2013

GREAT, simplesmente, GREAT!!!!!

by EdSF1 | May 01 2013

Pretty awesome! Particularly cool with TypeScript!

by casper_wilkes | April 21 2013

Love this extension!

by Sebastian Hösl | April 18 2013

Absolutely essential for web-development in Visual Studio!

by WPCoder | April 07 2013

Unfortunately, it causes crashes nearly every time I start to debug the web project. I've tried the latest version and have the latest update to VS 2012. (When this is installed, can't debug, and VS2012 crashes, when it's not, everything works smoothly).

by Marcel Raad | April 05 2013

by GlobeCoder | March 31 2013

In theory this plugin would easily earn 5 stars, but it seems there are some issues with the js bundle plugin/minifier and JSHint.
Two things:
1.) The minified version doesn't seem to work all the time (I mean it might be something I could fix if I would "optimize" the JS code a bit more, but for small web project I just want something that works out of the box). One thing it "broke", e.g. was the jQuery plugin jTruncate.
2.) While it seem to compress better than YUI, Google Closure Compiler seems to make a better job even with the Simple optimzations. So maybe Web Essentials could use GCC and allow a new preference, something like "advanced=true" to achieve even better minification.
3.) And possibly the most important thing: JSHint should become more customizable. E.g. there is this other VS Extension JSLint that imo does a much better job (though I don't really want another VS extension installed): You can set your custom namespaces, it is possible to check a single file on save (much better than checking all files on build, which can get really annoying if you work on big JS projects).
Anyway, thanks for this quite helpful extension and up the good work.

by Altuğ Duygulu | March 27 2013

Good extension. Thanks.

by Lyamine | March 14 2013

so nice

by RichardKeller | March 08 2013

Very useful extension!
It helps productivity a lot and turn viable to use LESS in Visual Studio.
I'm looking forward for sass full integration too.

by Richard D | March 07 2013

Hi Mads,

Today I saw your session on Techday 2013 in Den Haag and you've made some really cool stuff!! The CSS hell is mitigated thanks to the Web Essentials 2012.

Many thanks.

Richard.

by Anita Malmö | March 07 2013

I've installed Web Essentials 2012 and Web Tools 2012.2 Update.

In my VS2k12, I don't see Web Essentials as in this picture
http://madskristensen.net/image.axd?picture=image_55.png

What gives? Can anybody advise?

by Jafin | March 06 2013

Thank you for elevating Visual Studio from out of the dark ages!! Awesome stuff.

by Jitbit1 | March 05 2013

No more LESS support in the latest version. But "LESS" is there on the product page, there's even a LESS-settings tab in the options. Thanks for ruining our work process.

This extension is #1 result in Google for "Visual Studio LESS".

PS. the new "ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2" only highlights LESS code, but does not compile it!!

Mads Kristensen March 05 2013
| Edit |
Delete

Web Tools 2012.2 provides the LESS editor. WE provides the compiler and additional features. You need both

by Tarek Ayna - Apexa | March 01 2013

by Keith5150 | March 01 2013

1 - 20 of 148 Items   
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  • some we-settings.xml are user specific
    1 Posts | Last Post February 15, 2013
    • Some we-settings.xml seems to be user specific instead of solution specific.
      For example, LessMargin_width. I see this value to be changed frequently by our team members. Generating a lot of checkin noise that does not add any value.
      
      Please remove user specific settings from the we-settings.xml.
      
      Thanks,
      // Ryan
  • CSS / SCSS super slow
    1 Posts | Last Post February 07, 2013
    • I have Web Essentials 2012 2.4.5 installed and my editing of CSS in a SCSS file is too slow to use.  Disabling Web Essentials fixes the issue.  But having Web Essentials enabled but all CSS features "off" results in the problem.  The issue is best seen when doing something like:
      
      color: #
      
      As I try to type each HEX value, VS locks up and the screen freezes for 5-30 seconds while it thinks about it.
      
  • Reverting to earlier version ??
    4 Posts | Last Post February 07, 2013
    • I'd like to go back to WE 2.3. I have it running on another machine but I can't find WebEssentials.vsix file. vsix files are there for other extensions. Anybody know where to find the WE 2.3 installation file(s)?
      And a request for Mads : would it be possible to keep previous versions available for download from the website?
    • I second that. Having the option to revert to a known working version would be great.
      
      Thanks,
      
      Rainer
    • I "third" that.
      
      More than once I've had major problems and could not roll-back, so I needed to unload the extension completely and work for a few days/weeks without all the other WE goodness that I've come to depend upon.
    • It's nothing against the hard work to get new features...we all want that, but the simple truth is this kind of work (this extension) is tricky, and letting us have a way to get the previous version just makes a ton of sense.
  • Javascript function dropdown list
    1 Posts | Last Post February 07, 2013
    • Any word on making a dropdown list of the JavaScript functions?  I'm telling you...this would be a major help for me.  I have made some .js libraries for my team that work great, but they're lengthy and when you need to quickly get to a particular function, this dropdown would be invaluable.
  • Dont get minification context menu option
    2 Posts | Last Post February 05, 2013
    • Im using in VS2012 and if I right click on a js/css file in solutiuon explorer I see the option e.g. "Minify CSS file(s)" but its greyed out?
    • The minify option on the file context menu marks it to be minified, i.e. WE adds the minified dependency and the .min.js is created on build (or re-minify all js/css from Build/Web Essentials). If the .js is already minified, the option in the file context menu is grayed out. Delete the minified files from the project and the option will become available.
  • Bundles aren't updating
    6 Posts | Last Post February 03, 2013
    • I created a JavaScript bundle, but the files aren't updating when I save or build. WE says they're updated in the Output window, but the js file contents don't change. Am I missing something? Is there a way to explicitly build them?
    • I have the same issue (using 2.4.5)
    • good point... I was on 2.4, but am still seeing it in 2.4.5 as well
    • Same issue here with 2.4.51 nightly
    • +1 here, me too
    • Looks like this issue is fixed in 2.4.6 nightly.
      
      Thanks!
      
  • Less problem (version 2.4.5)
    2 Posts | Last Post February 02, 2013
    • I get an error when I saved a less file.
      
      ---------------------------------------
      
      The Less code:
      
      @nice-blue: #5B83AD;
      #header { color: @nice-blue; }
      
      ---------------------------------------
      
      Preview Window:
      /*
      
      Compile Error. 
      See error list for details
      
      
      */
      
      
      ---------------------------------------
      
      Error List Window:
      
      Error	1	LESS: Syntax Error on line 1	H:\play.less	2	2	
      
      
      thanks.
    • This is caused by less file is saved with UTF 8 with signature. Try save it to ANSI or use Fix File Encoding
  • 2.4.5 seems slower/causes VS to freeze when compiling LESS
    1 Posts | Last Post February 01, 2013
    • I have a .less file with about 1000 lines in it (yes, it's huge) - and since upgrading to 2.4.5 when I save (and WE compiles & minifies) - VS becomes unresponsive for a couple of seconds.  It's not terrible, but just enough to be annoying.  It wasn't like this until I updated to 2.4.5 the other day.  I'm thinking of trying the nightly...
  • Build LESS on Demand
    2 Posts | Last Post January 31, 2013
    • Would it be possible to add an option to the context menu to allow me to rebuild my less files into css? The problem is, right now using the "generate css file on save" option makes it hard to use with a LESS framework like Bootstrap. I import the main bootstrap.less into my site.less. But if I need to make a change to any of the bootstrap files, I will get css files (or errors) each time I save one of the bootstrap files. So that means I needed to turn of the generation of files on save. But now I don't have an easy way to update my site.css file with the changes I've made to some of the bootstrap files. So I have to rebuild my whole project. It'd be great to have an option on the context menu to just regenerate the css files based on my less files. Is this possible? It'd might also be great to have the generate on save option work like the compile on build option, where it only generates files that already have a .css file. Or, to have a way to exlcude certain .less files from regenerating on save.
    • That would be great. I have exactly the same problem. Is there any solution for this?
  • Less auto complete is broken
    1 Posts | Last Post January 30, 2013
    • Hi, 
      less auto complete and intellisense is not working, but in CSS it is working fine.
      
      thanks in advanced.
      
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