This chapter will introduce you to the concept of PyCharm plugins and walk you through the process of downloading plugins and adding them to the PyCharm environment. In general, plugins are add-ons to PyCharm's core functionalities that can help improve your productivity in specific tasks. We have seen examples of these plugins with database management, when writing Markdown code, and when working with CSV data.

In this chapter, we will look in detail at the most popular PyCharm plugins and how they can optimize our productivity. These discussions will help you to familiarize yourself further with the concept of plugins, as well as learn more about the plugins that other PyCharm users have found useful.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Downloading and installing PyCharm plugins
• Working with plugins
• Using popular plugins for your projects

By considering the collection of PyCharm plugins available online, we will again emphasize the point of how extendable PyCharm is and that PyCharm users can always find new and better ways to facilitate the development process. By the end of the chapter, you will be ready to explore all the available plugins that can help you with your own projects.