Useful Free Programming Utilities

Posted to Beckhoff Blog on Apr 23, 2009

I was cleaning up my computer, and decided to take an inventory of some of the more useful free programs that I have installed.

I built up a list by inspecting these areas:

1. Remove Programs List
2. Program Files folder
3. Startup Menu Folder
4. Registry Startup Keys

It seems we need an ever increasing array of tools to build software effeciently. My list of programs has grown to what seems like an alarming number. However, I believe this is just a way of life for PC based development. Ever more powerful computers are coming out, and IDE's are constantly evolving into more massive installations. It seems the release of new, faster, less expensive, and even free applications will never slow.

Here's a short list of some of the most useful free applications I've installed: Some are pretty obvious, but I include them all regardless. There will come a day when I get a new PC or need to rebuild my OS, and I would like to come back here to remind me of some of my favorite free tools.

If links are not provided, I am sure you can google these to find download sites quite easily.

1. Paint.NET

Download: www.getpaint.net. This is a free graphic editing tool can be used to create and modify many types of formats. I am not a Photoshop expert at all, and I use this application all the time instead. It gets the job done effectively. I've also heard OpenOffice has a free graphics tool, but I have never tried it. .

2. FreeCommander

Download: www.freecommander.com. Windows explorer, especially in Vista, does not seem tailored to a highly productive developer's uses. This tool is an alternative to Windows Explorer. It includes many useful power features, like tabbed and split windows that makes file management more efficient. I haven't used all the features yet, for example there is comparison features, and FTP features, but even just as a basic file manager, it blows Windows Explorer away.

3. WinMerge

Download: www.winmerge.org. This is a free tool to compare files and folders. Essential if you are doing version comparisons of folders.

4. Filezilla

Download: www.filezilla-project.org. This tool comes in 2 parts, and can be installed as an FTP client or server. If you are moving files around to servers, particularly web sites, this is an essential tool. I have also used the web server on some applications, but on production hosted, secure environments, I still prefer to use Windows Server IIS FTP services.

5. ManicTime

Download: www.manictime.com. This application is used to track your computers activity. I like it as a consultant because it is easy to look at the graphic at the end of the day or week to determine how many hours I have spent in each application.

6. PdfCreator

This free tool can be downloaded from Sourceforge, and it acts like an ordinary printer on your system. It can be selected to print documents to PDF files or to email messages. I had installed this in the past to enable Word documents to be converted into PDF, however I only recently realized that in the newer Office 2007 suite, there are features for directly saving a document to PDF as a built in feature.

7. Consolas Font Family

From the download site: The Microsoft Consolas Font Family is a set of highly legible fonts designed for ClearType. It is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. This installation package will set the default font for Visual Studio to Consolas.

This font is very easy to read and is and a great choice for Visual Studio and TwinCAT PLC editors. It is monospaced, which means all characters line up. If you don't have this font installed, I like to use Lucidia Console in TwinCAT PLC, which makes the semicolon very easy to read.

8. DevCodeEx

This tool is used for extracting the form generation code from a form's .vb or .cs class into a new partial class file.

I have use this to upgrade older windows forms projects. Partial classes were not available in older versions of visual studio, so teh form generated code was combined with the code behind. With Visual Studio 2005, the form generated code is separated into a partial class. This is an essential tool if upgrading from older projects, and will make your code much more maintainable.

9. ComponentOne Demoworks

This free tool from ComponentOne and can be used to make 30 second demo screen videos. Honestly I haven't had a lot of time to play around with it yet, but for many short help video snippets, I think this could be an excellent tool.

10. CamStudio

This is a free screen video recording tool and can be used to make longer demo screen videos. It takes some work and time to use this combined with Windows MovieMaker to get a small .wmv format video. I am not a video expert, but this is the method I have used in the past. I hope to learn some more efficient ways to do this if there is something out there.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

This one is pretty obvious, but I have been on a new OS or server install many times, tried to view a PDF, and no PDF reader is installed. It's an annoying time delay, and it's thoughtful to install a reader immediately after OS setup in many cases to avoid this delay. Sometimes on production machines for example, there is not internet connection, so you have to have a setup handy, or you can be stuck not being able to read critical documentation. .

More Programs?

I'm sure there are many more tools I'm not mentioning here, and I would be interested in your comments and other useful items that you have found.