Tools
Here’s a list of tools that I find useful in my day to day work as a developer (mostly .Net related). If you are looking for tools for a particular technology, you can filter by adding the keyword in the search text box below. You can also sort the tools by category or usage by clicking on the header. (If you haven’t already, make sure you check out Scott Hanselman’s tool list.)
| Name | Description | Category | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinqPad | Lets you query databases using Linq. Also lets you run any C#/VB expression, statement or program. | Misc | High |
| ReSharper | ReSharper provides solution-wide error highlighting on the fly, instant solutions for found errors, over 30 advanced code refactorings, superior unit testing tools, handy navigation and search features, single-click code formatting and cleanup, automatic code generation and templates. Another popluar alternative is CodeRush. | Code | High |
| Firebug | Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Use IE toolbar or Firebug Lite for IE. | Web Development | High |
| VsVim | Vim Emulation layer for Visual Studio 2010. A commercial Alternative (works w/ Visual Studio 2008 as well) is Viemu. | Visual Studio Extension | High |
| TestDriven.Net | TestDriven.Net makes it easy to run unit tests with a single click, anywhere in your Visual Studio solutions. It supports all versions of Microsoft Visual Studio and it integrates with the best .NET development tools. | Testing | High |
| SSMS Tool Pack | Best free SQL Server Management Studio Add-In | Sql | High |
| Vim | Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. I have been using it for the last year or so and am still a noob, but it’s my favorite editor. If it’s not for you, you might like Notepad ++ . | Misc | High |
| Log Expert | LogExpert is a Windows tail program (a GUI replacement for the Unix tail command) | Debugging | High |
| SqlSearch | SQL Search is an add-in for SQL Server Management Studio that lets you quickly search for SQL across your databases. | Sql | High |
| WinMerge | WinMerge is a Windows tool for visual difference display and merging, for both files and directories. Unicode support. Flexible syntax coloring editor. Windows Shell integration. Regexp filtering. Side-by-side line diff and highlights diffs inline. | Misc | High |
| F.lux | Makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. | Misc | High |
| Instapaper | Instapaper allows you to easily save urls for later, when you have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them. | Misc | High |
| SlickRun | SlickRun is a free floating command line utility for Windows. SlickRun gives you almost instant access to any program or website. An alternatives is Launchy. | Misc | High |
| Evernote | Capture and access content easily | Misc | High |
| Process Explorer | Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Overview | Admin | High |
| Growl For Windows | Growl for Windows is a Windows-compatible version of Growl, a notification system for Mac OS X. Visual Studio Addin | Misc | Medium |
| ILSpy | Open-source .NET assembly browser and decompiler. | Misc | Medium |
| ShiftIt | Lets you resize and move your windows without having to using a mouse. | Mac stuff | Medium |
| Snoop | Simplifies visual debugging of WPF applications at runtime | WPF/Silverlight | Medium |
| git-tfs | git-tfs is a two-way bridge between TFS and git. How-to | Misc | Medium |
| AutoTest.Net | AutoTest.NET is based off of autotest which is a popular Ruby tool for running your unit tests as soon as your save your files. This practice gives you immediate feedback and helps facilitate real test driven development. Getting Started | Testing | Medium |
| Hide Main Menu | After installing this extension, Visual Studio’s main menu will collapse when not in use (using the same behavior as Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer). | Visual Studio Extension | Medium |
| WoVS Quick Add Reference | Augments the smart tag that VS shows for unrecognized types giving you a chance to add the corresponding assembly reference for that type plus corresponding using clause if needed in a single shot. | Visual Studio Extension | Medium |
| Console | Windows console window enhancement. Console features include: multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles | Misc | Medium |
| SQL Complete | Provides SQL intellisense and formatting. | Sql | Medium |
| KillCassini | A Visual Studio extension to kill Asp.Net Web Development Server. | Visual Studio Extension | Medium |
| WoVS Default Browser Switcher | Easily change with a single click the default browser used by VS | Visual Studio Extension | Medium |
| Search References | Adds a “Search” textbox to the lovely “Add Reference” dialog allowing you to quickly find the assemblies you’re looking for. | Visual Studio Extension | Medium |
| Debugger Canvas | Debugger Canvas is a new user experience for the debugger in Visual Studio Ultimate. It pulls together the code youÕre exploring onto a single pan-and-zoom display. | Debugging | Low |
| jsshell | jsshell is a small command window placed within your Chrome browser that lets you run jQuery and jLinq commands no matter what page you’re on | Javascript | Low |
| SandCastle | Enables managed class library developers to easily create accurate, informative documentation with a common look and feel. How-To. | Misc | Low |
| Psscor4 | Psscor4 is a Windows Debugger extension used to debug .NET Framework 4 applications | Debugging | Low |
| Readability | Bookmarklet for clutter free reading online | Misc | Low |
| JSBin | JS Bin is a webapp specifically designed to help JavaScript and CSS folk test snippets of code, within some context, and debug the code collaboratively. It allows you to edit and test JavaScript and HTML (reloading the URL also maintains the state of your code - new tabs doesn’t). Once you’re happy you can save, and send the URL to a peer for review or help. They can then make further changes saving anew if required. | Javascript | Low |
| AutoHotkey | Automate sending keystrokes and mouse clicks by creating/recording macros. | Misc | Low |
| Bombali | Bombali is a monitoring tool that monitors websites (through HTTP GET), databases, servers (through PING), etc and sends notifications when they go down. | Admin | Low |
| CLR Profiler | The CLR Profiler includes a number of very useful views of the allocation profile, including a histogram of allocated types, allocation and call graphs, a time line showing GCs of various generations and the resulting state of the managed heap after those collections, and a call tree showing per-method allocations and assembly loads. | Misc | Low |
| DebugDiag | The Debug Diagnostic Tool (DebugDiag) is designed to assist in troubleshooting issues such as hangs, slow performance, memory leaks or fragmentation, and crashes in any Win32 user-mode process. The tool includes additional debugging scripts focused on Internet Information Services (IIS) applications, web data access components, COM+ and related Microsoft technologies. | Debugging | Low |
| Eazfuscator | Free obfuscator for .Net | Misc | Low |
| mRemote | Multi-tab remote connections manager. | Admin | Low |
| T4 Editor | Devart T4 Editor is a powerful Visual Studio add-in for editing T4 templates with syntax highlighting, intellisense, code outlining, and all features of a first-class text editor add-in for Visual Studio. | Dot Net | Low |
| iTerm2 | Replacement for Terminal | Mac stuff | Low |
| Regulator | An advanced Regular expressions testing tool, featuring syntax highlighting and web-service integration with Regexlib.comÕs database of online regular expressions. | Misc | Low |
| Log Parser 2.2 | Log parser is a powerful, versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data such as log files, XML files and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Windows¨ operating system such as the Event Log, the Registry, the file system, and Active Directory | Admin | Low |
| JsFiddle | A playground for web developers, a tool which may be used in many ways. One can use it as an online editor for snippets build from HTML, CSS and JavaScript. | Javascript | Low |
| Glimpse | Allows you to debug your web site or web service right in the browser. Glimpse allows you to “Glimpse” into what’s going on in your web server. In other words what Firebug is to debugging your client side code, Glimpse is to debugging your server within the client. | Asp.Net | Low |
| Sprite Me | Easily combine background images into CSS Sprites | Web Development | Low |
| Silverlight Spy | Silverlight Spy is a runtime inspector tool providing unprecedented access to all aspects of any Silverlight in-browser, out-of-browser and Windows Phone 7 application. Explore the UI element tree, monitor events, extract XAML, interactively execute DLR code, view statistics and more. | WPF/Silverlight | Low |
| QueryExpress | Query Express is a simple Query Analyzer look-alike, but being small and free it can be run where the SQL Server client tools are not installed or licensed. | Sql | Low |
| Silverlight Inspector | Silverlight Inspector is a utility for inspecting Silverlight XAP files. Developers and designers can use it to view the visual tree of an application and/or control and view assemblies within a XAP. | WPF/Silverlight | Low |
| WcfStorm | Makes testing WCF services easy. Both commercial and free version available | WCF | Low |
| Shazzam | Simplifies editing and testing WPF/Silverlight pixel shaders | WPF/Silverlight | Low |
| Visual T4 | Brings IntelliSense, syntax coloring, transformation preview, debugging support, and much more to your .T4 and .TT file editing experience. | Visual Studio Extension | Low |
| Ninite | Easy way to install and update lots of software, very helpful on a fresh OS install. | Misc | Low |
| SQLCop | Highlights potential problems in your SQL Server database. | Sql | Low |
| AnjLab SqlProfiler | SQL Server Express Edition Profiler provides the most of functionality standard profiler does, such as choosing events to profile, setting filters, etc. This is good while working with Sql Server Express, which does not come with a profiler. | Sql | Low |
| .Net Assembly Information | Display .NET Assembly Information like Compilation mode DebugRelease, Assembly full name and Assembly references | Misc | Low |
| Internals Viewer for Sql Server | Internals Viewer is a tool for looking into the SQL Server storage engine and seeing how data is physically allocated, organised and stored. | Sql | Low |
| Design | Design is a suite of web-design and development assistive tools which can be utilised on any web-page. Encompassing utilities for grid layout, measurement and alignment, Design is a uniquely powerful JavaScript bookmarklet. | Web Development | Low |
| Templify | Every project starts the same way: you create a place to put (Visual Studio) solution artefacts, on one file system, on one computer. Templify helps you work smart, not hard by reducing repetition | Misc | Low |
| Fiddler | Fiddler logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet and Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language. Make sure you check out the Addons. Wireshark is another alternative. | Web Development | Low |
| Storm | Makes testing Web services easy. | Web Development | Low |
| Presentation Zoom | Visual Studio Extension for global zoom | Visual Studio Extension | Low |
| Nitriq | Nitriq Code Analysis is an easy-to-use, powerful tool for code reviews, understanding your code base, finding Types and Methods that should be refactored, creating custom metrics, and enforcing best practices. | Code Quality | Low |
| Ncrunch | NCrunch is an automated parallel continuous testing tool for Visual Studio .NET. It intelligently takes responsibility for running automated tests so that you don’t have to, and it gives you a huge amount of useful information about your tests (such as code coverage) inline in your IDE while you work. An alternative to watch out for is Mighty-Moose. | Visual Studio Extension | Low |
| Spoon | Spoon enables users to launch desktop apps with no installs, letting you use and test apps instantly, wherever you are. Useful for testing websites across multiple browser versions. Some other options for cross browser testing . | Testing | Low |
| JSConsole | jsconsole.com is a simple JavaScript command line tool. However, it also provides the ability to bridge across to other browser windows to remotely control and debug that window - be it in another browser or another device altogether. | Javascript | Low |
| SnippetCompiler | Snippet Compiler compiles snippets. | Misc | Low |
| Sql HeartBeat | This tool displays the current activity on your server. | Sql | Low |
| StyleCop | StyleCop analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of style and consistency rules. It can be run from inside of Visual Studio or integrated into an MSBuild project. | Visual Studio Extension | Low |
| Xray | XRAY is a bookmarklet for Internet Explorer 6+, and Webkit and Mozilla based browsers (including Safari, Firefox, Camino or Mozilla). Use it to see the box model for any element on any web page. | Web Development | Low |
| Kaxaml | Kaxaml is designed to be “notepad for XAML.”. It gives you a “split view” so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content | WPF/Silverlight | Low |
| JsLint for Visual Studio | This extension provides JavaScript code analysis using JsLint, which allows you to check all your JavaScript source code for common mistakes without actually running the script or opening the web page. | Visual Studio Extension | Low |
| DebugView | DebugView is an application that lets you monitor debug output on your local system, or any computer on the network that you can reach via TCP/IP.Good how-to | Debugging | Low |
| Tutti | Test Javascript on different browsers simultaneously | Javascript | Low |
| WinDbg | Microsoft Windows Debugger (WinDbg) is a powerful Windows-based debugging tool. It is capable of both user-mode and kernel-mode debugging. Great resource | Debugging | Low |
| FxCop | FxCop is a code analysis tool that checks .NET managed code assemblies for conformance to the Microsoft .NET Framework Design Guidelines. | Misc | Low |