Just a mindless little place to share gems. I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of awesome little pieces of freeware that people can't live with in their daily coding/building/programming lives that you just know save you countless days per year. I'm not talking about the numerous coding/dev environments here (Aptana, Notepad++, Edira, Dreamweaver, WAMPP, LAMP, XAMPP, etc) but other little periphery software packages that make a difference.

My 2 to get us started are:

Agent Ransack - I really did waste a LOT of my life until this point. Need to find that needle in your application/website haystack? This software is excellent for searching the contents of your files for references. VERY useful if you are hacking core codes in Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, etc

Heidi SQL - So much more elegant that phpmyadmin and with all the functionality. It can be difficult to set-up on some hosting packages, but any decent server set-up will work with it.

What are your recommendations? I reckon that we could all have plenty of suggestions quite soon given the caliber of some of the contributors to this forum. LINUX package suggestions welcomed as it might help some of us reconsider a move across (though please don't make this another LINUX vs Windows debate, thanks) if we had plenty of decent suggestions to help speed up porting our dev environments.

My favourite piece of software is Autohotkey. It's free, open source software. You write macros for Autohotkey to execute.

With Autohotkey you can make your PC do all sorts of things - basically, anything - with a single-click of a shortcut (or double-click if that's how you've set up your Windows' "Folder Options").

For example, if I want to get the subtitles for the latest episode of a TV series that I have downloaded, I click on a particular shortcut. That runs Autohotkey which opens Firefox at the subtitle website. It makes Firefox go to the correct series page on that website for downloading the subtitle and it positions Firefox at the top half of my monitor screen.

It then opens Windows Explorer at my download folder and positions it bottom left of my screen.

If then opens another Windows Explorer at the location where I have saved all the episodes of the TV series. It positions that at bottom right.

So I download the subtitle file which appears in the folder at bottom left. I drag that file to the folder at bottom right. Job done.

The Autohotkey program is so named because it is intended to allow users to hit a combination of keys - e.g. Alt+Shift+Y - to make something happen. So that is the "hotkey" function.

But I only use it in command files. So I have shortcuts to these command files and they run Autohotkey, passing parameters to it so it knows what to do.

I have 253 Autohotkey macros, but probably use only a couple of dozen regularly.

Edit:

Just tried AgentRansack... excellent!!

Edited May 25, 201313 yr by JetsetBkk

I'm not sure if this fits your criteria .. but Alert Wildcard is an outstanding tool.

I'm not sure if this fits your criteria .. but Alert Wildcard is an outstanding tool.

Very useful if you are editing large "traditional" html sites. Saves opening all files in your editor.

I'm not sure if this fits your criteria .. but Alert Wildcard is an outstanding tool.

Very useful if you are editing large "traditional" html sites. Saves opening all files in your editor.

Dreamweaver has some pretty good search & replace capabilities, but everything must be an exact match or you have to know/understand regular expressions .. which I don't. With Alert, you can mix and match .. if you do it carefully.

I'm not sure if this fits your criteria .. but Alert Wildcard is an outstanding tool.

Very useful if you are editing large "traditional" html sites. Saves opening all files in your editor.

Dreamweaver has some pretty good search & replace capabilities, but everything must be an exact match or you have to know/understand regular expressions .. which I don't. With Alert, you can mix and match .. if you do it carefully.

Notepad++ the same, but you have to open all the files first. Looks like Alert Wildcard works through the files without opening them first.

^^ And very quickly. Where DW takes minutes to S & R text and html code in a few hundred files, Alert takes seconds. BTW, the reason I included it a freeware, the "trial period" is broken.

I'm not sure if this fits your criteria .. but Alert Wildcard is an outstanding tool.

Very useful if you are editing large "traditional" html sites. Saves opening all files in your editor.

Dreamweaver has some pretty good search & replace capabilities, but everything must be an exact match or you have to know/understand regular expressions .. which I don't. With Alert, you can mix and match .. if you do it carefully.

Notepad++ the same, but you have to open all the files first. <snip>

Not so. You can specify folders and file types to search, or just the currently open files.

My favorite app it's a collection of apps

http://portableapps.com/

Kitty, Firefox, Notepad++, Thunderbird and a bunch of other included

I using almost everything portable, so I carry all my setup completely independent from the OS

Portable Dropbox

sysinternal and nirsoft tools for sys admin network stuff

and some other random app

VMware stuff, Bluestack for virtual machines

really are not my favorite but is that I usually carry on

Dream Weaver Suck only useful for designers or people that can't deal with html, css, php/asp

For batch replace I use this tool http://www.funduc.com/search_replace.htm before I made my own in VB that change inclusive directories and file names

DreamWeaver does suck indeed. However it is a good starting point for many and does help teach with it's combined visual/code interface. Anyway, this isn't about dev environments. Thanks for your input ITGabs. Portable apps are useful and more people could benefit from them, particularly if they frequent internet cafes, etc.

Linux based....

Guake or yakuake. Drop down terminal on demand.

Gedit with a few plugins. Perfect editor without the bloat.

Webmin. Powerful (more control than cpanel) and advanced web based server manager.

Universal benefits

Dual screens. Instantly doubled productivity for most coding and serious work.

Agent ransack is top notch! much better than windows search.

Other free goodies I came across:

- snatch videos with: http://www.downloadhelper.net

- VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/

- Media Player Classic: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download- ... ic-hc.html

- convert video, any format, with freemake video converter: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

- download videos or extract video sound to mp3: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_downloader/

- convert audio: http://www.freemake.com/free_audio_converter/

- see the size of each directry tree in Windwos with treesize free: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

- drag & drop no hands picture resizer: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

- a real text editor, no file is too big, tons of features: textpad http://www.textpad.com/download/index.html

textpad is enough for all my uses of a text editor except for one thing: multi line search & replace.

For this, I use editpad lite: http://www.editpadlite.com/

Edited May 31, 201313 yr by manarak

My favorite app it's a collection of apps

http://portableapps.com/

Kitty, Firefox, Notepad++, Thunderbird and a bunch of other included

I using almost everything portable, so I carry all my setup completely independent from the OS

Portable Dropbox

sysinternal and nirsoft tools for sys admin network stuff

and some other random app

VMware stuff, Bluestack for virtual machines

really are not my favorite but is that I usually carry on

Dream Weaver Suck only useful for designers or people that can't deal with html, css, php/asp

For batch replace I use this tool http://www.funduc.com/search_replace.htm before I made my own in VB that change inclusive directories and file names

I use nirsoft tools too.

I use this in various command files to adjust the PC speaker volume:

"nircmd.exe setsysvolume 50000" - that's loud

"nircmd.exe setsysvolume 5000" - that's quiet

SQLyog is pretty useful, especially the php tunnel script for servers that are setup with only localhost mysql access and no phpmyadmin

Filezilla is useful; but I really don't like the guys that run the project, ANY suggestions by the community are always "wrong", "unnecessary" etc...'we know what's best and everyone else better just learn to like it' types.

Dream Weaver Suck only useful for designers or people that can't deal with html, css, php/asp

For batch replace I use this tool http://www.funduc.com/search_replace.htm before I made my own in VB that change inclusive directories and file names

I find Dreamweaver to be the easiest to work with in terms of code highlighting/formatting. And I've tested a lot of alternatives (Notepad++, KompoZer, Bluefish, Aptana)

Edited May 31, 201313 yr by dave111223

Dream Weaver Suck only useful for designers or people that can't deal with html, css, php/asp

For batch replace I use this tool http://www.funduc.com/search_replace.htm before I made my own in VB that change inclusive directories and file names

I find Dreamweaver to be the easiest to work with in terms of code highlighting/formatting. And I've tested a lot of alternatives (Notepad++, KompoZer, Bluefish, Aptana)

Everybody has their preference. I have found the "Deep Black" style, in Notepad++, to be VERY easy to read at a glance for php, html and css. There are plugins that might help your transition if you were interested (and didn't want to pay for a code editor). I found Aptana to be very confusing at first glance but worked with DW and Notepad++ side by side for a couple of projects then uninstalled DW to never have it back again.

Edited June 1, 201313 yr by draftvader

Agent ransack is top notch! much better than windows search.

Other free goodies I came across:

- snatch videos with: http://www.downloadhelper.net

- VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/

- Media Player Classic: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download- ... ic-hc.html

- convert video, any format, with freemake video converter: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

- download videos or extract video sound to mp3: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_downloader/

- convert audio: http://www.freemake.com/free_audio_converter/

- see the size of each directry tree in Windwos with treesize free: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

- drag & drop no hands picture resizer: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

- a real text editor, no file is too big, tons of features: textpad http://www.textpad.com/download/index.html

textpad is enough for all my uses of a text editor except for one thing: multi line search & replace.

For this, I use editpad lite: http://www.editpadlite.com/

Like the treesize viewer, very helpful for auditing large websites on localhost.

SQLyog is pretty useful, especially the php tunnel script for servers that are setup with only localhost mysql access and no phpmyadmin

Filezilla is useful; but I really don't like the guys that run the project, ANY suggestions by the community are always "wrong", "unnecessary" etc...'we know what's best and everyone else better just learn to like it' types.

SQLyog is payware, but not too expensive. I use Filezilla, but do find the continual "tiny" updates annoying. I just wish they could set a schedule and stick to it except for critical updates! It is, however, VERY easy to use.

Edited June 1, 201313 yr by draftvader

Agent ransack is top notch! much better than windows search.

Other free goodies I came across:

- snatch videos with: http://www.downloadhelper.net

- VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/

- Media Player Classic: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download- ... ic-hc.html

- convert video, any format, with freemake video converter: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

- download videos or extract video sound to mp3: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_downloader/

- convert audio: http://www.freemake.com/free_audio_converter/

- see the size of each directry tree in Windwos with treesize free: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

- drag & drop no hands picture resizer: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

- a real text editor, no file is too big, tons of features: textpad http://www.textpad.com/download/index.html

textpad is enough for all my uses of a text editor except for one thing: multi line search & replace.

For this, I use editpad lite: http://www.editpadlite.com/

Like the treesize viewer, very helpful for auditing large websites on localhost.

for websites, I use "du -h --max-depth=1" on debian

Agent ransack is top notch! much better than windows search.

Other free goodies I came across:

- snatch videos with: http://www.downloadhelper.net

- VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/

- Media Player Classic: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download- ... ic-hc.html

- convert video, any format, with freemake video converter: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

- download videos or extract video sound to mp3: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_downloader/

- convert audio: http://www.freemake.com/free_audio_converter/

- see the size of each directry tree in Windwos with treesize free: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

- drag & drop no hands picture resizer: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

- a real text editor, no file is too big, tons of features: textpad http://www.textpad.com/download/index.html

textpad is enough for all my uses of a text editor except for one thing: multi line search & replace.

For this, I use editpad lite: http://www.editpadlite.com/

Like the treesize viewer, very helpful for auditing large websites on localhost.

for websites, I use "du -h --max-depth=1" on debian

Any breakdown on that syntax for the unaware?

Agent ransack is top notch! much better than windows search.

Other free goodies I came across:

- snatch videos with: http://www.downloadhelper.net

- VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/

- Media Player Classic: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download- ... ic-hc.html

- convert video, any format, with freemake video converter: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

- download videos or extract video sound to mp3: http://www.freemake.com/free_video_downloader/

- convert audio: http://www.freemake.com/free_audio_converter/

- see the size of each directry tree in Windwos with treesize free: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

- drag & drop no hands picture resizer: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

- a real text editor, no file is too big, tons of features: textpad http://www.textpad.com/download/index.html

textpad is enough for all my uses of a text editor except for one thing: multi line search & replace.

For this, I use editpad lite: http://www.editpadlite.com/

Like the treesize viewer, very helpful for auditing large websites on localhost.

for websites, I use "du -h --max-depth=1" on debian

Any breakdown on that syntax for the unaware?

here are the details of the command "du" (disk usage) - it's made for system admins, so it's not too user friendly, sorry! but it is pretty simple and straightforward

http://linux.die.net/man/1/du

Edited June 1, 201313 yr by manarak

Just something whilst I remember. If you have installed Agent Ransack then note that you now have a new right click contextual option. This is, for me, the most powerful part of Agent Ransack as it is well integrated into Windows.

Almost forgot about CoreLiteFTP .. solid, nice features, free

Haven't seen anyone mention Irfanview a small image editor.

http://www.freehtmlvalidator.com well worth the price.

Almost forgot about CoreLiteFTP .. solid, nice features, free

Haven't seen anyone mention Irfanview a small image editor.

http://www.freehtmlvalidator.com well worth the price.

I have used Irfanview and found it to be very good for simple image editing. For more complex we should mention (like it needs any promotion) GIMP which is a viable alternative to Photoshop. Photoshop is one of the last pieces of payware in my software. I would like to move over to GIMP but, like so many others, I have to find the time to retrain my brain for GIMP. After many years of using Photoshop I will have to unlearn so much.

> Draftvader

You mentioned disliking Filezilla's frequent updates. I strongly recommend CoreLiteFTP = free .. no nag screen, just a few second delay to open. It's very lean and has some nice features that many ftp clients don't -- one being a column for files and folders that shows "owner" (linux server). You can do lots of customization. Sound files are available on the internet.

> Draftvader

You mentioned disliking Filezilla's frequent updates. I strongly recommend CoreLiteFTP = free .. no nag screen, just a few second delay to open. It's very lean and has some nice features that many ftp clients don't -- one being a column for files and folders that shows "owner" (linux server). You can do lots of customization. Sound files are available on the internet.

Doing a rebuild after my trip back to England (SSD prices have hit a nice sweet-spot for me) and I will give it a go. Cheers.

What a great thread- I've used many of the applications detailed here and they're real time savers. Irfanview I used to love, and I can't remember the others cos I'm stuck on page 2 of the thread lol. Off the top of my head- 'exam diff' has been great for when I think 2 pages are identical but actually aren't, and if you want to make tutorials then 'instant demo' has been my favourite- neither are free but both have trials.

What a great thread- I've used many of the applications detailed here and they're real time savers. Irfanview I used to love, and I can't remember the others cos I'm stuck on page 2 of the thread lol. Off the top of my head- 'exam diff' has been great for when I think 2 pages are identical but actually aren't, and if you want to make tutorials then 'instant demo' has been my favourite- neither are free but both have trials.

Thanks for these. Just found ExamDiff and there is a freeware version. I haven't looked at the differences between that and Pro but I will give it a go. http://www.prestosoft.com/edp_examdiff.asp

There are a couple of freeware screen session recorders detailed on this site (also a great place to go to find freeware reviews). http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-screen-session-recorder.htm

about Content Management Systems...

If you are in the same position as me, and custom modules are too difficult to program in Drupal and Joomla, but Wordpress is not enough for your needs, you might be interested in www.postnice.org which revives the old Postnuke CMS technology.

Amazingly, it is able to work either without templates, with CSS only, with CSS+tamplates and with compiled templates and caching!

Custom scripts accessing the CMS' own API are as simple to program as a normal PHP page, within minutes.

A breeze for any custom development.

Edited June 8, 201313 yr by manarak

about Content Management Systems...

If you are in the same position as me, and custom modules are too difficult to program in Drupal and Joomla, but Wordpress is not enough for your needs, you might be interested in www.postnice.org which revives the old Postnuke CMS technology.

Amazingly, it is able to work either without templates, with CSS only, with CSS+tamplates and with compiled templates and caching!

Custom scripts accessing the CMS' own API are as simple to program as a normal PHP page, within minutes.

A breeze for any custom development.

Thank you for this. Can I ask that we don't let this descend into a "this CMS is better because...." debate. I've been active on many of these on other threads and they get quite intense and will easily derail a thread. manarak, thanks again for bringing this one to our attention.

Please no CMS debating. This thread is bringing so much useful stuff to the fore and I don't want to lose it over CMS preferences. Suggesting fine, but making a debate over it....please don't.