Utils

Some tools that make day-to-day development a little bit easier.  Like good AI, you only miss them when they're gone.  These tools are all free and exceptionally useful.

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Rockscroll was created by Rocky Downs and, like the best ideas, is simple but fantastically useful.  I'll let Scott Hanselman explain:

The basic (as in "only") idea is that RockScroll extends the scrollbar in Visual Studio to show a syntax highlighted thumbnail view of your source. This is really useful for those excessively long source code files you know you have. It's just one DLL and you can turn it off from Tools-AddIns just by un-checking the checkbox.

My favorite feature is to double-click a word in the code window to see all instances of that word in the file highlighted in Rockscroll.  Clicking Rockscroll will take you directly to them.  Right-click Rockscroll to get rid of the highlighting again.  I think Visual Studio 2010 has a similar feature built-in, but until everyone upgrades (and my company is still using 2005) this is a fantastic replacement.

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Launchy is one of a selection of applications that do a similar thing, but from my experience is the best of a good bunch.  It intends to replace your start menu by letting you use just a few keystrokes to launch almost any program from anywhere.  By binding it to a key combo (alt-space is default) you give Launchy focus, and can then start typing the name of your application, just like the run box in Vista/Windows 7/MacOS. 

However Launchy is much cleverer and quicker than the Windows implementations, and can recognize applications from just significant letters.  For instance, Microsoft Excel can be brought up by just typing "msx", and P4V can be launched with just a "4".  That's exactly three keystrokes to get to my source control system, instead of moving to the mouse, opening the Start menu, opening the All Programs menu, visually searching for Perforce (because you know the ordering has changed again), opening that menu, and so on. 

That's probably ten minutes a week I save, which I normally spend thinking about how I can justify buying another game in the steam sale even though I've got enough to be getting on with BUT IT'S SO CHEAP ARGH.

It has a plugin system, so I can do simple sums in Launchy and start programs with preset command-line arguments.  That last one is very useful, enabling you to open a folder, google, or even start writing an email.

My Start menu has withered since installing Launchy, and I can't believe people still go hunting around in that creaky old menu to start the programs they want.  Get with the 201st decade, guys!  Get Launchy!

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First Object do a great free XML editor that I use all the time.  It has a tree view on the right for easy navigation, handles large files really well, and has a small exe.  What more do I need to say?  It's just brilliant.