Best Free Tools for Programmers
Tools for any programming language and specialized tools, in the list of languages below...
| NetBeans | IDE for several languages including Java and PHP with a built-in server. (Java) |
| Maqetta | HTML 5 online WYSIWYG authoring tool by IBM. The source is available to be uploaded on a server. May be used locally once started the embedded server. |
| Eclipse | Multi-languages IDE to integrate various programming tools. You can add other tools. (Java) |
| Ideone | Interactive online tool that allows testing (compile/interpret) source code in 40 programming languages and display the result. |
| XAML | Markup language for user interfaces design. Used by the Metro interface of Windows 8 for immersive applications and by the Silverlight plugin. |
| Gtk+ | GUI widely used for applications. (Win/Lin). | SDL | A library for game programming using all resources (sound, video, devices) of the computer, for any language, any OS. Use OpenGL, DirectX. (Win/Lin). | Qt | Cross-platform user interface framework, inclusing mobiles. LGPL license. (Win/Lin/Mac/Mobiles). An IDE, QtCreator is provided to build applications. |
Utilities for releasing a software |
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|---|---|
| Inno Setup | Complete installer, can add your program on the desktop, provides an uninstaller for your program, into the archive that is bigger than those of above. Open source. |
| IZarc | Archive manager. Can build, extract, convert
ZIP, BZ2, TAR, GZ, CAB archives and the new 7z format. Manages also CD
images
See the list of free archivers. |
| Doxygen | Produces a HTML/Latex/XML/Man documentation from source files. |
| UPX | Compresses binary executables and shrink them up to 30%.(Win/Lin) |
Graphical and Sound Tools |
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|---|---|
| Paint.NET | Drawing program similar to Photoshop, easier to use than Gimp. Supports layers and a lot of filters. Has graph tools. (Win). Paint.NET here. |
| XnView | Image viewer and manager, recognize almost any format plus video ones: Mpeg, Divx (Win/Lin) |
| Inkscape | Vectorial graphical editor allowing to make SVG files (Win/Lin). |
| MWSnap | Screen capture. Delimits a windows or a region.(Win) |
| Slate | Video builder : make your own videos quickly in a comic style. |
| Terragen | Landscape editor with photographic quality. |
Graphics : Expert level
| Gimp | Drawing program, open source replacement for Photoshop. Despite that it is bugged under Windows has interesting features. The filters provide tools for sophisticated image processing. (Windows / Linux) |
| Visualization Toolkit | 3d visualization tool, open source. (Win/Lin). |
| POV | Most powerful 3D ray tracer. Programming skill required. (Win/Lin) |
| Open FX | 3D image maker. |
| More graphic tools. | |
Web and HTML 5 tools |
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|---|---|
| TidyHtml | Test HTML page for malformed code. |
| Wordpress | Tool to help in creating a blog or even any website. (PHP and MySQL) |
| Anaa | Small Ajax and Gears framework with the main functions: load XML, text or HTML contents, post a text or command to the server. |
| Link Checker | Check a website for broken links. (PHP). See also Xenu's link (Win) |
| List of CMS | Modern big websites are built with a CMS (Content Management System) as Joomla, Drupal, Xoops for portails, phpBB or punBB for forums, Wordpress for blogs. |
| PHP | The PHP interpreter and the tutorial. More tools for PHP on the card. |
Editors (Text, HTML, XML) |
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|---|---|
| Kompozer | Wysiwyg HTML editor. (Win/Lin/Mac). |
| Amaya | HTML editor and browser of the W2C, compatible with the standards. (Win/Lin/Mac). |
| PSPad | Complete editor for any programming languages including HTML and XML. Internet features. Several foreign languages supported. (Win). |
| Geany | Cross-platform tabbed code editor. Extensible with plugins. |
| Pandoc | Convert documents between different markup formats. |
| Perfect to write manuals with images, supports HTML and PDF. (Win/Lin/Mac). | |
More tools and infos on the HTML card. Languages may have specialized editors also. |
|
Web Tools and Online Services |
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|---|---|
| Filezilla | Upload files on the net. (Win). For updating a website from local files, the command line FTP synchronizer is well suited. |
| Page Test | Check your web pages for validity, according to the HTML 4 standard. You can check also XML and CSS. |
| Browser Test | Check your home page with several browsers and display it on the site for some times. |
| Webmaster Tools | Google's service, reports backlinks to each page, keywords of search to the webmaster of the site only. |
| Bioloide | Online interface with various tools to check a website. Extensible by adding new tabs from the setup panel. Includes the Ara online RSS editor, to build and edit the feed of your site. Requires PHP 5. |
| Google's tools | List of tools and services for webmasters.. |
Tools for SQL Databases |
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|---|---|
| Kexi | Database designer. (Win/Lin). |
| Xampp or Wamp | Local server with MySQL and user interfaces to databases. (Win) |
Other Tools |
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|---|---|
| Unix Tools | Windows version of all Unix tools. (Win) |
Documentations and Tutorials |
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|---|---|
| HTML - XML | Lot of tutorials about HTML, XML, etc... ont the W3 consortium site. |
| Thinking C++ | C++ tutorial with exercices. |
| OpenGL | All Open GL tutorials. |
| OpenGL Lessons | Complete tutorial on OpenGL with examples and sources for each compiler. |
| Wotsit | Formats of files, sources and other resources for programmers. |
| DaFont | Fonts and tools. |
| See at each programming language on top of this page for specific tutorials. | |
Labels: Win)dows,Lin)ux, Mac)Intosh, Java or
PHP: all OS, Nothing: Windows
Technical tools and documentation
- Omaha: Automatical update of software . Google open sourced its update system, used by Chrome.
- LLVM. C, C++ and Objective-C compiler producing a portable bytecode.
- VMKit. A framework to build virtual machines, for any language. A garbage collector is included.
- List of free books. Available on PDF file to download.
- Game developpement tools. Extended list.
- List of Google's APIs. To interface applications with services.
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