Windows Developer Power Tools

Windows Developer Power Tools Turbocharge Windows development with more than 170 free and open source tools By James Avery, Jim Holmes
December 2006
Pages: 1308

Cover | Table of Contents | Index | Sample Chapter

Foreword

Credits

Preface

Part I. Writing Code

1. Building ASP.NET Applications
1.1 Building Sophisticated Ajax Applications with ASP.NET Atlas
1.2 Adding Ajax Functionality with Anthem.NET
1.3 Adding Ajax Functionality with Ajax.NET Professional
1.4 Generating User-Friendly URLs with UrlRewritingNet.UrlRewrite
1.5 Showing a "Please Wait" Dialog with BusyBoxDotNet
1.6 Creating Cleaner HTML Output with CSS Friendly Control Adapters
1.7 Adding Word-Processing Capabilities to Your Application with FreeTextBox
1.8 Creating Charts with the WebChart Control
1.9 Consuming and Publishing RSS Feeds with the RSS Toolkit
1.10 For More Information

2. Working with Windows Forms
2.1 Getting "That WinXP Look" with XP Common Controls
2.2 Creating Dockable Windows with DockPanel Suite
2.3 Creating a Professional User Interface with Krypton Toolkit
2.4 Learning More About Windows Controls with Control Spy
2.5 For More Information

3. Developing in .NET 3.0 (a.k.a. "WinFx")
3.1 Creating Great Visuals for Your Applications with Expression Graphic Designer
3.2 Creating WinFx User Interfaces Without Code Using Interactive Designer
3.3 Writing XAML in XamlPad
3.4 Avoiding XML Configuration Files with the Service Configuration Editor
3.5 Deciphering WCF Logs with the Service Trace Viewer
3.6 Developing WinFx Applications in Visual Studio with Development Tools for WinFx
3.7 For More Information

4. Working with Code Libraries
4.1 Externalizing Business Rules with NxBRE
4.2 Diagnosing Without Downtime via log4net
4.3 Searching Your Data Using Lucene.Net
4.4 Finding Changes Between Assembly Versions with LibCheck
4.5 Comparing Assemblies with Reflector.Diff
4.6 Implementing Spell Checking in Your Windows and Web Apps with NetSpell
4.7 Creating Graphs and Plot Charts Quickly with NPlot
4.8 Sorting Algorithms in C# with NSort
4.9 Creating RSS Feeds with RSS.NET
4.10 Using Zip, GZip, Tar, and BZip2 Archives in Your Software with SharpZipLib
4.11 Generating Excel Files from Code Using ExcelXmlWriter (Without Having Excel!)
4.12 Creating PDFs with iTextSharp
4.13 For More Information

5. Generating Code
5.1 Creating Code Automatically with MyGeneration
5.2 Generating Your Data-Access Layer with Codus
5.3 Writing Your Web Services Contract First with WSCF
5.4 Generating XML Schemas and Strongly Typed DataSets with XSD.exe
5.5 Practicing Contract-First XML Development with XSDObjectGenerator
5.6 For More Information

6. Writing Code
6.1 Building .NET Applications with Visual Studio Express
6.2 Developing .NET Applications Using SharpDevelop
6.3 Writing Mono Applications on Linux and Mac OS X with MonoDevelop
6.4 Creating Standalone Snippets with Snippet Compiler
6.5 Handling Small Tasks with Notepad2
6.6 Mastering Regular Expressions with the Regulator
6.7 Creating Regular Expressions with ReguLazy
6.8 For More Information

7. Creating Documentation
7.1 Documenting Your Source Code with GhostDoc
7.2 Viewing Documentation in Visual Studio with CR_Documentor
7.3 Creating Professional Documentation with NDoc
7.4 Printing PDF Documents with PDFCreator
7.5 Building a FAQ with skmFAQs
7.6 For More Information

8. Enhancing Visual Studio
8.1 Boosting Productivity with CoolCommands
8.2 Improving Visual Studio's Designers with the PowerToy for Class and Distributed Systems Designers
8.3 Opening Files Quickly with VSFileFinder
8.4 Mastering Unmanaged APIs with PINVOKE.NET
8.5 Spell Checking ASP.NET and HTML with the HTML/ASP.NET Spell Checker Add-in
8.6 Switching Window Layouts Quickly with VSWindowManager
8.7 Blogging or Emailing Your Code in Style with the CopySourceAsHtml Visual Studio Add-in
8.8 Editing CSS in Visual Studio with the CSS Properties Window
8.9 Bringing Web Application Projects Back to Visual Studio 2005
8.10 Sharing Your Visual Studio Goodies with the Content Installer Power Toys
8.11 For More Information

Part II. Checking Code

9. Analyzing Your Code
9.1 Checking Complexity and Dependencies with Peli's Reflector Addins
9.2 Checking Your Source Code's Complexity with SourceMonitor
9.3 Analyzing Code Inside Visual Studio with CR_Metrics
9.4 Finding Your Code's Dependency Complexities with NDepend
9.5 Writing Better Code with FxCop
9.6 For More Information

10. Testing Your Software
10.1 Unit Testing Your Code with NUnit
10.2 Speeding Your Test Development with NUnit Code Snippets
10.3 Writing Advanced Unit Tests with MbUnit
10.4 Getting More from Your Tests with Zanebug
10.5 Bringing Your Customers into the Testing Process with FitNesse
10.6 Analyzing Unit-Test Coverage with NCover
10.7 Analyzing Code Coverage with NCoverExplorer
10.8 Integrating Unit Testing into Visual Studio with TestDriven.NET
10.9 Integrating Mock Objects into Your Testing with NMock 2.0
10.10 Creating Strongly Typed Mocks with Rhino.Mocks
10.11 Unit Testing Your GUI with NUnitForms
10.12 Creating Performance Benchmark Tests with NTime
10.13 Automating Web Application Testing with Selenium Core
10.14 Driving Your Web Applications Automatically with Watir
10.15 For More Information

Part III. Running a Development Project

11. Working with Source-Control Systems
11.1 Setting Up Subversion Rapidly with SVN 1-Click Setup
11.2 Accessing Subversion and CVS with TortoiseCVS and TortoiseSVN
11.3 Using Subversion Inside Visual Studio with AnkhSVN
11.4 Removing Visual Source Safe Bindings with SourceSafe Binding Remover
11.5 Comparing Files with WinMerge
11.6 For More Information

12. Building, Using Continuous Integration on, and Deploying Your Applications
12.1 Creating Consistent Builds with NAnt
12.2 Automating Your Build Process with MSBuild
12.3 Building .NET 1.1 Assemblies in MSBuild with MSBee
12.4 Extending MSBuild Capabilities with MSBuild Community Tasks
12.5 Managing Your Build Process Visually with MSBuild Sidekick
12.6 Shortening the Development Cycle with CruiseControl.NET
12.7 Easing the Burden of Implementing a Continuous Integration Process with CI Factory
12.8 Simplifying Web Application Deployments with Unleash It
12.9 Easing Web Application Deployments with Web Deployment Projects
12.10 Creating a Setup Project with WiX
12.11 For More Information

13. Boosting Team Collaboration
13.1 Improving Team Communication and Collaboration with Basecamp
13.2 Building Online Communities with Community Server
13.3 Creating a Blog with Subtext
13.4 Collaborating Online with FlexWiki
13.5 Driving Another PC Remotely via XP's Remote Assistance
13.6 Talking to Colleagues with Skype
13.7 Chatting with Anyone Using GAIM
13.8 Administering Team Foundation Users with the TFS Administration Tool
13.9 For More Information

14. Tracking Bugs, Changes, and Other Issues
14.1 Implementing a Bare-Bones Defect Tracker with BugTracker.NET
14.2 Handling Mid-Sized Projects with CodeTrack
14.3 Running an Enterprise-Level Bug-Tracking System with Bugzilla
14.4 Managing a Project with Trac
14.5 For More Information

Part IV. Troubleshooting Code and Applications

15. Troubleshooting and Debugging
15.1 Monitoring File Access in Your System with Filemon
15.2 Identifying TCP Port and Endpoint Issues with TCPView
15.3 Seeing What's Being Accessed in Your Registry with Regmon
15.4 Getting a Better View of Processes on Your System with Process Explorer
15.5 Digging into Your Program's CLR Interactions with PInvoke and COM Using CLR SPY
15.6 Tracking Down Memory-Allocation Problems with CLR Profiler
15.7 Debugging Your Application After It's Been Deployed with ClrDump
15.8 Debugging Hangs and Monitoring Processes with Managed Stack Explorer
15.9 Examining HTTP Traffic with Fiddler
15.10 Identifying Network Problems with PingPlotter Freeware
15.11 Examining Logs with LogParser
15.12 Simplifying Debugging with Visual Studio 2005 Visualizers
15.13 Finding Bottlenecks with NProf
15.14 For More Information

16. Using Decompilers and Obfuscators
16.1 Examining Common Ground with ILDASM
16.2 Analyzing Assemblies with Reflector
16.3 Debugging .NET Assemblies Without Source Code Using Dotnet IL Editor
16.4 Preventing Reverse-Engineering of Your Code with Dotfuscator
16.5 For More Information

Part V. Code Tools

17. Tightening Up Your Security
17.1 Analyzing Threats Your Application Faces with the Threat Analysis & Modeling Tool
17.2 Protecting Your Communications with the Bouncy Castle Cryptography APIs
17.3 Mitigating XSS Vulnerabilities with the Anti-Cross Site Scripting Library
17.4 Highlighting Explorer Windows' Security Privileges Using PrivBar
17.5 Opening a Command Window with Admin Privileges Using MakeMeAdmin.cmd
17.6 For More Information

18. Building Your Application on Frameworks
18.1 Reusing Professional Infrastructure with Enterprise Library
18.2 Creating Web Applications and Systems with DotNetNuke
18.3 Improving Smart Device Development with the Smart Device Framework
18.4 Building and Deploying Cross-Platform .NET Applications with Mono
18.5 Spelunking the Framework with Rotor
18.6 Simplifying Web Development with Castle MonoRail
18.7 Obtaining a Decoupled Architecture with the Castle Windsor Container
18.8 Improving Your Code's Design and Testability with PicoContainer.NET
18.9 For More Information

19. Working with XML
19.1 Transforming XML Documents with nxslt2
19.2 Displaying XML on the Web with eXml
19.3 Building Composite XML Documents with XInclude.NET
19.4 Referencing Part of an XML Document with XPointer.NET
19.5 Extending XSLT Processing with EXSLT.NET
19.6 Comparing and Unit Testing XML with XML Diff and Patch
19.7 For More Information

Part VI. Working with Databases

20. Interacting with Databases
20.1 Finding the Proper Connection String with ConnectionStrings.com
20.2 Creating SQL Connection Strings Quickly with SQL Server Connection String Builder
20.3 Administering SQLite Databases with the SQLite Administrator
20.4 Working with Oracle Inside Visual Studio with Oracle Developer Tools
20.5 Managing Oracle Databases with Oracle SQL Developer
20.6 For More Information

21. Exploring Object/Relational Mapping
21.1 Mapping Objects to the Database with NHibernate (or How to Stop Writing All That Data-Access Code)
21.2 Mapping Business Objects with NPersist
21.3 Easing the Burden of Creating O/RM Files with ObjectMapper
21.4 Simplifying Data Access with Castle ActiveRecord
21.5 For More Information

Part VII. Miscellaneous

22. Enhancing Web Development
22.1 Avoiding Web Headaches with the Web Developer Extension for Firefox
22.2 Debugging Web Pages with the Web Developer Toolbar for Internet Explorer
22.3 Diagnosing JavaScript and Ajax with Web Development Helper
22.4 Eliminating Memory Leaks in Internet Explorer with Drip
22.5 Debugging Web Pages at Runtime with DOM Helper
22.6 Checking Web Pages with the W3C Markup Validation Service
22.7 Checking Your Web Site's Accessibility with WebXACT
22.8 Cleaning Up Your HTML with HTML Tidy
22.9 For More Information

23. Boosting Productivity with Windows Utilities
23.1 Launching Tools and Web Sites Quickly with SlickRun
23.2 Spotlighting Content in Your Presentations with ZoomIt
23.3 Getting to the Right Detail with Magnifixer
23.4 Extracting Files from Windows Installer Packages with Less MSIérables
23.5 Handling FTP More Efficiently with FileZilla
23.6 Opening a Shell Where You Need It with Command Prompt Here
23.7 Grabbing Screenshots with Cropper
23.8 Grabbing Color Values with ColorMania
23.9 Bringing .NET to the Command Line with PowerShell
23.10 Getting the Most out of PowerShell with PowerShell IDE
23.11 Managing and Switching Tasks with TaskSwitchXP
23.12 Keeping Data in Sync with SyncToy
23.13 Resolving Locking Problems with Unlocker
23.14 Bringing POSIX Emulation to Windows with Cygwin
23.15 For More Information

Part VIII. Appendix

Common Tasks in Visual Studio

Index

Return to Windows Developer Power Tools