Miscellaneous Free Programming Tools
Application GUI Builders, Executable Compressors, Resource Editors, etc
Miscellaneous Free Programming Tools
This page lists an assortment of programmers tools useful for programmers in the course of software development. Note that some of these tools have been moved to their own page, so if you can't find them here, check the main free programming tools page.
Here's a brief breakdown of the tools by category. The largest category is the "Miscellaneous" category below - so if you can't find the utility or resource you're looking for in this category list, just click the "Miscellaneous" link.
- Free Application and GUI Builders
- Free Compiler Construction Tools: Lexical & Parser Generators
- Free Database and SQL Tools
- Free Debuggers, Source Code Checkers, Memory Leak and Resource Leak Tracers, VxD Debuggers, Bug Tracking
- Free Disassemblers, Hexadecimal Viewers, Hex Editors
- Free 32 bit Protected Mode DOS Extenders
- Free Executable Compressors - shrink your EXEs and Binaries
- Free File Comparison and Merging Utilities (Diff/Merge)
- Free File Patch Makers (for Delivering Small Updates)
- Free Help Authoring and Documentation Tools
- Free Program Maintenance Utilities (MAKE)
- Free Programmers' Editors and IDEs (Integrated Development Environment)
- Free Resource Editors, Resource Compilers and Resource Hackers
- Free Text Search and Replace Utilities
- Free Setup Utilities (Installers and Uninstallers)
- Free Source Code Beautifiers
- Free Version Control (Source Code Control) Software - manage multiple versions
- Free Image and Photo Editing Software, Free Drawing and Painting Programs
- Miscellaneous Programming Tools
Disclaimer
The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Just because a program, book, document or service is listed here or has a good review does not mean that I endorse or approve of the program or of any of its contents. All the other standard disclaimers also apply.
Free Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Free Application / GUI Builders
- Ultimate++
This program is a cross-platform rapid application development (RAD) suite that includes a GUI builder, an IDE and a set of C++ libraries. There are visual designers for you to build your user interface (UI), a designer for you to build your help files and documentation, a code analyzer in the IDE that supports code completion, etc. The program comes with the MinGW C++ compiler, but the IDE can work with gcc, Visual C++ (including the free edition of the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler/IDE). Platforms supported include Windows and Linux. The program is licensed under a BSD licence.
- WxHatch
If you are building GUI programs using the free WxWindows GUI library, you might be interested in WxHatch which allows you to build basic WxWindows applications with menus, dialog boxes, makefiles, etc, using a GUI interface.
- YAGB
YAGB, or Yet Another GUI Builder, allows you to build a GUI program for Lesstif (a Motif clone) thereby relieving you from some of the tedious coding stuff for the user interface.
Free Executable Compression Utilities
- Petite
Petite is a Win32 executable compressor for EXE and DLL files. The compressed executables are transparently expanded at runtime. You can only use it for freeware programs.
- UPX
UPX, or Ultimate Packer for eXecutables, compresses executable binaries on Win32, Win16, MSDOS, Linux, Atari/TOS. The compressed binaries will be transparently decompressed and executed when your users run your program. This is useful if you want smaller disk footprints for your programs, or your are writing things like setup programs that need to be small.
Free Program Maintenance Utilities (Make)
Note that a number of the development systems that are listed on the Free C/C++ Compilers, Interpreters and Cross Compilers page also come with a make utility.
- GNU Make
This is arguably the most widely used Make utility in the Unix world. It has been ported to numerous other operating systems including Windows, MSDOS, and so on. GNU Make (like all MAKE utilities) allow you to automate the creation of your program executables (binaries) and other routine program maintainence activities.
- Jam
Jam is a program maintainence utility like the Unix MAKE utility. It purports to make "building simple things simple and building complicated things manageable". It supports Linux, AIX, BSD/386, FreeBSD, HPUX, IRIX, COHERENT, Solaris, VMS, OpenVMS, Windows NT, Macintosh, DGUX, NEXTSTEP, OSF, PTX, SunOS, Ultrix, BeOS, OS/2, etc.
Free Source Code Beautifiers
- Artistic Style
Artistic Style is a formatter for C, C++, C# and Java source code. It automatically re-indents and reformats the source code fed into it. It is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
- GNU Indent
GNU indent allows you to beautify your C source code by changing the indentation scheme of the source code to a desired format.
- BCPP
This is a C and C++ source code beautifier, able to replace tabs with space or the reverse. You can use this to give all the source files of your program common formatting.
Free File Patch Makers (for Delivering Small Updates)
- PatchMaker
Want to provide updates of your software to your users but don't want to require them to download the entire distribution again? Why not just give them a patch that will update their current version to the latest version? This free patch maker will allow you to do just that. Note that the free version adds an advertisement screen to the end of the patching process. You may also want to check the Free File Comparison and Differencing Utilities page for other utilities of the sort.
- Masterbyte File Patcher
Ever wanted to distribute a small patch file for people who are upgrading from an earlier version of your program, instead of distributing the entire kit and kaboodle? This program is designed to create a patch file with just the differences between the new and old versions of your files, and of course, to recreate the new version again. It is free for freeware programs. Alas, I could not get it to work correctly on one of my own program's executables (it created a file that had the same size but was not identical to the file it was supposed to create). I guess you better test it on your programs to see if it works correctly for you, before distributing your patches. This is an MSDOS program.
Miscellaneous Free Programming Tools / Utilities
- TurboPower String Resource Manager
Build string resource libraries in Delphi with this tool that "prevents string resource clashes and simplifies the translation of string resources".
- Berkeley Analysis Engine (BANE)
BANE allows you to construct a program analysis of your program (eg, dataflow analysis, type inference, etc) thus enabling you to verify things like type safety and discover areas where you can optimize.
- API Monitor
This tool allows you to monitor the API calls made by a Windows application. It is useful in figuring out how other applications work as well as in tracking problems in your own program by examining the API calls it makes.
- FiST - Stackable File System Language and Templates
FiST is a code generator for creating stackable file systems out of templates and a high level language. It comes with templates for Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD, as well as sample file systems built with FiST, namely an encryption file system, a compression file system, etc.
- Ensemble
Ensemble is a toolkit for building reliable distributed applications. Included in this toolkit is a library of protocols which you can use to build your distributed applications. The library primarily uses UDP/IP sockets. You can write your applications in C, C++, Java (on Solaris and NT), and ML. Ensemble itself is written in ML and will apparently run on any platform that supports Objective Caml and sockets, including Windows, SunOS4, Solaris, Linux and RS6000-AIX. You can get the binaries for SunOS, Solaris, Linux and Windows NT. Source code is also available for download.
- Game Maker
Here is an easy way to make 2D games. Click and drag stuff and you're done (well, more or less, depending on what you're trying to achieve). The program comes with animated graphics, backgrounds, sounds, and a built-in programming language to allow you flexibility in the game you are creating. You create the rooms, objects, and define what is to happen when certain events occur, etc.
- X.App
This program allows you to create full scale applications out of your ActiveX controls by creating a HTML page that embeds the control, and then generates an executable with a browser control that points to the HTML file. Along with the free Visual BASIC Control Creation Edition, which allows you to create ActiveX controls (see the Free BASIC Compilers page), you can actually create VB applications free without having to buy the compiler.
- Autoproject
This program creates a skeleton source package for a program according to programmer specifications and GNU programming standards. The package that is created uses autoconf to configure itself and automake to generate the Makefile. Autoproject is distributed under the GPL.
- Gengetopt
This utility simplifies the use of the GNU getopt_long() function, used to parse command line arguments. It reads a interface file from standard input and creates a skeleton C main() function.
- COBF
COBF is a C/C++ source code obfuscator. It changes your source code files in such a way that it remains compilable and yet is not easily understood by humans. It is supposed to be useful where you want to release source code but do not want others to plagiarize your code. The unobfuscated sources are provided along with binaries for Win32, MSDOS and Linux.
- Cxref
Cxref is a cross referencing utility for ANSI C, K&R C, and most popular GNU extensions. Such a tool is particularly useful when you are faced with the maintenance of somebody else's program or attempting to document a program (even your own).
- Programming Language Creator
According to the documentation, the Programming Language Creator is designed to enable you "to easily create new programming languages, or create interpreted versions of any compiled language" without the need for you to wrestle with yacc and lex. If you want your application to have a scripting language, you might want to look at this to see if it meets your requirements. The binaries, available free, are for Win32, and the source code is available for a fee.
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- Free Mathematical, Numerical and Statistical Libraries
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Miscellaneous Free Programming Tools
