Sometime last year I had several opportunities to build completely custom applications which would have to run on Linux. Coming from a 90% Win background that sounded less than appealing. However, I was looking for a new development experience and this article is a result of that search.

One of the opportunities fell through because the client demanded that I use PHP with MySql. That’s all well and good and it’s great there are a lot of people who like PHP but I am not one of them. I never connected to the PHP environment like I did with .NET or Javascript – PHP always felt like an afterthought to me.

So, for the remaining projects I decided to do some research and find out two things:

1. What platform would enable me to concentrate on solving the client request without becoming mired in the technology
2. What platform would allow me to have fun and be productive as well.

I know that having fun seems counter-intuitive at work but that is the main reason I have been programming for 24+ years: I am having fun doing it!

Platforms/Stacks I looked at

Rails

Consistent development cycle, Ruby just works and data support is great but, but…developing just felt like I was jumping through about 5 hoops everytime I had to change the database or change the code or the view, etc. Rails also is heavier than I wanted to go in terms of a framework and learning curve.

Node.js

Seems like a fast and clean platform and Javascript is one of the main languages I code. I tried working with it on a few test projects but deadlines were looming and it just did not click with me at the time. I will go back and get firmer grounding in this for a more private project but not for a client.

.NET

My bread and butter for many years. I know Asp.Net and variants (mvc) but all of my client run a Linux platform and I did not want to jump on Mono. Poor excuse maybe but it was just not there for me.

Sinatra

I have written a few backend web api’s with Sinatra and really liked it and I really enjoyed the fast code / test cycle. Ruby is great and Sinatra works great with mysql.

In addition, working with the Slim templating language initially, was a lot like coding in Python with the strict indentation rules but once I got used it fast and extremely productive especially after finding the Html2Slim web app – what a lifesaver!

So, enough lame explanation why I chose Sinatra, let’s get to my local machine setup (links at the end):

Local Machine Setup and Components

Platform

• Macbook Pro
• 16 GB Ram
• OSX 10.9.5
• Ruby 2.x (RVM)
• MySql 5.x

Project Components

This is a list of the core Gemfiles I use:

• gem ‘sinatra’
• gem ‘sinatra-contrib’
• gem ‘slim’
• gem ‘thin’
• gem ‘mysql2’
• gem ‘sequel’

You can manage Ruby Gems manually or simply update your Gemfile and run ‘Bundle Install’ and/or ‘Bundle Update’ from your Gemfile directory.

Bundle is great and installs/updates everything right out of the box. I am running all of the latest gemfile versions and update at least weekly using the ‘bundle update’ command.

Updating all the time works in my favor for setting up new servers since I just run ‘bundle install’ and done with no worries about version issues. So far, I have not had many issues with different versions of gems not working. There were a few in the beginning but I am updated past those issues. I think I would rather work through issues and maybe help fix a bug or two instead of keep using old versions.

Some notes about my choices in terms of gem components (just the main ones listed above):

slim

I tried using erb as it was built in but I quickly got tired of typing all the html not to mention the clumsy tag structures for data. Tried haml and it was a little better and then I tried slim and initially I hated it. The indent rules and some of the quirks where plain text are concerned drove me crazy until I got used to it but once I did it was fast coding and from my perspective it is a great performer. (actively maintained)

thin

This great little app server came along for the ride since it was recommended in the Sinatra docs I just went with it. I have to say I have never been disappointed, so far.. I know about Unicorn, Phusion Passenger and Cougar but my time important (unless someone can tell me how to get it back once used?) and Thin fit the bill in terms of ease of setup and once it runs it just keeps running (either standalone or on reverse proxy with Apache).

mysql2

Just an adaptor for mysql. This was recommended for use with the ORM I am currently using. Install and forget.

sequel

Originally, I started with DataMapper and I had so many issues with it in terms of getting things to just work the way I wanted them to I almost dumped Sinatra altogether. Then I found Sequel and wow! You can go two ways with Sequel:

1. Manage your own db structure and simply have Sequel map that structure to code for you – it’s seamless.
2. Define your db structure with Sequel in your code and let it manage your database for you in terms of generating your database and maintaing the structure.

Option #2 sounds cool and everything but I manage a dev/test environment and a separate prod environment so I wanted to be in control of what happens to the database and when so I went with Option #1.

Here is what I do: I have a master sql file for the db structure which I update and run against the database. Sequel, how it is setup, reads that structure, builds the objects on the fly and I am good to go – what could be easier?  BTW:  This is not a strictly technical explanation but I think repeating docs in an article is a waste of time.

So, that’s it for my main components. I use a bunch of others but they are for specific requirements which have nothing to do with actually getting up and running with Sinatra and MySql.

Rack

Just a quick word about Rack.  Sinatra is based on Rack and it is well worth you while to get to know Rack at least a little bit.  Interesting bit of Ruby Webserver Interface code which seems to run many Ruby based frameworks.

My Development Environment

A couple of years ago I used Jetbrain’s RubyMine for a project and really liked it. However, I have been using SublimeText editor for quite a while and even though I am not some SublimeText guru I get around so I tried it as my main dev environment. Sublime runs Ruby very well and was fairly easy to setup but after a while I wanted a more Ruby/Rack focused dev tool so I went back to RubyMine and have never looked back.

I know there are some out there who just sneered at me for jumping on to RubyMine instead of being a loyalist Sublimer or whatever.. oh well.

RubyMine has a great Ruby editor with some fantastic code completion which was far better and faster than Sublime’s (perhaps it was me but Sublime always seemed to offer everything instead of contextual suggestions). RubyMine also has great Javascript and Slim support. There are other things that make it worthwhile such as filewatcher’s for .css/.js compression as well as a great set of runtime configurations that allow me to run several different runtime configurations at will.

Sure all of this is available with Sublime or some other editor/ide but this is what I run so there you have it.

If you want to check out one of the fun projects I wrote for a friend of mine head over here: http://12PACksports.com. Yeah, he’s a huge PAC 12 fan and wanted to get some of his thoughts down out there so I built him a bloglike app. You may be thinking: “Uh, are you dense? What about Blogger, Movable Type, WordPress, etc?” and yep, you would be right: They are out there. He wanted to design his own app and have some custom backend features that you can’t see and besides we managed to get 90% of what he wanted for 100% of his $ budget so I am happy with that! He’s just starting this endeavor but it has RSS if you want to keep up (RSS: another cool 30 minute exercise generating RSS using the built in Ruby lib and Sequel – take that .NET!).

Questions and/or comments are welcome and if I can help I will give it a shot.  I would like to expand on this article but that depends on what comes up comment-wise.

Links

Sinatra Framework – Web Development DSL

Sinatra Contrib – Some Common Sinatra Extensions

Padrino – Web Framework based on Sinatra

Rack – Ruby Web Interface

Html2Slim – Html to Slim converter

Bundler – Manage your Gems

Slim – Template Language

Thin – Rack Application Server

Sequel – Ruby Database Toolkit

Ruby Toolbox – My goto site for all things Ruby

Sublime Text Editor – The only text editor I use now

JetBrains RubyMine – Excellent Ruby, Javascript, CSS IDE

Updated: 09.23.2013

This is probably my first post in a year or more that I have published.  I simply had to because I think LinkedIn has turned into two things:  1)  A site just like Facebook only you can see who looks at your profile unless they are spys or something and are too scared to let you know they were looking at your profile and 2) A site just like Facebook where your profile hardly resembles the person you are in real life.

Better You than Me

Let’s look at #2 a different way since those who read #1 know who they are (enough said):  It’s simple really.  Unless you are a recruiter, salesman, independently wealthy and bored, or unemployed and bored then how can you possibly have 2,000 connections that you know well?  Ok, maybe I am just lazy and prefer to actually talk to people I know instead of going to the hard work of trying to ‘connect’ on LinkedIn.

Sure, I know Quantum Software Engineering, doesn’t everyone?

Let’s step to the left a bit and talk about endorsed ‘skills’ on LinkedIn.

I cannot even begin to describe how I feel about it (ok, it’s meaningless) nor how I feel about myself for even endorsing anyone whose skills I don’t know extremely well.

How can someone I hardly know somehow have the knowledge that I know ASP.Net or that I have worked with LINQ or even if I am competent in my field?  They can’t!

Endorsement from someone implies value and clicking on a button has no intrinsic value or rather it is much the same as pulling the lever on a slot machine hoping for a reward.

And, so how can I help you endorse me?

Yesterday I had another person ‘Endorse’ me for skills that I have said that I have (‘said’ via profiles)

What’s wrong with that?  I will tell you:  if the person endorsing you knows your skills first hand then endorsing you becomes “endorse me” since I “endorsed you”.  I mean, don’t you feel obligated to endorse someone who endorsed you?  I guess it would be ok if it was extremely infrequent.

Seriously, why would former classmates from high school endorse me for .NET or ASP.NET skills when I haven’t seen them for such a long time that I don’t remember what they looked like unless I see their photo?

Finally

So for whatever it is worth (and you may be spitting at your monitor right now if you are reading this) here is what I recommend:

1. LinkedIn:  Remove this useless, “I’ll pat your back, you pat mine” feature – it will make people more honest – start looking for ‘handwritten’ recommendations and endorsements.
2. Members:  Stop accepting endorsements from people who do not know your skills and you know they dont!  It is useless to you the minute I look at your profile, and at who endorsed you and find out they were your babysitter.
3. Members:  Stop automatically endorsing people who endorse you.
4. LinkedIn:  Surely with 250 million members a little more work could go into adding more business value and less Facebook style

That’s all, good luck

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(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

Have you ever wanted to put a nice frame around a photo or other type of image?  Have you wanted to be able to add different mats to an image?  Then give ImageFramer a try.

So, I know this review is a little off the track of coding tools.  I mean, Photoshop can do frames (with some work) so can other image tools such as: Paint.Net, Pixelmator, GIMP, Seashore and on and on..  So why create a review on a tool that does a couple of things: Creates frames around images and embed watermarks into an image?  The main reason: I often like to dress up my web images when I am writing a review and this tool will be perfect for that..

Yep, when I started this review I thought it would be easy to write and probably not totally related to my work of software development but I was wrong.  It is related since I can use ImageFramer to make my blog images slick but from the developer side I wanted to contribute something that might help make ImageFramer better.

Info on ImageFramer:

• Curren Version: 2.4.4
• Platform: OS X
• Price: $29.95 (personal), $39.95 (family), $69.95 (commercial)

Standard Disclaimer

Let me preface this review of mine by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how it felt working with it as well as my impressions..

Finally, here’s some links for ImageFramer:

Main Web Site

ImageFramer Overview

Community Page (Tutorials, Newsletter, Forums)

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

Quick look at ImageFramer.  Here are some screen shots of ImageFramer.

General

Here is the main screen.  As you can see, ImageFramer has a very clean and simple interface which allows you to accomplish all that you need to do with framing images.

The controls at the top are pretty self explanatory but I will give a brief intro to each:

• Open Image – does just what it says: allows you to open an image to be framed.  You can also drag and drop an image right onto ImageFramer
• Export Image – once you have the frame the way you want it then export it to the image format of your choice
• Load Design – allows you to load a frame design that you saved
• Save Design – once you have a frame design you might want to use in the future then click Save Design to save it for the future
• Controls – the frame controls as described further below
• Variations – kind of a bookmark/favorites you can use to toggle back and forth between frame designs in the current session
• Colors – colors for the Mat and the Frame itself

Controls

The Controls dialog below automatically opens when you start up ImageFramer.  This is the main dialog for applying variations to the image you are framing.  The dialog has 3 main sections for manipulating the currently selected frame: 1) Image, 2) Frame, and 3) Mats.  This screen shot shows the Image section which allows you to size the view of the image/frame in the main screen, change the background color, add a watermark (very cool!) and change light and shadow.

This screen shot of the Controls dialog shows the Frame section which allows you to directly affect the frame size, color and how the frame is set in relation to your image.

Finally, this Controls screen shot shows the area where you can add multiple mats (just think of the mats that are added to physically framed pictures to give them depth/color) to your image with the ability to change the size, color and the depth of the mat.  Here you can also change the ordering of the mats.

Variations

Variations (in my own words) allow you to save your current frame session state or rather: take a ‘snapshot’ of the current frame and give that snapshot a name so you can return to the point if you wish after making additional changes.  I see this as a historical feature that allows you to go back in ‘time’.  Simply click  the [ + ] button to add a checkpoint in your frame design.  Click the [ – ] to remove any variation.

Colors

This is the standard color picker used for the Mat colors as well as frame colors.  A real nice touch is the ability to use the lens (eye dropper – looks like a magnifying glass) to pick a specific color – makes it easy to match blog colors.

Watermarks

Finally, this is the Watermark controls dialog which allows you to assign a watermark to your image, change it’s size and transparency as well as set it location.  Very handy for adding a copyright to your images or trademark to them.

What I Did

Info and screen shots on how I used the ImageFramer using a screenshot of ImageFramer itself.

This first image shows the Variations dialog with four variations that I used, which are shown below:

Here’s the first Variation with a textured (jagged) frame:

Here’s the second Variation with the frame above only thinner and a nice shade of blue:

Here’s the third Variation with the above options including a nice (ugly?) mat inside of the frame:

Here is the last Variation: the image with all of the above options including a watermark (see the little cat at the center bottom of the image):

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this program work for me.

I really liked the Variations feature – saved a lot of time getting the frame design just right

I really liked the Save Design feature which makes it nice to have the same exact frame across a series of images

I really liked the quantity of frames initially available and all of the permutations that can be applied to any given frame for a totally different look

I really liked the color picker’s ability to match to any color that you want – great for matching backgrounds or other colors in your publications

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they existed (suggestions?) or, perhaps changed, in ImageFramer

I would like it if there was a way to resize the Controls dialog.  It would make switching between frames much faster

I would like it if the Controls dialog had the Collections, Sets and Frames buttons on the top or as tab folders

I would like it if an import option for additional frames existed (if it’s there I can’t find it).  I know you can use your own frames but it’s not obvious from the UI

I would like it if there was a way to make the background transparent – that would be very valuable for patterned backgrounds that I want to put a framed picture onto. UPDATE: Ooops my mistake, here is a message from the author: ‘Hi. In fact you can export with transparent background. When exporting to TIF or PNG it’s saved with transparent one. It’s simply that JPG doesn’t allow transparency so it exports with background color instead.”

Recommendation

Here we are at the end!  I have to say that this is not my normal type of review but it was quite fun to work with this program and I have found it extremely useful to work with on some of my other blog projects already.  I even did a nice header picture for my wife’s blog and it turned out very nicely.

I don’t hesitate to recommend this program if you have a need that fits in ImageFramer’s niche.

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This is just my collection of research that I kept as important while researching the usage/validity of the Unity Application Block by Microsoft.

Links

Links to online articles and documentation.

Tutorials

Articles

Media

Some learning videos I utilized.

http://www.slideshare.net/hbatista/dependency-injection-with-enterprise-library-41

http://www.pnpguidance.net/Screencast/EnterpriseLibrary4DataAccessApplicationBlockDAABUnityIoCScreencast.aspx

(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

Part 1 of this series is about Balsamiq,  Part 2 is about ForeUI, Part 3 is about iPlotz and this final review (of mockup tools), Part 4, is about a desktop prototyping program called Mockup Screens.

Mockup Screens is a Windows only program which enables you to quickly and efficiently develop prototypes in Windows, Web and Wireframe (Mockup Screens calls this Black and White) representations.

Download and installation is a snap (you only need your email address and it is never given away according to the author) and you are up and running in minutes – that’s a good deal.

So, on to the rest of the review.

Info on Product:

• Current Version: 4.21
• Platform: Windows
• Pricing: $99 Single Users, $199 Team, $399 Corporate, $249 Educational

Standard Disclaimer

Let me preface this review of mine by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how it felt working with it as well as my impressions from a software developer point of view.  This is not some indirect advertising or some way to push more business for Mockup Screens.  Enough said.

Finally, here’s some links for Mockup Screens:

Home Page

Screenshots

General Info

Pricing

Downloads

Articles

Blog

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

Quick look at Mockup Screens.  Here are a few screen shots and some info about various features of Mockup Screens.

General

This is a the default look of Mockup Screens after it has loaded (much smaller of course).  I really like the clean layout of Mockup Screens:  it’s nice and easy to find the features I need to work with without hunting around the UI for what I want to do.  Everything is very well identified with no mysteries about where the Widgets are or where the Basic properties, etc.

Widgets

The Widgets are what it’s all about of course and the Widgets panel is self-explanatory.  Just drag and drop the widget from the panel to the canvas and set the properties:  pretty simple.

Screens

This panel shows a list of named (either by Caption or Alternate Name) screens that are in your current project.  You just click on a screen representation to switch to that screen on the canvas.

Properties

There are 4 property panels including the Comments panel: Basic properties, Advanced properties and Geometry.

What I Did

Here are some screen shots of a sample prototype that I put together.  While it is rudimentary (on my part) it does show how easy it is to create a prototype UI with Mockup Screens:

This is my base screen with a general menu I added in about 2 minutes.  The watermark does not exist in the registered version.

I increased the size of the screen here to fit a couple of widgets into it.

Now you can see that I added a treeview with some items.  Treeviews are very easy to work with using a . (or multiple dot) notation for submenus.

Finally, I added a couple of button with an action to jump to the next screen (just a plain window I did not show here).

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this Mockup Screens work for me.

• I really liked the ability to fine tune the placement of the widgets with the Shift-Arrow (fine tune) or Arrow (same as mouse movement) – it’s nice to have exact placement.
• I really liked how clean the Mockup Screens UI presentation is.
• The Jump to Screen option makes it easy to create a generalized workflow from screen to screen.
• The slideshow feature is a real bonus – the ability to navigate through the workflow of your prototype is extremely helpful.
• The ability to export into several different file formats is extremely useful to me – I especially like the .pdf export feature (in all of the tools I use!) as it saves me a lot of time doing my own pdf’s.
• Besides the ability to export your whole project (all scenarios) or selected scenarios is awesome!  It also is very helpful to be able to just take a single snapshot of the current screen I am working on.
• The Screens panel is a very cool feature which really made it nice to navigate back and forth between various screens I was working on.
• The Marks Widget is extremely handy for presentations.  It allows you to annotate certain UI points and when I am presenting a UI it is easier to say ‘look at item 4’ instead of ‘look at the tab widget below the divider bar’ – clarity makes it easier to communicate to the client.

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they existed (suggestions?) or, perhaps corrected, in Mockup Screens.

• I would like it if there was a more hand drawn skin type.  Windows and Web is nice and the Black and White skin is very neutral but I kind of like the hand drawn look of Balsamiq or ForeUI.  Probably just me but when I am working with a customer on a prototype it kind of looks like what it’s supposed to:  a rough drawn sketch.
• I would be good to see the tab key actually work for field navigation in the properties area.  I clicked on the Caption field for my Main Screen (see above) and the cursor did not move to the next field.  This worked the same for the Basic, Advanced and Geometry property tabs.
• It would be great if the Screens panel could be stacked (like a tab control) with the Widgets panel for maximized screen space.
• I would like it if the Comments ‘tab’ was located with the rest of the property tabs.  If that’s too much room for comments then perhaps the Geometry tab could be renamed to Other and then add the comments in its own group box.
• The Widgets needs an Object component that can be set as a circle, oval, rectangle with back colors and opacity.  Additionally, it would be nice to see a different cursor for the line widget other than a line – it’s kind of distracting.
• Adding the ability to choose some basic action for the Jump to Screen feature would be nice such as Click, Select, Change Text, etc…
• It would make more sense (to me) to limit the Jump to Screen feature to UI components that it makes sense to have it on.  ie.. it does not make sense to jump to a different screen to when I click on the Line widget or when I click on the Window background.  If it does I would like to know why…?
• I keep coming back to the properties panels.  The thing is that while they are clean they would be  more useful (just to me!) if they had the ability to undock from where they are and allow you to move them around.

Recommendation

I have to admit that I spent a long time with this review (I usually can get one done each week) but I was having  a hard time finding a lot of reasons why I would buy this product for $99.  Don’t get me wrong:  Mockup Screens has a lot of great potential and it seems to be a very solid base to build on but it kind of feels like that to me:  a solid base for building a top notch prototyping program.

I have communicated with the developer (Igor Jese) and he is a great spark of enthusiasm and productivity.  I have always had the sense that he will do whatever it takes to make Mockup Screens a truly stellar product (and it DOES have the potential for it).

Finally, personally, I would not be able to justify putting $99 into Mockup Screens as it stands (see: Things I could like) but that will most likely change in the future.  This is just my personal opinion and what I think does not detract from the quality of Mockup Screens as it stands.

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(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

Part 1 of this series is about Balsamiq,  Part 2 is about ForeUI, and this review, Part 3, is about a desktop and online Wireframe and Mockup tool called iPlotz.  Built on the Flash platform, iPlotz runs in any browser which supports Flash (I am using Flash 10) and it also runs on any desktop which supports Adobe Air (this is an assumption on my part).

Signup was a breeze and painless since my credit card was never asked for (other online services with similar target audience want a credit card even though it’s a 30-day trial – sorry…) and I was able to get up and running in minutes – how nice is that?

I chose to review the iPlotz Desktop (Adobe Air application) version since it’s easier for me to get better snapshots.  The Online version works just as well (maybe better since I have all account info and online info right there) I just happen to prefer desktop apps that are web enabled or is it web apps that are desktop enabled?  The main difference I noticed right away between the online and desktop version was the startup screen presentation where the desktop version starts with the Manage screen (see below) and the online version starts with a higher level screen but both seem to offer the same essential features.

Desktop Licensing: iPlotz allows you to run the desktop version on multiple systems but it appears that if you install it too many times your account key is disabled and you will have to get a new serial key.  Not sure why this is nor am I certain of how many ‘too many times’ is but you can read about it here.

NOTE:  If you choose the free version (online) or the Desktop version you only get one project so I will not be able to comment on how multiple projects are handled.

From now on, iPlotz refers to the desktop version specifically so some things may be different than the online version.  Where differences become apparent I will make the proper adjustments as they become known to me.

Info on Product:

• Current Version: 1.58 build 2718
• Platform: Cross Platform/All Platforms => Adobe Air Desktop/Flash enabled browsers
• Pricing: Free (1 Project), $15 Monthly (unlimited projects, 1GB Storage), $99 Annually (unlimited projects, desktop included, 1GB storage), $75 (desktop) (see this page for details)

Standard Disclaimer

Let me preface this review of mine by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how it felt working with it as well as my impressions from a software developer point of view.  This is not some indirect advertising or some way to push more business to iPlotz.  Enough said.

Finally, here’s some links for iPlotz:

Home

What is iPlotz?

Support/Demo Video’s

Projects & Snippets

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

I mentioned above that I really like Adobe Air applications and I realized what I really like, aside from all the cool technology under the hood, is the extremely crisp, clean look the UI presentation has.  I am sure that’s not such a hot point for a lot of developer’s but for me, having developed on the less than stellar Windows XP, it is refreshing.  Anyhow, that’s the long way of saying that iPlotz has a sweet UI.  It is well thought out, clean, not too confusing and functional.

What follows are some features that I spent some time looking at and wanted to comment on.  It would be impossible to cover every feature since that’s the vendor’s job, I am just trying to communicate my view of how the program works.  If you want more info check the Support/Demo Video’s link above.

General

After you run iPlotz it presents a summary (Manage view) of a list of your Projects, a Sitemap (list of wireframes you have created) and the Tasks associated with the currently selected project.

You can also toggle between the following views: Manage, Wireframe or Preview.  Wireframe takes you to the canvas of the last page you were working on or the current page if you have opened a project and Preview shows you a preview of the last page you were working on or the current page if you have opened a project.

Here is a shot of the Default view when you run iPlotz:

It would be nice if there were a sample project you could open and spend some time with to see how everything works (I know there is a video but seeing and doing are two different things).

One thing which made it real difficult to work with iPlotz  is that iPlotz keeps prompting me every 5 minutes (yep, every 5) with a message telling me “Thank you for spending the last 5 minutes trying out iPloz” and then some buttons to Register, Continue or Purchase – that’s a major irritation when you are trying to evaluate software – why not just put a banner on the desktop version with Register and Purchase buttons or better yet just add the word [Trial] to the title bar of the app?  Here’s a shot of that:

So let’s move on to Projects and actually creating some mockups.

Projects

Projects consist of Pages within the Sitemap and Masters.  You can have multiple pages per projects and multiple masters per projects.  Masters are akin to page templates that your pages can ‘inherit’ from by selecting a master page which your page can use as a base – very nice feature.  Masters are exactly like page templates in my mind where every page you create inherits from the template – this works the same way.

Here is a shot of my test project, as you can see I have two pages in the sitemap (note the buttons and formatting bar):

Here is a shot of the Master page I am using above in both Test Pages:

Finally, each project listed has it’s own set of command buttons which allow you to export your project, edit it or delete it.  You can also import and export projects from and to a binary file with .ipml as the suffix.

Components & Properties

Components

The variety of components is excellent!  I would be hard pressed to say what, if any, components might be missing and if you do need a component that’s not there then you can probably conjure it up the Rectangle and Line objects (at least a rough layout).  Check in the What I Did section to see a small sample of some of the components.

In spite of the nice selection of components I did not find that working with the components was as sharp as it could be.  I had to constantly re-click and drag twice to move a component and resizing components gave a similar experience (I am running the desktop version on OS X) which is a bit disappointing but I am sure it’s easily corrected if there is a problem with iPlotz and it’s not an AIR issue.

Here is a small shot of the components panel:

Properties

I like the fact that the properties dialog stays visible all of the time but I did have an issue when I click on the main window (canvas) and then click on a component such as a button I had to click twice to get the properties to change to reflect that I was clicking on a button – not a big deal.

I also noticed that many of the same properties buttons such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Duplicate, Bring to Front, etc are located on the properties dialog.  I wouldn’t mind them being located on the main toolbar with only custom properties on the properties dialog.

Here’s a shot of the properties dialog:

What I Did

Info and screen shots on how I used the iPlotz.

Well, I was going to do a step by step here and show the mockup as I built it component by component but I could not get the program to export the mockup to an image file even though the option is available.  Simply: the button to export would not respond so I don’t know if this is a bug or another ‘demo’ limitation.

So here is an overall screen shot of the end result as it shows within iPlotz:

Let me add a point of concern here.  When I was putting this little mockup together I constantly had to undo and then re-drag components onto the canvas as I kept getting components embedded within other components and then they would look in relative position making it impossible to move things around properly.  Once that started happening I also was not able to preview until I loaded my other test page then went back to this one.

Here is a shot of what I am talking about:

Do you see the blue outlining?  That’s an indicator that somehow my radio button I just added and the pre-existing treeview are ‘connected’ – I am very uncertain as to what this is about but it was not a good sign that I would be willing to pony up $75 for the desktop version – not until some of the kinks get worked out.

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this program work for me…

• The look and feel of the program is slick!
• I like to the centralizing project feature.  It is so much easier to work in projects instead of just disconnected mockups.
• The Tasks feature is a nice touch.
• The import and export feature is well done.  I like that I can export to images as well as the iPlotz file type.
• Components are what makes a mockup (or a program for that matter) and the better the components the better the representation to your end user.

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they existed (suggestions?) or, perhaps corrected…

• I could really like this product if it felt a bit more concrete to me.  It feels kind of brittle and I feel hesitant, as if I have to tip toe around to avoid creating an issue – perhaps with some more refinement and code maturity that will change.
• I would like it if iPlotz would stop prompting me every 5 minutes with the message:”Thank you for spending the last 5 minutes trying out iPloz”.
• It would be great if the help was actually available from the desktop (if I missed it please point it out).
• It would be nice if there were a sample project.
• Having a real help file instead of a few questions would be helpful.  Personally, I don’t care to watch videos as my only reliance on learning a product and even though videos can be helpful I like to print key pages of help to read when I am not at the computer.
• Make the properties dialog a bit more responsive so that it changes to reflect the current component on the first click.

Recommendation

Here we are at the end of this review.

I have to say that I can’t recommend you spend time evaluating the desktop edition – not with that somewhat annoying message box that keeps popping up every 5 minutes.  It really made just working with this project a challenge and it certainly did impress upon me how important it is that I know I have been working with iPlotz for 5 more minutes.  You might consider working with the online version instead.

I can’t be overly enthusiastic about a program that appears to need more testing and refinement in certain areas as iPlotz does.  It just feels fragile to me with respect to the actual building of the mockup and since that’s the main point of the program I don’t feel comfortable telling you this is the greatest thing.  The other features seem quite solid and I had no issues with them at all (Projects, Tasks, Master, Pages in general) but they are really ancillary to the main point:  building mockups.

Finally, this is certainly a potentially promising product.  I liked many of the features and see the value that is offered so I can suggest you keep an eye on it.

You want to try this product and signing up for a free account is painless so there is nothing to lose but a couple of hours checking it out.

Tab

(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

Providing Help for desktop applications has been the bane of my development existence for years.  I have tried building the html help files in web editors and then hooking the content in the Microsoft Html Help Workshop: what fun…I have used RoboHelp (the old version before Adobe captured it) with mixed results and frankly found it to be a bit much for what I wanted.  Then, when I started programming in .Net I turned to nDoc for generating help files but that project died out so then I turned to SandCastle for building help files and that was a chore let me tell you (until I found SandCastle Help File Builder). So why am I droning on here?  Well, once I find a product I like I tend to stick with it (eg. I am still using the Programmers File Editor since it’s original release, over 10 years now) but I have never found a help generation solution that I liked – yet…

Maybe you have a help generation tool that you really like, perhaps not… If not, then this new post may be of some help to you.  For this review I will look at HelpSmith by Divcom Software.

Note: This review is not going to go into every feature that HelpSmith offers (there is not enough time to do that and this post would be 100 pages long) – that’s for Divcom to communicate via their website and the HelpSmith help file.  What I am going to do is create a sample help file and work with the features I would use so any ommisions are not intential they simply did not come across my radar.

Update – 08.25.2009:  Added comments from HelpSmith and corrected the topic selection dialog info.

Info on Product:

• Current Version: 3.0 (build 9.807)
• Platform: Windows only
• Price: $120 (or less based on quantity)
• Dependencies: Microsoft Html Help Workshop (direct download)
• Trial: 30-days (enough time to make sure you want it!)

Standard Disclaimer

Let me preface this review by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how it felt working with it as well as my impressions from a software developer point of view.  This is not some indirect advertising or some way to push more business to HelpSmith.  Enough said.

Finally, here’s some links for HelpSmith:

Home

ScreenShots

Download

Online Doc

Blog

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

HelpSmith is a full featured help file builder which allows you to build compiled html help (in standard winhelp and msdn style help), printable documents, and webhelp.  When I was using this program I had a sense I was working with an older style (not to say it’s old!) program akin to a VB6 style program.  That’s not a bad thing it just feels like I am working with a tool which was popular in terms of look and feel during the VB6 era.

General

Here is HelpSmith as it looks after startup (of course the size it something to be desired but it has to fit in this space!):

I really like the docking feature of the panels (I know it’s a standard thing but it’s not always done well) as it allows you to stack panels, combine them in a tabbed panel (not shown) and to autohide them (note Keywords & Styles and Formatting to the right) – makes it nice when all you want to do is just write your content.

I normally lay out my help files on paper or in an outline tool before I actually spend time to build the help file but HelpSmith really makes that unnecessary with the Topics and Table of Contents tool windows which lend a nice organizational feature when building help files.  Very nice feature.

Formatting is pretty much like basic word processing (rich text) with all the standard formatting controls including bold, italic, font types, tables and alignment to name a few.  I did try the Tables feature since I seem to see a lot of brittle implementations in the area of tables but HelpSmith’s table implementation is solid though it would be nice to see more of the table options in an optional toolbar so there would be less click navigation to find the settings I am looking for (like cell backgrounds, etc).

I liked the solidity of this program.  Plainly a great deal of work has gone into the making of HelpSmith and it shows (aside from my little pique about the programs look and feel – joking!  I’m not piqued!).

Tool Windows

Topics

The Topics tool window is where you put your project content together by adding topics to your current project.  Topics can be based on a template (I based mine on the MSDN Style template) for a consistent look and feel for each topic.  That’s a great idea because I can remember having to build style sheets and link them into my help content manually – what a pain that was!  Note the Context id’s in the default view.

Table of Contents

The TOC tool window is for building that navigational feature all help files (Windows anyway) share for navigating around the help file.  This tool window is really built like an outlining tool with the option to add TOC items before, after, at the end, beginning, etc..

Adding a TOC item is accomplished with the New Item dialog (shown below).  You can enter your own Title for the item or use the title of the Topic you link to.  If you know the Context id of the Topic you want to link to you can enter it or Browse for it from a list of Topics.  You can also specify the Window you want to use and the Icon to assign to the TOC Item.

Here is how you browse for topics mentioned above.  One thing I would like to see changed is to show the Title and the Context Id or just the title – titles are easier to remember than id numbers. Update:  HelpSmith provided me with this Browse for topics dialog with the Topic Names showing (you have to double click on the column dividers to expand though the columns will be expanded in the future to make it easy to do so.

Keywords

Keywords are used to seed your help file index which makes it easy for user’s to find common topics instead of reading the entire help file.  If you are familiar with PDF files, keywords are similar to bookmarks. This is very useful for large help files.  Adding a keyword is simple:  click on the document/key/plus icon (did I describe that enough?) and a new entry will appear in under the Keywords tree item and then you give it a name.

Modifying a keyword is where you actually hook the keyword up to a topic.  Just check the topics you want the keyword to be tied to and when the user clicks on the keyword that topic will be displayed in the help file.  If you select more than one topic then the user is presented with those topics you checked so they can pick the one they want.

Styles and Formatting

This tool window allows you to define and apply styles and formatting to the content within your topics similar to just about any word processor.  The nice thing here is that you can see how styles inherit from base styles (ie.. Normal is inherited by Hyperlink, Text 10, etc).

Projects

Hmmm… Projects have a certain meaning for me based on my experience with Visual Studio and Visual Studio.Net.  I tend to look at projects as organizational tools but that does not appear to be the case with how HelpSmith utilizes project.

There is no screenshot for a project tool window (at least I couldn’t find one) but I really would like to be able to add one here.  While the Topics and TOC tool windows are great I would love to see a main tool window where the Topics are which says: Project and under the main project node (which would have the name of the project and, in a hierarchical fashion, the topics, toc and keywords – perhaps as a navigational tool but not necessarily replacing the other tool windows.

It would be nice to also see a New Project command, Close Project command, and Build Project command (which would build the types you have selected – ie.. Html Help, Printable Document, Web Help).  From my point of view, if you are going to offer Projects then the project should be the unifying feature.

Finally, back to what HelpSmith does provide with respect to projects.  Project offer all of the settings for your help output in terms of title, copyright, compiler location, output location, etc:

Hopefully, this is not the only feature that will be offered for Projects in the future.

What I Did

Here is a screen shot of what I put together (another simpleton sample!) with HelpSmith and some shots of the output.

Project

You can see (above) the topics I created and how I linked to those topics both from the page and from the TOC and I also added one keyword as you will see below just to ensure it showed up in the index.

Compiling of the project is fast and works extremely well.  In fact, I had no problems at all with any of the output types – they all worked flawlessly as far as I could tell.

Outputs

Here is the compile help file (.chm) output from the project above:

Here is the same compiled help fie output showing the keyword I added so you have an idea of where keywords are used:

Here is the same project compiled into web help – very slick I think – this kind of thing is what makes tools like HelpSmith worthwhile:

And finally, the printed manual option output:

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this program work for me.

I really liked how stable HelpSmith feels – it responds well and shows a lot of effort has been put into this.

I really liked the multiple outputs from a single content source – that’s way cool!

I really liked the organizational features (topics, toc, keywords).

I really liked that the HelpSmith website offered several solutions for connecting your finished help file with various development tools (ie.. C#, Delphi, etc).  These solutions are stored under the Articles section on the HelpSmith website.

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they existed (suggestions?) or, perhaps corrected, in ForeUI

I would like it if the installer allowed you to create a new folder from the Browser for Folder dialog – I rarely install to Program Files (most everything I review goes into a sandbox folder) – just a nitpick thing certainly no big deal. Update: from HelpSmith – “As to the installer, we are using Inno Setup for this task. It offers only two modes for the “Browser for Folder” dialog-box. Unfortunately, when you add the “New Folder” button to it, it ceases to automatically add the “HelpSmith” sub-folder to the destination path…” (read the rest in the Comments section)

I would like it if there was more of a project feel to a project (see notes above).

I would like it if the Keywords implementation was a bit better.  It would be nice if, when I add a new keyword, that a dialog pop’s up allowing me to pick the topic(s) I want to associate with the new keyword – one less step would be nice and more intuitive. Update: from HelpSmith – “We will consider how we can improve the Keyword tool for the future updates. Thanks.“

I would like it if PDF was another output option.  I know you can print your output to free PDF tools such as PDF Creator but it would be nice if I could do that from within HelpSmith. Update: from HelpSmith – “Regarding to PDF. I think it is a good idea. Despite HelpSmith does not have native support for PDF so far, we can add a button for making PDF documents with a linked PDF printer. Similarly, we can add a button for creating Word RTF documents. It will provide quick and easier access to these existing features.“

Recommendation

Here we are at the end.  Well, the end of this review anyway…

I can’t say I am in the market for a help building tool right this minute but if I where I would seriously consider HelpSmith.  The price is relatively inexpensive (especially compared to time spent hand tooling the TOC, keywords, etc…) and what I would spend on a license I could more than save with the time saving features HelpSmith offers.

Take a look at HelpSmith if you need to write help files or writing help content is your game:  I don’t think you will be disappointed once you try it.

Tab

(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

In Part 1, Balsamiq was reviewed, and so now let’s continue with Part 2, ForeUI, a Java based UI Design Tool.  Since ForeUI is built on top of Java it should run on Linux, Solaris, Windows and OS X though there are only 2 pre-built installers: Windows and OS X.  I installed ForeUI on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.8 using Java version 1.5.0_19.  Here is a brief list of features that ForeUI offers.

Side: I read an interesting article on the ForeUI site:  “When Will We Need UI Prototype?“.  I have to say I agree with almost all of the points in the article especially  getting early user feedback and working with your team (paraphrasing here).  I only bring this up because I ran a little Discussion Post on the RIA Developers group on LinkedIn and had one reply was “Why do a Mockup?  Why not build the UI directly?”.  This was after Part 1 and it got me thinking.  Why would I do a mockup instead of just building the UI? My response (to myself) was that a mockup is much easier to work with instead of an IDE (I don’t have time to sort out WPF while I am soliciting user input during a meeting, it’s MUCH easier to send a mockup in the form of a .png or .pdf (I know you can take screen shots) and it’s much faster to knock out a wireframe and move forward until the user has what they need THEN I do a real UI.  Just my two cents.

FYI: Similar to Balsamiq, ForeUI allows you to use your license on every machine you own.  Nice!

Update – 08.14.2009:  Made some minor grammar corrections and updated this post based on the first comment from the Vendor below (look for Update by each item that the vendor commented on).

Info on ForeUI

• Current Version: 1.45
• Cross Platform
• Java Based
• Price: $79

Standard Disclaimer

Let me preface this review of mine by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how it felt working with it as well as my impressions from a software developer point of view.  This is not some indirect advertising or some way to push more business to ForeUI.  Enough said.

Finally, here’s some links for ForeUI:

ForeUI Home

Interactive Tour (screen shots, tour, samples)

Interactive Demo (runs as Java Applet)

Download

Blog

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

Let’s take a quick look at some of the features of ForeUI.

The drawing features of ForeUI are top notch.  I have to say that they are among the best I have used.  In spite of the fact ForeUI is created in Java the UI is really quite responsive and precise.

On a less happy note:  why all the prompts telling me I only have 7 days for the demo and trying to get me to buy or enter a license number?  I mean, come on, if you are letting me demo and it stops in 7 days that ‘s a fair thing but why keep prompting me every time I Save As or Export to an image?  Kind of annoying.  Update: The vendor is willing to change this so there is only one prompt (perhaps?) or maybe, as an option, just leave the words (Evaluation Version) in the title bar and that’s it?

General

I like the design of ForeUI in terms of the smoothness and clarity but I can’t really get my mind around all of the brown/tan.  After a while it feels kind of monotonous (I probably read too much into this but I like color!).   Aside from the color everything is pretty simple in ForeUI.  The menu system is uncluttered (not shown here since we are on a Mac and I am screenshot challenged), the toolbar is simple and the navigation through the UI controls is pretty commonplace in a lot of applications. All in all, this is a cleanly laid out program and I had no problem getting up to speed for most things very quickly.

UI Library

The UI controls are located along the left in a standard slider type of presentation with controls separated by category.  Again, easy to use and figure out.  It appears that the UI library is a fixed one with some customization of existing UI controls available but no way to import new controls unless this feature totally eluded me but not the vendor – correction, importing is an option – see Update just below.

Update:  I copied what the vendor said here – he does a better job of describing things than I do – “You can create your own element by customizing existing UI controls, you can select elements in the plot and right-click the mouse, then you will find an item named “Create Customized Element …”. You can also import the customized element (.fce file) created by others, just go to the “Customization” group in the list, click that button with green icon, you can see the “Add Element from File…” option. We also have a plan to allow sharing the customized elements via internet.”

Canvas (Plot)

The Plot is where you draw you mockup (see the white area above) and you can customize a couple of things from the bottom toolbar: Type of UI (very nice!), the background, the size of the Plot and whether you want to add a rumple effect to the Plot (kind of like crumpled paper smoothed out).  The rumple effect is kind of different and I have not seen that on other prototype/mockup tools and I am unsure how a client would like that – one of those things you have to try.

Properties

The properties dialog is kind of unique to me (coming from more of  a Windows background) as it kind of disappears until you move the mouse over the dialog.  However, you can ‘pin’ (or is that unpin?) the dialog with the pushpin in the upper, right corner which keeps the dialog on top and visible at all times (unless you click on the plot background) which is nice.

Here is what the properties look like:

I wonder if it would be possible to put the properties dialogs along the right, left, etc and have the common properties (to all UI elements) in the top 1/2 of the properties dialog and in the bottom 1/2 put the unique elements.  That would be useful.

Working with Images

I was hoping to be able to import my own images into the Plot I was working on but I could not figure out how – see Update below.  The Image UI control just displayed a generic image which I guess is supposed to be representative of all images.  I find that sometimes I can accomplish a lot by importing images and making things seem more ‘realistic’ but that’s just me.

Update: You can change the image of the Image control by clicking on the Image…. line within the properties – I must have been blind to miss that – my mistake.

Configuration

As far as I could tell there are no real configuration features in ForeUI except for what you see at the bottom toolbar for the Plot.  I am actually suprised because just about every program I have worked with has some sort of configuration (I kind of like messing around with configs – makes it more personal when you can tune it to your own needs) but ForeUI does not appear to.  If anything, I would like to have the ability to change the look and feel of ForeUI.

Update: This is on the ToDo list according to the vendor including changing the Look and Feel.

Exporting and Importing

Importing is non-existant as far as I could tell.

Exporting has 3 options:

• Export to Image
• Export to Pdf
• Export to DHTML

Export to Images works about how you would expect and works well.  I would not recommend the Export to Pdf (it’s not for me anyway) as it created 2 pages where 1 was only needed with the first page only have “Page 1” on it and the next page having an image of the mockup.  By far, Export to DHTML is the best since you can send the mockup along with the Actions enabled to a client, put them on an internal web server or publish the mockup on the web – well done feature in my opinion.

Actions and Simulations

Actions is the name of the feature in ForeUI that allows you to choose events for any UI element (this is an assumption as I did not try ALL of them) and tie that event or those events to actions.  For instance, in my sample I tied a Click event for the Run button to display a question dialog (Flow Control) and based on a Yes or No I display an appropriate dialog.  The coolest thing is that when you run your prototype as a Simulation (see image just below) those events and actions turn into Javascript – very handy!

Here is a shot of the Actions editor:

Kind of slick isn’t it?  Actions really add some extra goodness to your prototypes and I imagine it is a really helpful thing to demonstrate basic flow from Page to Page, etc..

Here are a series of shots showing the running of my sample as a Simulation:

You can see that my prototype is ‘running’ in the Safari Web Browser:

Now you can see the effect of clicking on the Run button (my screen shots are different becuase I had to switch to selection mode instead of application capture):

Finally you can see what happens when I click Ok:

Very cool stuff.  Might very well be worth the price of ForeUI to be able to build simulations.

What I Did

Aside from working with ForeUI, I decided to do a quick mockup of a dialog so here are some screen shots from that mockup.  It’s not real and it’s not mentally fascinating but it gives you an idea of how ForeUI looks/works:

Pretty amazing right?  Well, maybe not but this is just the beginning… Anyway, you can see I picked the Hand Drawing option for the type of prototype I wanted to do (you can choose from Wireframe, OS X, Windows XP and Hand Drawing).  You can also see how the Plot area (canvas if you will) has that crinkled paper looked (Rumpling) – kind of interesting.

Wow, it’s really coming along: a Tab control makes all the difference!  What’s really cool is I just double-clicked on the Tabs in the Tab control to add the nifty descriptions for each tab.

Now we have a Treeview control with sample Folders, Leaf, etc..  I was uncertain how you actually define a Folder or a Leaf in the properties of the Treeview but obviously you can do that.

Here we are with the final prototype with a couple of Buttons added.  The interesting thing (and you can’t see it here but in the ForeUI Plot you can) is that I added some Actions to the Run button for when my prototype runs in Simulation mode.

At last, the final screen shot just to show the Annotations you can use: Mouse Cursor, Balloon and a Post It near the bottom.

Well that’s it for what I did.  Very simple and very fast to build a good representation of a UI that just about any end user or dev team can grasp.

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this program work for me.

I really liked the option to have 4 different looks for my prototype:  OS X, Windows XP (Vista would be nice), Wireframe or Hand Drawing – this is a very cool feature.

I liked this Rumple effect (rumpled paper) for the Plot background – kind of interesting idea.

I liked The ability to use the arrow keys to fine tune the location of the UI elements on the Plot is nice.

It’s cool the way you can double click on the UI elements and change their properties right there (ie.. clicking on the tabs of the tab folder allows you to change the title of the tabs).

The Run Simulation feature is so awesome!  After I built my little mockup (with some minor Actions) I clicked on the Run Simulation button and ForeUI loaded up my web browser with my mockup in a generated page and all of the Actions were converted to Javascript – sweet!

One of the top things I like about ForeUI is the Action feature which allows you to bind simple events to UI elements and bind actions to those events and that’s pretty excellent.

The ability to edit some of the UI controls is very handy (ie.. boilerplate dialogs).

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they existed (suggestions?) or, perhaps corrected, in ForeUI

I would be nice if there was actually a help document (the online documentation is a page that says it’s being worked on) since I don’t want to contact support for every question I might have. Update: This is on the long ToDo list – it is slated to be done just down the road.

I would be great if, when you create a new plot, ForeUI asks for the plot size up front.  Currently you have to change the height and the width at the bottom right corner and apply each change separately (height change, apply, width change, apply) or better yet:  allow me to resize the ‘plot’ on the screen with the mouse. Update: An option to specify the default plot size will be in the up and coming configuration (it’s in the ToDo list).

I would love it if the demo version would stop popping up a dialog everytime I saved – it kills the experience and I do believe I understand the demo is only for 7 days – why remind me every time I save? Update:  See comments above and in the comments section.

It would be nice if the Save/Save As dialog allowed me to create a new folder (seems like the lame save dialog Java offers).  Update: In the ToDo list.

I could like it if ForeUI offered an import option to allow new controls to be imported into the controls area.  It would also be nice to be able to import other documents into the current one but the binary file format probably prevents that.  Update: See UI Library in the Looking Around section above

I would be very happy if it was possible to draw lines (with those little arrows) to UI elements or connect them with connector lines (similar to Dia or Visio) as sometimes I may want to annotate with more than just my finger!  Update: In the ToDo list.

It would be excellent if ForeUI (and all prototype/mockup tools) generated XAML (.Net WPF) and/or MXML (Flex) – how slick would that be?  Update:  From the vendor – “XAML and MXML generation: Not scheduled yet but sounds like very interesting features, may be they will be available in ForeUI 2.0 ?“

Recommendation

That’s it for this review.  I am kind of torn here with my recommendation because there are some very important (to me) features that I really like such as: Actions and Simulations but some of the way ForeUI works makes me think that it has some maturing to do before I would spend the $79 to buy it.  It’s not any one thing that makes me think this but just the combination of a lot of things I mentioned earlier tell me that some polish is needed in other areas and perhaps some usability studies with changes made that will help the user and not just be familiar to the developer.  What I mean by that is that sometimes when developing it is easy to get used to how a feature looks/works so that you no longer notice that it’s really not that user friendly.

Anyway, this is a good option if the things that seem to be lacking don’t bother you as there are some real strengths with this program that will help it shine in future versions.

Update:  I am thinking I could like this program a lot more down the road as more ToDo items get accomplished.  I have to say the vendor (Xavier) is very professional and addressed all of the issues/suggestions I came up with.  That’s worth a lot these days when it’s hard to even get good customer service face-to-face.

Side:  I was going to write a separate post about mockup magnets (called GuiMags) but that’s been done here.  So I thought I would entice your thought processes by mentioning you can get coated, magnetized, UI shapes for the ultimate manual UI design process.  You can write on them like a white board and best of all you can reuse them!  Here is the site where you can get GuiMags (as well as GuiBoards).  Check it out as a compliment to your digital mockups!

Stay tuned for UI Prototyping and Mockups Part 3 – ?  (ideas?).

Tab

(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

There are a multitude of Diff/Merge Utilities out there but this review will cover the Guiffy Diff/Merge Tool and Folder comparison utility v9.x.   Let me be up front:  I own v8.x of Guiffy and really like it a great deal but I don’t own v9.x.  I also own an older version of ExamDiff Pro, and a multitude of others.  What I am trying to say is that I have yet to find a Diff/Merge tool that sets perfect with me and I suspect it’s more of the developer/designer in me that’s always looking for the next feature.  This is not a closed ended review since it takes a long time to get a review done well I tend to add more layers as time goes on:  this is no different.

FYI:  I did this review of Guiffy (trial) on OS X however it runs on Linux (all flavors), OS X, Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and other Java platforms.  Certainly a good selling point.

Code:  The code snippet I used comes from a very cool site called Java2S.Com (I just made 2 copies and munged them a bit).

Update – 08.22.2009: Guiffy has recently reduced the price for their Diff/Merge tool: was $79 now it is $59 – how cool is that?!!!  There are also tiered steps for multi-user licensing for the team and/or enterprise.  Sometimes good thing increase in price over time but it sure it nice when the price goes down but not the quality!

Update – 08.15.2009: In response to a couple of issues that were found Guiffy released a new build 270 (Build 270 includes 3 bug fixes: 396-398) which resolved all of the issues below.  The content below has been modified accordingly.

I have tried many, many diff tools but I always seem to find some issue with them and move on.  Some of them don’t print print properly, some diff like the old style command line diff with the results on top of each other which really is a pain to visualize the differences (csDiff anyone?).  Those are just a few things off the top of my mind I like to avoid with a diff tool.  So, what to review?  There are a ton of features in the top diff tools these days from basic file compare, to editing, to 3-way merging, to folder diffs and a slew of others,  but what I am most interested in is the following:

• Does the tool do a diff completely by ‘reading’ the files you are comparing and show true differences or does it do a line by line diff with no real intelligence? (I know this is not so common anymore but I have seen it on the lower end, free, tools)
• When a newer version of a file has been reorganized (ie.. moving functions around, reformatting, etc..) is that really a different file?  If no other changes were made then what is the real difference?  To me it’s just layout sugar but I would like the diff tool to be able to ‘know’ that the code is basically the same.  That’s probably asking too much and at this stage I don’t remember how well any of my diff tools does this but I like the idea.
• I want to be able to print my diff results side by side with line numbers – sometimes I just like to read the code without the computer in front of me.
• I would like to be able to tell if one folder has different files in it from another folder – recursively too (not sure if the recursive is a bit much in terms of processing but it would be cool).
• Finally, I would really like to not have to take a loan out to buy a diff tool.  Some of them are very expensive for what it does like Araxis, $269 for the pro license is a bit much to me – more than most professional text editors!

Info on Guiffy

• Current Version: 9.0 (Download)
• Cross Platform (see above)
• Java based
• Price: $66 Single User / $132 3-User (1 license runs on all platforms)
  

Standard Disclaimer

Let me preface this review of mine by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how I felt working with it as well as my impressions from a software developer point of view.  This is not some indirect advertising or some way to push more business to Guiffy.  In other words: this is unpaid. Enough said.

Finally, here’s some links for Guiffy:

Guiffy Home

Documentation

Screen Shots

Features

Release Notes

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

Here is a picture of how Guiffy looks right after startup.  I really like the clean lines of this program.  Nice and simple without an overwhelming array features on the main screen.

What I Did

File Compare

Here is Guiffy with a diff of two code files which are the same, pretty much what you would expect.  The syntax highlighting is well done:

Here is Guiffy with a diff of the same two code files with one of the files re-arranged but no code changes other than rearranging:

Well, that’s kind of a bummer but not unexpected.  You can see all I did was swap positions of the Main() method from bottom to top but it still counted it as different.  I wonder if there is any diff tool that WILL do a line by line comparison like what I described?  Anyone know of one?

Here is a shot with the files back the way they were but I added 4 spaces and it found the diffs as you would expect:

And here are the same files with the Ignore Leading and Trailing Whitespace option checked (nice option when you have who knows how many developers imprinting their formatting ideas on your source code:

One thing I really like is the speed of the comparisons.  I realize that these are rather small files but the compares for archives and folders are pretty snappy.  That’s a nice thing when you are looking to do your tasks as quickly as possible (ie.. comparing data files when you are doing troubleshooting for a client waiting for a fix).

So, that’s it for my File Comparisons.  Next, let’s tackle Archives and Folders.

Archive Compare (new for v9)

To test Archive Compare I compared the .zip files of two different versions of the Guiffy installer.  Archive selection shares the same dialog as the Folder Compare and works like you would expect.

The actually comparison was fairly quick and accurate (I compared gufins86.zip and gufins90.zip) and displayed the results as if I were comparing folders (which essentially this is a similar operation) in hierarchical fashion.  The nice thing is that Guiffy actually went into the .app file within the .zip archive (the .app file is the installer) which is nice as some diff tools just stop at unzipping the .zip file.  If that were the case here we would only see the guf86ins.app and gufins90.app files in the compare – glad this is NOT the case with Guiffy.

Here is a screen shot showing the results:

Pretty much what you would expect for an Archive Compare.  I really like the way this worked and I liked the speed that is performed the compare.  Some diff tools that do archive compares spend an enormous amount of time just decompressing the archive folder.

I would like to see .Rar and .7z (7zip) archives as an option for the archive types you can compare since both of these types do exist on most platforms.  Ready to forge on to my final compares:  Folders.

Folder Compare

Ok, so let’s look at a Folder diff of a fairly large chunk of Flex source for a grocery cart (from one of my training books).

I first modified the options by selecting Show SubFolders (Recursively) and Show Details.  The recursive part is important to me as I have used diff tools which made you navigate into a folder to see the differences in that folder then you had to navigate out – pain!

Here is a compare with the files and folders exactly the same.  Again, about what you would expect.  Compare is fast and accurate.

Next, I removed some files from the 2nd folder just to see how things compared.  And it found all of the differences I created within the folder structures.

Ok, that’s about it for my diff’ing tonight.  Now I know I did not mention all of the options (there are many!) or any of the other features that may exist.  I leave that to you – just check out the Release Notes and you will see all the new features.

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this program work for me.

I liked the clean looks of Guiffy – everything you need is on the toolbar to do most jobs (that’s nice for the mac since the menu is not attached to any mac program – at least standard ones).

I liked the speed of comparison (folder compare seems extremely fast as does all the compares).

I liked the code syntax coloring as well as the themes that you can pick for Guiffy.

I liked the ability to show side to side and top to bottom views of my diffs.

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they were a part of Guiffy – some of the items I might have mentioned already.

I could like it if in the Folder Compare there was a .. or previous folder (up arrow) navigator in the folder view and not on the toolbar.

I could like it if Guiffy maintained my position (sizing, location) automatically.

I could like it if the toolbar buttons could show text (tell me if that’s there, I just couldn’t find it).

I could like it better if there was coloration for files and folders (show read-only, system files/folders, etc) – if coloration is there I could not find it – is it?.

I could like it if the option to compare .Rar and .7z files was available in addition to all of the other compression types which are available.

Recommendation

Hmmm.. As I said in the Preamble,  I own Guiffy (v8.4), really like it and I don’t hesitate to recommend it.  In fact, if you are going to buy a diff tool then, for the price, Guiffy is a good option.  I also want to say that Guiffy has some of the best service I have worked with and I can vouch for the fact that they do care about their product and want to see it be the best it can be so don’t hesitate to drop them a line if you have a question or issue:  they will get back to you.

Guiffy is a professional Diff/Merge tool and does a great job of providing professional grade features – check it out!

Tab

(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

I was originally going to write this post and cover 2 or 3 different UI prototyping tools with Balsamiq being one of them.  Well, as I started working with Balsamiq I realized that I wanted to spend more time working with each tool so I decided to make this a mini-series of a sort with Balsamiq in Part 1 with ForeUI in Part 2 and an unknown (even to me) in Part 3.  So here we go with Balsamiq (this is not a tutorial but more of a review so I encourage you to explore the help file for all the capabilities here).

FYI: Real nice thing in this day of most software vendors requiring a license per machine and sometimes per use Balsamiq allows you to use your license on every machine you own.  As they say in the FAQ:  “The license for Mockups for Desktop is tied to you, not a particular machine. Install it on any machine you own and use, and enjoy!”

Update: Balsamiq has been updated to v1.8.5 on 06.22.2010 (release notes).

Let me preface this review of mine by saying it is a review of how I see the program and how it felt working with it as well as my impressions from a software developer point of view.  This is not some indirect advertising or some way to push more business to Balsamiq as I am actually using this tool in my work while I doing UI designs for the software I am developing.  Enough said.

Finally, here’s some links for Balsamiq:

Balsamiq Home

Sample Mockups

YouTube Demo

Mockups as Plugins

I did not include a great many screen shots of what Balsamiq can do as their website really has this covered much better than I do from the Sample Mockups link just above.

Contents

Looking Around

What I Did

Off The Top

Recommendation

Looking Around

Before I display my little mockup I figured I would go over some parts of Balsamiq and give my impressions.

General

I really like the clean look of this program.  It’s snappy, lot’s of room for composition and there is not a lot of clutter (ie.. there are no multiple sidebars, bottom bars, etc).  The Application Bar above the UI Library is interesting to me coming from mostly a Windows background (being used to toolbars) but it’s simple and workable.  I like the tools there but it would be nice to be able to move it around.  In fact, I would like to be able to dock the Application Bar, UI Library and Properties myself but perhaps that’s on a future version?

The menus are nice and short though a menu option for configuration would be nice (see Configuration below).

The UI Library slide menu is very responsive and the drag and drop is precise and crisp when dragging onto to Mockup Canvas.  I also like the wide array of control types though I don’t quite understand the iPhone specific controls as the overall wire frame concept implies that the mockup is OS or Device independent but that’s just me and the controls themselves, as well as any others I might not use myself, would probably be valuable to others.

Application Bar

The Application Bar contains some common actions such as cut, copy, paste, delete, control grouping and locking.  What I wish it had was the layer buttons (bring forward, send backward, etc) since it appears that those buttons exist on the Properties page for just about every control I worked with.  I would also be nice if the color pallete was available from the Application Bar.

UI Library

This is a great way to present the controls.  I like the preview of the controls and I like how responsive the navigation is within the library.  What I see that would be beneficial to me is to have a split level button for the control groups (ie.. Big, Navigation, iPhone, etc) that I could click on to see a drop down menu of what each group contains and clicking on an item in the menu would take me to that item in it’s group – just a thought..

Canvas

Not a whole lot to say about the Canvas itself.  It works very well, I don’t notice much if any lag when I am composing a mockup and that’s important to me since I tend to like to work fast when I have an idea (maybe it’s just poor short term memory!).  Anyway, if I could have one thing it would be rulers:  I know it’s  probaly not a pure mockup tool but sometimes I want to ensure that my mockup will fit on a page if I print it – trivial I know but some things you get used to.

Properties

This IS a part of the Canvas but I had a few things I wanted to comment on with the properties.  First, it seems there is a lot of redundancy such as the layering buttons, color, transparency to name a couple.  It would be really cool if the Properties were dockable with the option to slide out on mouse hover.  Then the common properties from the Properties window and maybe some from the Application Bar could go into a common properties section and then the custom properties unique to each control could go in a unique properties section just below the common properties – similar to this:

The Properties Window shows semi-transparent when I click on a control on the canvas and I have to click on the properties window itself to see what properties are available.  That’s kind of a bummer after a while and I am uncertain as to the value of that type of display when I have clicked on the control.  I am ok with the properties hiding itself after a bit but I still like the idea of having a properties area like the one I mocked above (it would not have to be docked permanently,  just have the option to do so).

Working with Images

Here I am, looking for a way to import images, and could not find an obvious way (ie.. File | Import Image..) to do so.  Then, being so smart, I actually went and read the online help and found out that images are easy to import in a rather cool way:  You use the Image control and once you drag it onto the mockup you can import through the control’s properties from your local drive, a URL or from Flickr.  Very simple and very cool!  I really liked the Sketch It feature which renders the image with a similar look to the rest of the mockup controls (not exact because you have more OS specific look with your screenshots but for other non OS images it’s nice).

Configuration

Most programs you work with have a configuration dialog that helps you to set your preferences for that program.  With Balsamiq, you have to create this file for yourself as it does not appear to exist by default after installation.  It would be nice if there were a default config with a nice dialog to modify the settings from the UI.

Here is my config that I used on Windows:  BalsamiqMockups.cfg


<config>
<fontFace>Tahoma</fontFace>
<rememberWindowSize>false</rememberWindowSize>
<useCookies>true</useCookies>
</config>

The config is pretty simple and self-explanatory so the only thing I would say is choose your font wisely and that’s only from the standpoint of working with existing mockup’s.  I had a sample I was working with that had the font in Comic Sans and then I created the config and changed the font to Lucida Console for fun and I had to re-arrange everything.  No real big deal and no different than if you change fonts in any drawing tool so it’s just something to be aware of.

Here is the info on the config

Exporting and Importing

Exporting is pretty straightforward with the option to export the current mockup to .png or all open mockups to .png.  There is no option to choose the location or filename of the exported .png for a single export but the export all does allow you to pick the folder.  The .png names are derived from the name of your mockup.  I would actually like the option to choose so I could have different names for the exported .png files.  Balsamiq DOES give you the option to create a sequentially named file if the export exists already so that is good.

The Export to Clipboard creates a snapshot of your mockup and puts it in the clipboard.  I tried this with Paint.Net and it worked perfectly.  The image was clear and exact.

If you want to get the xml representation of your mockup you can Export Mockup.. and Balsamiq will copy the xml to the clipboard in text format suitable for pasting in to an editor (the xml is in what is called .bmml format).

Importing was an interesting experience.  The way I understand importing is that you can import a .bmml into your current mockup as long as the .bmml file resides in the same folder as the current mockup.  Alternatively, you can paste the xml (.bmml format) into a text box and import that way.  I am uncertain if Adobe Air creates this kind of restriction or if it is by design but I can tell you that I am certain I will have .bmml files in various places on my system and I don’t always want to copy them around to current working folders.  This needs a file selection dialog similar to what the Image Control can do.

Here is the info on Exporting and Importing

Integration

Integration is often where a lot of products fail, especially with collaboration tools.  In this, Balsamiq really excels in it’s integration.  According to what I read, you can have full blown integration into Confluence, Jira, XWiki and FogBugz.  This means that you don’t have to use the desktop version of Balsamiq and import images from your mockups as you can create them from within the aforementioned collaboration tools.  That’s a very cool thing.

Here’s the info on Integration (starting with Confluence – scroll down on the help page to read more).

What I Did

Here are some screen shots  of a mockup I did with Balsamiq.  I admit it’s not as interesting as a real project might be but it will have to do…for now:

Just getting started, dragged a window to the canvas:

Now we have a toolbar and a tab control:

The treeview is in place:

Finally, the textbox and content on the right:

So, I am quite sure that this was a simpleton’s sample but it gives you some idea of what you can do in about 10 minutes but the results are well worth it.

Off the Top

Things I liked

What I think really makes this program work for me.

I liked the overall UI a great deal.  Despite some issues I might have it is still extremely productive.

I liked how little time it took me to produce so much.

I liked the large array of controls and Balsamq’s willingness to create more – just contact them and see what they say.

I liked how cool the Image Control was (is) for importing images – excellent!

I liked how responsive this program was (is!).  It’s very refereshing after working with some really speed hogs like Visual Studio.

I liked the integration features with Confluence, Jira, Xwiki, and FogBugz.

I liked a lot more things but I think this is a good start.

Things I could like

Some things that would be cool (to me) if they existed (if I missed something please tell me!) in Balsamiq – some of the items I might have mentioned already.

I could like it if the vertical curly brace control would show the text I just typed after I am done.  It seemed that I had to resize the object on the canvas and then it displayed fine.

I could like it if there were some line connection tools for annotation purposes similar to how dia does it or any other drawing tool for that matter.  I realize this might go against purist mockup thinking but many manual mockups I have done on paper always get arrows and lines pointing to the UI elements.  Just a thought…

I could like it if I could see a ruler along left and top.

I could like it if there was some rudimentary color formatting of the text in text type controls such as text area.  Some basic formatting exists in the controls with text editing in them such as Italics, Bold, and Links to name a few but I sometimes like color in my mockups (I used to use Paint.Net or Gimp so I am spoiled where color comes in) to draw attention to content that may be important to the project.

I could like it if there was an option to choose the location and filename of the .png I was exporting to.

I could like it a lot if Balsamiq generated XAML (.Net WPF) and/or MXML (Flex) – that would be so cool!

Recommendation

So, here we are, at the end of this little review. I hope I communicated the sharpness of Balsamiq and it’s focus towards one thing:  creating UI mockups.  This program, so far, is about the best thing that I have found to do mockups in a long time including Visio, SmartDraw or Dia (and I have used all of these).  I really think that Balsamiq, the company, is on the right track with this product and with some enhancements or changes it would just keep getting more popular.

Sigh.. I am not so good at writing a lot of fluff so to tell it like I say it:  This is a cool program and I don’t think I will use anything else except for my brain doing mockups in the future and while you can’t beat the collaborative integration the desktop version is great.

If you have to do UI mockups for clients this is a great way to go.

Side:  I was going to write a separate post about mockup magnets (called GuiMags) but that’s been done here.  So I thought I would entice your thought processes by mentioning you can get coated, magnetized, UI shapes for the ultimate manual UI design process.  You can write on them like a white board and best of all you can reuse them!  Here is the site where you can get GuiMags (as well as GuiBoards).  Check it out as a compliment to your digital mockups!

Stay tuned for UI Prototyping and Mockups Part 2 – ForeUI.

Tab

If you have any other resources to add please throw a comment my way and I will update the main list below.

(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

Update – 08.17.2009:  Added Vodnex WPF Controls Micro Pack to my list of WPF Controls.

me·nag·er·ie (mə-nāj’ə-rē, -nāzh’-)

1. General
   1. A collection of live wild animals on exhibition.
   2. An enclosure in which wild animals are kept.
2. A diverse or miscellaneous group.

So, here is the table of contents for my list:

Xaml Editors

Wpf/Xaml Addins

Wpf/Xaml Utilities

Books on Wpf/Xaml

Wpf Components

Xaml Editors (non-ide)

Most of the WPF I do is in the default XAML editor in Visual Studio and while it does the job I sometimes want to just play with XAML without loading the whole IDE (or while I am coding in the IDE).  The following are just XAML editors with a few special features.

Kaxaml (recommended)
Kaxaml is a cool XAML editor that has some nice features.  I really like the Snippets feature which can sometimes get me going with a feature I may not know how to code and the XAML scrubber is pretty nice as well.  With syntax coloring and intellisense this editor is my top pick for just pure XAML coding.

XamlPadX (Last updated August 25, 2008)
XamlPadX is an ok XAML editor with it’s own bag of tricks.  Nice visual tree explorer, nice default style display for various components and a fairly fast XAML parser so what you type is displayed in the UI window right away.  It does not have intellisense which is kind of a bummer but not too bad.  I also noticed some strange artifacts in the UI as I switched and panels.  Personally I found Kaxaml to have a more compelling feature set but XamlPad is still a nice editor.

XAML Editor
XAML Editor is just a simple notepad for XAML.  It can only be used for editing XAML and has not real value to a developer but it does validate your XAML though you can not run it from this utility.  Going to the help page from the Help menu gives you one of those web pages that indicate the domain is for sell.  I wouldl not use – it would be better to use something like notepad2 instead of this tool.

Charles Petzold’s Xaml Cruncher – click once installation (Last updated 2007)
This tool has more of the feel of a project one would build to learn XAML.  It does parse the xaml and render the WPF output but it does not have intellisense or really any other features that would make it compelling.  If you like responding to parse errors to code and DO NOT like intellisense when working with XAML then this is for you.

Finally, there is XamlPad which is included with SDK installation.

Wpf/Xaml Addins (Vs.Net)

Xaml Power Toys (recommended)
This is very powerful addin for WPF that assists you in creating business forms.  This is what I would describe as a WPF form generator.  There are also helpers for working with Grids, and tools to generate DataGrids and Listviews.  I would highly recommend watching the videos on Karl Shifflett’s web page to get a feel for how this works.  I have not had an occasion to use this (YET!) except for just playing around with it to get an idea of it’s value.  At the time it felt to me that you are bringing a certain style of development when you utilize this addin to help you with you line of business forms.

Menees VS Tools
Kind of a nifty ‘charityware’ VS.Net addin that offers several convenient features such as (this is right from the web site ):

• Sort
• Trim
• Statistics
• Run Text
• Execute File
• Stream Text
• Comment
• Generate Prime
• Generate GUID
• Check Spelling

Plus:

• Toggle Files
• Close All Except
• Toggle Read-Only
• Add Region (VS 2005+ Only)
• Base Converter (VS 2005+ Only)

I have not used this a great deal though I do use it occasionally and for free (the author requests you donate at least $5 to your favorite charity) you can’t beat it.

Wpf/Xaml Utilities

Mole (recommended)
Multi-Function Visualizer for WPF, WCF, WF, Asp.Net, XBAP’s and winforms.

Snoop (recommended)
Cool little utility to assist in debugging / visualizing WPF applications.

SWF2XAML
Nice utility that converts SWF (Flash) to XAML

Visual WebGUI Web Design Tools
Visual GUI Web Design tool for creating custom controls and themes in html, css and XAML

Crack.Net (recommended)
Runtime debugging and scripting tool for WPF and Winforms – check out the web site for all the features.

Azure Storage Explorer
This is not a WPF utility but it is very cool.  This is used to explore your data in Azure Cloud projects.  Neat stuff!

.Net Reflector (recommended)
Addins Page for .Net Reflector
If you have not heard of Reflector then I recommend you click on the above link, download it and check out this amazing utility.  This is about one of the coolest and longest lived utilities for .Net out there.  While this is not strictly a WPF utility there are a couple of addins (BamlViewer and SilverLight Loader) that work with WPF and SilverLight.

Shazzam Pixel Shader (requires silverlight 2.x)
From the website: “The goal of Shazzam is to make it simple to edit and test WPF Pixel Shader Effects.”

Pistachio WPF Resource Visualizer
While this is not new it is still cool:  This tool allow you to load project files and it will list all the resources and where they are used.  I am uncertain how well this will work with .Net 3.5 sp1 – I would assume that it will but it may not pick  up an new features since 2007.

Books on Wpf/Xaml

NOTE:  I did it simple and just pointed to Amazon for every book since BookPool is no more.

Pro WPF In C# 2008 (recommended)
This is an excellent book on WPF!

Applications = Code + Markup (recommended)
This is Charles Petzold’s book on WPF and it’s extremely thorough.

WPF Recipes 2008
I don’t own this one but seems worth a look.

Programming WPF

WPF In Action (recommended)
I own this one and it is excellent.  This was the first WPF book I purchased – very nice feature is that you actually don’t do 10,000 code snippets but build on just a few apps as you go.

Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed (recommended)
While this is one of the older books (along with Petzold’s book) it is actually very good.  I really like to see color in UI books even if they are more expensive.  FYI:  This is the core teaching book on Safari used by InnerWorkings in their WPF Training (highly recommended too!)

Wpf Components

The following is a list of open source/free components that I found to offer some value.  Kind of hard to recommend any other than to say that if they are listed then I think they offer something, even if it’s just to learn some interesting coding techniques.

Xceed Data Grid (this may still be free if you download v3.1 or lower as v3.2 now is the paying, standard edition)

WPF Notify Icon (very nice with tutorials and everything)

WPF Toolkit (includes wpf grid)

WPF Futures

WPF Ribbon Preview

Thripole – 3d UI

Odyssey Collection of WPF controls

Avalon Controls Library

FluidKit WPF Library (source only)

Dot Way WPF Control Library

BlackLight Panel/UI Library also Here for Demo

Silverlight/WPF Dashboards and Gauges

Avalon Dock

WPF Splitbutton

VISIfire Open source charting

Vista-Like WPF Breadcrumb

3D Flip Control

WPF Date Picker

Vodnex WPF Controls Micro Pack (includes WPF Date Picker)

PDF Generation
While not strictly WPF it is often needed to generate pdf’s or other formats from WPF controls.

iTextSharp – .Net implementation of iText

PDF Sharp open source PDF

PDF Clown open source PDF

Hope this list is somewhat helpful to you as it is to me.

Tab

Greetings, this is second part of the File Managers review and is concerned with OS X File Managers.  I have to admit that my day to day computer at work runs Windows Xp/Vista but the computer I use at home is a Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5.  This kind of gives me an interesting comparison view between the Win and the Mac camps for all kinds of things from IDE’s to compression and yes, with File Managers.

So this is post is a gathering of what I consider to be the top file managers for OS X. As with previous posts, I will list 3 to 4 file managers for OS X that I think (just my humble opinion here) are the best in the free, open-source and commercial categories.

The slant on this is that I am constantly looking for a File Manager (or Finder alternative) that compares with the features I have found with Total Commander or Servant Salamander on Windows so that the transition back and forth is as painless as possible.  So far, I am not too thrilled – yet…

See Part 1 for my review of Windows File Managers. Here is what I rated the Windows File Managers on what I am going to rate the OS X File Managers on:

• dual pane
• multi-tabbed
• icon overlay
• built in compression and compression navigation
• intuitive to use
• simple to config
• ftp
• favorites
• built-in viewers

Even so, it is going to be somewhat long but I do hope it will be of value.  Small note: I chose to go with a 1 to 5 star rating for the Tidbits based on my opinion of how useful any given feature might be.

Let me just state that these are my picks for file managers and are not influenced by any of the vendors/creators of the file managers that will be reviewed. Please take the time to leave comments and let me know what your favorites are and also give it to me straight when you have information that will clarify or correct this post.

Contents

ForkLift

Macintosh Explorer

XFolders

Other File Managers

Recommendation and Comments

OS X File Managers

ForkLift

Platform: OS X
Version: 1.6 (1.7 Beta is available here)
Type: Dual Pane, Multi-Tabbed
Price: $44.95 ($24.95 Student License)

In a few words: ForkLift is cool!  Since I started using a MacBook it is the closest thing to a Windows experience I have had with file management.  Hold the flame for a bit…I really love my MacBook but I have to use Windows for development so I like to have similar tools on both systems to keep up my productivity and ForkLift helps me achieve that on the Mac.  Let me run some negatives first then some positives.

On the not so fun experience side:

• Slow loading – it seems to take forever to load – perhaps is just me but I can’t help feeling that this is somewhat of a resource gobbler.
• The drag and drop is a real bummer – I can’t seem to make it work 100% of the time – just simply clicking on a file and trying to drag it to another folder turns into a multi-file/folder highlight – strange.
• The Favorites section on the Sidebar does not reflect my Places in the Finder which is kind of a bummer.
• Also there is no Shared section on the Sidebar which is also a bummer because the Finder shows my shared network drive so either I am missing something or it is not there.
• It would be nice to see and Up arrow at the top of the file/folder listing in each pane but I sense that is my Total Commander experience (Norton Commander) showing where I am used to seeing two Dos/Windows dots to navigate back one folder level – the bread crumbs feature is more than sufficient if I can remember to use it!

On the ‘Cool‘ experience side:

• Finally multiple tabs on dual panes (awesome!) which is about the most important thing to me – especially when I am working with multiple projects.  It is so tiring to keep navigating into a folder tree, back out, into another one, etc…
• I really like the breadcrumbs feature in each pane, for each tab, that shows where you are in the folder hierarchy – very easy to navigate back.

To Continue, I really like this file manager and while it does seem slow in loading I can overlook that in favor of being productive in the areas that matter.  I do wish it had more that Zip compression integration since I do a lot with .Rar, .7z and other compressed files (compressing not navigating).  I do like the ability to navigate into compressed files but my favorite compression format (.7z) does not seem to be supported – perhaps in the next version.

There are a ton of other features such as Amazon S3 support, Ftp (all flavors), Growl support, and Bluetooth to mention a few.  I am not going to go into them all as I think the I covered the things I work with on a daily basis.  All in all, this is a very easy to powerful, easy to use File Manager and I certainly recommend it if you have the $ to spend as it seems well worth.  Additionally, I did notice on their website that a new version is coming out so that’s a good sign that development is ongoing and ForkLift is only going to keep getting better.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane *****
• Multi-tabbed *****
• Icon overlay ****
• Compression w/ navigation ***
• Intuitive to use ****
• Simple to config ****
• Ftp *****
• Favorites *****
• Built-in viewers **

Macintosh Explorer

Platform: OS X
Version: 4.5
Type: Single Pane, Multi-Tabbed
Price: $15.95

When I was searching for OS X file managers I kept seeing references to Rage Explorer and Rage File Manager, etc.. but the download links went to a dead site (actually for sale) so I figured it was dead and buried but Rage Software is alive and well => either the search engines had the Macintosh Explorer misnamed or people were calling it the Rage Explorer – anyway, doesn’t really matter just clarifying.

This file manager is single pane and multi-tabbed with some very nice features.  I certainly was happy with the load speed as it seemed very quick and I also like that this is a very straighforward utility with some simple features that make it appealing to me.  Not the least is the small price tag which should make it affordable for just about anyone.

On the not so fun experience side:

• Current Tabs not being saved at exit.  I did check the settings but the one setting, New Explorer window opens – Last place visited (selection), did not affect the state of the Tabs as each time I startup Macintosh Explorer it starts in the current logged on user’s home folder – that’s a bummer since I often like to pick up where I left off (perhaps the full version does this?).
• The concept of the File Shelf seems a bit odd – I guess you drag files there to easily access them but then there is the File Bank which seems to do a similar thing.  My problem is this:  I could find no detailed information on this using the Help search other than to have the menu items highlighted.  I must have missed something but given there are Favorites I am unsure about the duplication of features – someone explain this to me?
• The other thing is the concept of ‘Flavors’  which are really view themes.  Why not call them themes to build on a very common user experience – that must my my Windows brain talking here…
• Bummer!  NO ability to compress files/folders and NO navigation INTO compressed files that I can see.  I double-clicked on a .zip file and it simply uncompressed the zip file in place just like the Finder does – that’s probably the one thing besides the Tab state not saving that makes this File Manager not so good for how I like to work with files.

On the ‘Cool‘ experience side:

• This is actually a very nice file manager if you are ok with not having side by side panes.  I really like the Thumbnail view right in the file manager for my images – that is a very cool thing when I am searching hundreds of images looking for the right one and I can do it right in the file manager.  On that same vein, the Compact List view is very speedy – I often know the file I am looking for and what I want to do with it so anything more than a fast list is a waste sometimes.
• I also like the good responsiveness of the drag and drop since drag and drop in the mac seems to work a bit differently for many applications in my Dock.
• The UI is very clean and simple and I like that a lot.
• I also really like the ability to get a list of the files in the current tab/folder view – sometimes that is very handy!

All in all, this is a pretty nice basic file manager but I just can’t see using it for my day to day when I am doing development or even working with files how I like to work with them.  I have come to really like Tab’s (with the state saved) and navigation into compressed files – these things really save me a ton of time.  I don’t want to have to remember where I was during my last session and try to open the same tab’s the next time I open my file manager.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane 
• Multi-tabbed *****
• Icon overlay ****
• Compression w/ navigation 
• Intuitive to use **
• Simple to config ****
• Ftp *****
• Favorites *****
• Built-in viewers ***

XFolders

Platform: OS X
Version:  1.6
Type:  Dual Pane, NON-Tabbed
Price:  Freeware

So this is a very basic file manager.  Very basic with some features that are kind of interesting.

On the not so fun experience side:

• There are NO tabs at all and that is a shame.  This reminds me very much of Norton Commander and Servant Salamander (Win) with dual panes but no tabs.
• Compression of files and navigation WITHIN compressed files is almost non-existing except that you can decompress a compressed .zip file and that’s about it.
• I don’t see a way to actually change the views in the panes from the detailed view to another view such a Icon, List, etc….
• The image viewer works but the navigation to files with images is tedious as you have to re-pick the folder that may contain images, see what is shown in the viewer and then re-pick again as needed – too much work for a simple feature.  It would be nice if a thumbnail view was built in.

On the ‘Cool‘ experience side:

• I think the breadcrumbs buttons above each pane are actually very cool since when you click on an ‘earlier’ sibling button the ‘latter’ sibling button stays.  ie.. in the image below if I click on Users in the left pane the tcodex breadcrumb button stays there so I kind of have multiple views providing I am on the same path hierarchy.  Changing the folder completely changes the breadcrumb buttons and it should.
• I like the little double .. at the top of each pane – something I kind of am comfortable with to navigate back to the last previous sibling in the path hierarchy I am on.
• I also like the NC type of buttons (Norton Commander) at the bottom – kind of nostalgic and something I am used to and seems to exist in a lot of modern file managers.
• It is very nice to be able to pick up from where you left off within the file hierarchy the next day, etc and Xfolders saves the state and it seems to work.
• Finally, I really like having the ability to go right to the Activity Monitor and right to the Console as well as a Terminal.  These Apple utilities are quite useful but I am embarrassed to say I was unaware of them but that’s kind of the fun of moving into a new OS – the learning of it…

I have to say that if this file manager had a few more features that it would be my favorite in terms of performance.  Just (ya, right, just..) add Tabs, Compression navigation and changeable views and it would be my favorite.  However, working in the real world, I have to say it won’t work for me.  Keep up the work though since this shows great promise and what is built was built nicely.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane ****
• Multi-tabbed 
• Icon overlay ****
• Compression w/ navigation 
• Intuitive to use ****
• Simple to config ****
• Ftp 
• Favorites (bookmarks) *****
• Built-in viewers 

Other OS X File Managers you may wish to consider

I have tried muCommander a few times over the past few seasons but never really go the performance I was looking for.  This is very similar in look to Windows Total Commander which is very similar to Norton Commander.

muCommander – From the website: “muCommander is a lightweight, cross-platform file manager featuring a Norton Commander style interface and running on any operating system with Java support (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, *BSD, Solaris…).”

Platform: Cross-Platform
Type: Dual Pane, Java Based
Price: Free as in Open Source

Recommendation

I have to say, I really like my Macbook Pro for several reasons:  ease of use, reliability of the OS, nice UI and so on… It just plain works well and I like that.  What I am not liking so much is that many of the utilities that I have become used to in Windows (File Managers, Editors, etc) just don’t seem to have such strong counterparts in OS X and File Managers are no exception.  But, since I am committed to using my Macbook Pro I have to work with what is available or code my own (maybe if I clone myself I will have time!).  Given that little rant here is my recommendation:

Full Featured: There was never really an contest when it comes to features as ForkLift has them and the others don’t.  At least they don’t have ALL of the features of ForkLift.  So, if I rate just on features then ForkLift comes out ahead.

Functionality Featured: If I was looking for just basic functionality (say, if I wasn’t a programmer and had basic needs) then I would have to save the $50 and go with Xfolders just for pure speed and a nice covering of the basics.  In my mind, it would not be  stretch to say that given a few more features I listed earlier that Xfolders would be perfect for me on OS X.

In Closing

When it comes to my needs as a programmer I have to say that ForkLift gives you a great value though the cost is a bit high in my mind as compared to Total Commander on Windows which offers many of the same features for a cheaper price.

Thanks for reading this review and I hope you will comment to give your 2 cents about what file managers you use: on any OS.

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Anyway, I discovered the freeware Unlocker by Cedrick ‘NITCH’ Collomb one day and have been using it every since.  Simply right click on the Folder or File(s) in question and click on the Unlocker shell extension and you will have a list of programs that are locking what you selected – nice and easy.

Here are a couple of screen shots linked to the author’s website:

I am not saying that this is the ONLY unlocker out there it is simply the one I use and have grown accustomed to.  I like simple tools that don’t try to solver every problem under the sun (a few of those all in one system clean, defrag, antivirus, firewall, monolithic ‘suites’ come to mind) and this one solves that one problem I have when files get locked.  The rest of the time it stays out of the way.

Anyway, that’s it for this quick review.  Check out the following links for a few other Unlocker’s I found on the internet:

• UnlockIt by Emco Software – Freeware
• FreeFile by GrubleTrang Corp – Freeware
• UnlockMe by Camtech 2000 – Freeware
• WhoLockMe by Dr. Hoiby – Freeware

I am sure there are others (probably a lot!) but these are a few that floated to the top.  Use at your own risk since you are messing with the file system.

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So, one day I am looking for an on screen ruler and I ran across Atrise Golden Section and that was the end of my search for an on screen ruler.  I was able to overlay a configurable grid onto anything I was working on for web or desktop!  How cool is that!  Well, I think it’s kind of a cool tool to have in the arsenal for those times when I absolutely need a grid to help with sizing and UI component proportions.

Here’s a screen shot I linked to from their website which shows Atrise Golden Section over an image in Photoshop (click here for more screen shots):

Now I realize that given tools like Visual Studio .Net with it’s UI alignment mode that a grid like Atrise is probably not as useful as it might be with a program like the old Visual Basic 6.x or the old Visual C++ but it has saved me a great deal of time in the past.  Hey, you can even use it as a stock ticker display!

Hope you take a few minutes to check this cool little niche tool out.

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I don’t know about you but I have come to love file managers! Not the basic junk that comes with Windows (Explorer) but real file managers that afford me multiple views into my file system, multiple tabs for those views and a set of tools that help me to compress files, ftp files and even encrypt files.

So, this is my attempt to gather the top file managers for Windows (part 2 will cover OS X). As with previous posts, I will list 3 to 4 file managers for Windows that I think (just my humble opinion here) are the best in the free, open-source and commercial categories.

Side:  If you are looking for a review of Linux file managers here is a post on the Echoes blog: 9 File Managers for Linux also here is a great post on 10 Total Commander Alternatives for Linux.

As I am writing this I am finding that there is so much information to communicate about each file manager that it would set a record for the world’s longest post (well, maybe!) so, I am going to limit my review to several key features (dual pane, multi-tabbed, icon overlay, built in compression and compression navigation, intuitive to use, background operations, simple to config, ftp, favorites and built-in viewers) that are important to me when I am coding and working with source code, folders, etc. Even so it is going to be somewhat long but I do hope it will be of value.  Small note: I chose to go with a 1 to 5 star rating for the Tidbits based on my opinion of how useful any given feature might be.

Let me just state that these are my picks for file managers and are not influenced by any of the vendors/creators of the file managers that will be reviewed. Please take the time to leave comments and let me know what your favorites are and also give it to me straight when you have information that will clarify or correct this post.

Contents

Total Commander

ExplorerXP

Free Commander

Servant Salamander

Other File Managers

Recommendation and Comments

Windows File Managers

Total Commander

Platform: Windows
Type: Dual Pane, Multi-Tabbed
Price: $38.00

I confess! I have used total commander since v5 or so and even though I have tried all of these file managers I always seem to gravitate back to Total Commander. I am not especially fond of the look of the UI as it appears a bit datad but I have few complaints about the functionality as I have rarely found a reason to go outside to Explorer or other file managers. The one exception (and this has become an irritant) is when I want to go to a network uri within Total Commander (ie. \\networkvol\folder) as it does not seem to do this without drive mapping.

Includinge the tidbits below, there are a few features that are very helpful to me when I am working such as the ability to save the state of the current tabs in both the left and right panes to a label that is available from the * drop down menu on the navigation bar above the file list. Next to that is a drop down (for each pane) that lists the history of your navigations through you file system – sweet!

When it comes to working with projects I find that I have several of them going at the same time and having the ability to keep multiple tabs open into those various project folders is very handy indeed. Finally, I really like the various views that each pane can have from brief, detailed, thumbnail view (nice for images) and a treeview. Mostly I find that brief or detailed views fit my needs 95% of the time.

A bit of an oddity if you are an Explorer user is the list of command buttons at the bottom (that’s what I call them) with a few of the most common functions mapped to function keys such as F5 to Copy files, F6 to move files and F7 to create folders (F7 is very handy as I hate right clicking in Explorer to navigate to the New folder option).

When it comes to File management features I find that time and again I use the built in ability to navigate into most compression archive a must. I can’t tell you how many times I simply navigate into an old archive, right click on a file and select view (great for looking at source code files for that one snippet that I coded months ago) to peek into the file with the built in file viewer – that is plain cool to me. I often find myself viewing log files that log4net generates and using the view feature in Total Command is seamless and customizable.

I could go on (probably best to dump the help file into here if I do) and I will but just for a few more features. I have used several FTP managers and I keep going back to the built in FTP manager as it is simple, fast and saves my FTP sites ready for access – very handy for uploading files to my web sites. Finally, just touching on the file features I find that the ability to split and combine files (and I know this is dated back to floppy days) can be handy and there are also features to encode/decode as well as generate/verify CRC’s for files. Oh, a really cool feature is the ability to run Total Commander from you standard USB drive – that’s nice in those situations where you go to a contract but can’t install your ‘tools’.

As I indicated earlier, I find the UI to be quite dated and while every feature is availabe via menu and probably the toolbar I find the toolbar configuration to be a bit confusing to me – I guess I am a drag and drop setup guy and most likely I need to get a bit of learning in this area. I also find that when I am running multiple background options that pausing and canceling a background operation is sluggish but that is most likely attributed to how Windows handles ‘multi-tasking’. The other irritation is the navigation of URI’s and that’s a real pain which I overcome by mapping a drive to common URI’s. Lastly, I would really like to have the ability to split each pane horizontally and give a tab a label for that split pane. Those are a few con’s but not real show stoppers in my opinion.

Well, that’s enough from me on Total Commander and I know I left out tons of other features but that’s what the help file is for and hopefully you will discover many other features I did not cover.

NOTE:  There is a new beta version, v7.5, out and you can read about it here – this version is not covered in this review, only the latest released version.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane *****
• Multi-tabbed *****
• Icon overlay ****
• Compression w/ navigation *****
• Intuitive to use ***
• Background operations ****
• Simple to config ****
• Ftp *****
• Favorites *****
• Built-in viewers ****

ExplorerXP

Platform: Windows
Type: Tree based, Multi-Paged, Multi-Tabbed
Price: Free as in Non-Commercial use

ExplorerXP is a bit different for me in terms of how tabs work and how you can simulate panes (folders is the name for them). If you maximize a folder then each tab shows the single view set by the treeview on the left but you can tile the folders so that you can view each side by side, cascaded, etc,. while it’s different for me I can see how with a large screen it would be kind of cool having, say, 6 different views tiled so you can see each at the same time – nice.

I have been trying to find a way to save all the open ‘tabs’ and I discovered that is (at least) one feature of Groups. You can save the folders to a group to pull up later. The Group feature does take up room but solves the issue of saving state for your folders nicely. I did notice that when I tried to save the current open folders as a group and picked the name of an existing group to save to but it did not seem to do anything as I could not open the folders using the group afterwards.

ExplorerXP seems pretty fast and responsive even when I had multiple folders open in different tabs. I also liked the simplicity of it which means I don’t have to take forever to learn most of the features so I can be productive right away. Fewer features also means I have less to say which is fine so I will leave off this one with the following things I would like to see in ExplorerXP:

• Give me the ability to navigate to previous folders WITHIN a folder pane (ie.. no [..] or up arrow) – you have to use the tree view to navigate back up though you can use Ctrl-Page-Up to navigate via keyboard or the main toolbar.

• All the rage is online help which minimizes updates and redistributions. I get that but a local Help file is nice so I can be offline and learn about how to use the file manager. A local web page with shortcut keys is not enough.

• I am certain the context menu offers other features but I can’t see it (I am running Vista) though a menu does pop up I can’t read the menu items at all. If you have a way to correct this or can tell me what I am doing wrong (besides running Window’s itself) then please let me know.

Finally, I am certainly open to correction on any of my perceptions about how things work in this (or any) file manager – this has just been my experience. I can say that this is a good overall file manager and, being free, that makes it a good thing.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane ****
• Multi-tabbed ****
• Icon overlay ****
• Compression w/ navigation ***
• Intuitive to use ***
• Background operations **
• Simple to config *****
• Ftp *
• Favorites *****
• Built-in viewers *

Free Commander

Platform: Windows
Type: Dual Panet
Price: $39.95

Free Commander seems to be a clone to Total Commander and is a nice alternative given it is free. Although when I use it I don’t get the same features that I have grown accustomed to such as background file options and FTP but I may have missed something when using it so any additional info would be great.

I really like the built in File Viewer which has a lot of nice options including the ability to host plugins which could make it more useful but I did not install any (yet!).

Some of the features I like to use such as Checksums, Pack/Unpack, Split/Unsplit are available though I don’t find the split so useful anymore but that’s just me. One other feature that I think is cool is the Multi-Rename which is very handy when I want to rename a set of files as backup, etc.

Free Commander has a nice search feature for files and as well as content within files which saves me from using a grep tool to find source files that have certain functions within them.

A folder favorites feature exists but is not available from button on each pane and no facility when initially adding a favorite to save the inactive pane path along with the active pane but you can edit the favorites and add a folder for the inactive pane after the fact – it would be a simple thing to add a checkbox to ask if you want to save the inactive pane as well…

Finaly, before we get to the Tidbits here are a few features I really like in a file manager but did not find: 1) No background file processes which, for me, makes a big difference when organizing source trees, downloads, etc; 2) I could not find the help file which might be available as a language specific download but why not add it to the installer?; 3) Thought there is compression navigation I found it could not navigate into into a 7-Zip file but it also did not find the 7-Zip file association though I do have it installed (NOTE: this is an issue with Vista and not Free Commander – sometimes Vista is a real bummer!); 4) Finally, I really like having a Command bar on the bottom but that’s probably just because I am used to that with Total Commander however, I do think a command line built into the main window is a real feature I like but it is missing from Free Commander.

I would recommend Free Commander for just about any file management tasks you might need especially since it is free and having your file manager minimized in the system tray until you need it is a pretty cool feature.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane *****
• Multi-tabbed *****
• Icon overlay ****
• Compression w/ navigation *****
• Intuitive to use ***
• Background operations
• Simple to config ****
• Ftp
• Favorites **
• Built-in viewers *****

Servant Salamander

Platform: Windows
Type: Dual Pane
Price: $32.95+ (various addons extra)

What kind of a name is Servant Salamder? I don’t know but I do like this file manager for file management jobs (until I need folder tabs then it’s back to Total Commander). I have to say the UI on this one is very nicely done (kudos for taking time to make the icons and the chrome on Servant Salamander nice) and I really enjoy the responsiveness of all of the file operations. Given that, plus the features I list below, I would be totally happy with is for my main file manager but it does not have the one thing I use a lot: you guessed it, tabs.

As with all the others, you can navigate zip files but you can also navigate into 7-zip (7z) files with the included 7-Zip plugin which is really cool since I use 7-Zip all the time.

I like having as many of my tools in the system tray as possible since I run multiple windows with Deskwin (system tray is visible in all windows) and Servant Salamander worked great in this regard and you can even have different colored icons in the tray (I know, you are getting your credit card out right now, right?) but there is no real shortcut menu from the icon as it is just really a toggle of the view.

The internal viewer is pretty good though I did not like it as much as I liked Free Commander’s however, you can also configure external viewers and editors which means you cna use just about any editor (notepad2 comes to mind) as a quick viewer.

Configuration is extensive which is good and bad depending on how much time you want to spend on configuration of each feature. Additionally, there is extensive plugin configuration with each plugin having its own configuration dialog.

Background operations are automatic with abiity to minimize progress dialog. The ability to abort operations is very responsive, almost instantly which makes this feature nicer than Total Commanders.

There is a compare directory feature but I could not figure out how to make it work properly (perhaps I need training!)

Finally, let’s cover the plugins. There are a ton of plugins that come with the basic edition and few more (Image Viewer + one other I think) come with the advanced edition. Notable in my mind are the following plugins: FTP, 7-Zip, Checksum, Encryption, File Compare, Renamer and ISO (I could not get the ISO plugin to work but that’s probably user error). I think you would find that the plugins are a very nice addition and the way they are implemented is virtually seamless.

Tidbits:

• Dual pane *****
• Multi-tabbed
• Icon overlay *** (by configuration)
• Compression w/ navigation *****
• Intuitive to use ***
• Background operations *****
• Simple to config ****
• Ftp *****
• Favorites *****
• Built-in viewers *****

Other Win File Managers you may wish to consider

I looked at the following but just can’t get myself to commit to them as daily tools to add to my software developmen kit. I realize that by excluding some anad including others as my top picks I am most likely overlooking some features that MAY make the following file managers seem better than those above but since this is subjective with respect to MY requirements I would suggest that the following just don’t fit my needs.

Nomad.Net – This is a new file manager to me that I am just starting to look at.  This is one of the few File Managers written entirely in .Net.

Far – A console based file manager with mouse interaction and a ton of plugins. I have heard ZTreeWin is a similar type of file manager with many more features but it is commercial as opposed to Far which is open source. 

Platform: Windows
Type: Dual Pane, Console Based
Price: Free as in Open Source

XFile – A console (text mode) based file manager modeled after the now defunct XTree.  I actually liked this better than ZTreeWin as it is very easy to use and configure.  There is a free version (XFile Lite) which only works for your main C:\ drive but given it’s free and I work from the root drive a lot I have no complaints.

Platform: Windows
Type: Single Tree Pane with Detail Pane, Console Based
Price: $24.90

XYplorer – Seems similar to ExplorerXP with a different twist on the tab features.

Platform: Windows
Type: Multi-Tabbed, Single-Pane
Price: $24.95 (current version) / $44.95 (lifetime)

Frigate – This was one of my top picks but apparently after running it a few times you don’t have access to all the features (plugins) until you register. I can understand that after 30 days or so but not after 10-15 days. So, since every major feature is a plugin I could not review it unless it was by memory. I do encourage you to check it out.

Platform: Windows
Type: Multi Dual Pane Tabs
Price: $24.95 (standard) / $39.90 (pro)

Recommendation

Like many software tools, File Managers usually have a ton of features that could be evaluated but then I don’t have time to write a book about File Managers so picking a few important features seems like the best approach to begin with.

I did admit I own Total Commander and also Servant Salamander and to some degree daily usage skews my viewpoint. But as I have used the file managers I reviewed I have come to the conclusion that all of the other file managers (including the ones I did not review in detail) offer compelling reasons that could make them useful.

One thing I did notice is that the Free/Open Source file managers tend to offer less of a breadth of features and more of a choice selection of what is needed to manage files. I tend to look at this as if I were reviewing word processors and Word was one of the programs and AbiWord was another. Both are word processors but where Word is akin to owning every tool around and AbiWord is like owning a screwdriver, hammer, pliers, screwdriver and crescent wrenth: the basics that are needed. The file managers above seem to reflect my little analogy (at least somewhat) and so I have to say that my recommendations fall into two different categories: the file manager with every feature and the file manager that gets the job done (I know, why did it take a paragraph to say that?). So here goes:

Full Featured: In my mind, even though I own Total Commander (or perhaps becauseI do) I still find it has just about every feature I could ever want to use when it comes to managing my source and other files.

Functionality Featured: I have to say this was a tough one because I like ExplorerXP and I like Free Commander but if I am looking for basic functionality then I have to go with ExplorerXP. Free Commander is just about even in my book but if I am going to use a Total Commander (or Midnight Commander if you remember that) clone I may as well pony up the few bucks and buy Total Commander to get the full feature set so I have to choose ExplorerXP.

In Closing

This review thing is tougher than it looks because it is so time consuming to install every tool, work with it and come up with some criteria. My partner in crime on this blog, Trent, can testify to that. This is my way of saying that I try to balance time and return on investment in terms of value I can offer to those who are reading this. Given that I am sure that I left out a ton of feautures for every file manager and that was intentional as I am trying to give an honest review of the features I need/want when developing software. So, if anyone has any compelling information/features they would like me to add then let me know and I will put it into this post (unless it’s the content from the respective file manager websites and in that case the links to each site should serve).

Thanks for reading this review. Look for Part 2 which is File Managers for OSX.

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I first found LINQPad when I was looking for more information on the C# in a Nutshell book, found the author’s website for the book and found LINQPad on the Extras page – that a tool existed just for working with LINQ was pretty awesome!

Let me add this is not a sales job here so when it comes time to talk about the upgrade you wont’ think I am pitching…

LINQPad can be found here.

Here is what LINQPad looks like (I linked to the Author’s site to ensure I get the latest snapshot):

LINQPad offers the ability to enter (in C# or VB) LINQ statements, LINQ Expressions as well as SQL statements (there are other options that I will cover in a later post in detail).  You can also connect to a SQL Server DB (Express or Compact Edition) and with a connection to your LINQ Data Contect component (if you have built one) you can perform queries right against your data with LINQ – that’s excellent!

I will also say that there are a ton of great examples on various uses of LINQ – more than enough to get up and running.

Besides the true value of LINQPad I really like the implementation in terms of updates – it’s pretty nice to load up your application and have it tell you that it HAS been updated and you need to restart with no fuss and no muss.

The free version of LINQPad is great but it can be much better with Autocompletion (actually essential!) which you can buy for a measly $19 so I did and it is worth it.  Here is the info on Autocompletion.

Finally, here is a great webcast with one of the author’s, Joseph Albahari, on the latest updates to LINQPad with respect to the Entity Framework.

So, I hope I at least got your interest going and if you use LINQPad and find it valuable consider spending a few dollars on the Autocompletion feature to keep this great tool moving forward but even if you don’t I think you will find good value with LINQPad.

Links to other LINQPad articles

LINQPad as a code snippet execution engine (Rick Strahl’s Blog)

Master LINQ with LINQPad (Info Q)

Want to learn how to use LINQ? Check out LINQPad (Dan Wahlin’s Blog)

All Articles on DZone for LINQPad

Up next…. File Managers!

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Who doesn’t need to take a screen capture of their desktop content from time-to-time? Whether you are working on technical documentation, sharing a web page, annotating requirements ow what have you the windows (Alt + Print Screen) built-in functionality just does not cut it. However if this is just the functionality that you require and you do not have the time or interest to learn, to install, to have another tool here is a good tutorial

With that being said, there are a number of very cool utilities out there that can assist you. For this review I will be covering the following utilities:

Feel free to add any additional utilities by way of the comments and we will happily evaluate and review the functionality offered.

Review

Cropper

Cropper is a very simple application that resides in your system tray. This one is a challenge to capture a screen capture. Attempting to use a screen capture tool to capture another screen capture tool proves to be quite a challenge for this application. The window for Cropper looks like an opaque overlay that has a handle providing the capture dimensions with a border to constrain the image to be captured.

The outputs also include features to send to OneNote, Flickr, Amazon S3, email and TinyPic hosted image. The application also has built-in support for thumbnail generation which can come in handy.

The application also supports plug-ins. To date these plug-ins include Amazon S3, Flickr and send to email.

price: free (open source)

format: .gif, .avi, .bmp, .jpg, .png

Greenshot

Greenshot is a tray resident tool that offers functionality by way of hot keys or the context menu. The default setting for a screen capture results in the opening of the Greenshot image editor. The image editor allows for the printing and saving of the captured image as well as some additional annotation tools. The benefit here of course is that you can make your notes on the image and then save it to it’s final output. The productivity here is fantastic since many screen capture tools in the past have required that you open the image and then resort to some other tool to “enhance” the screen capture. The objects that can be inserted in to the capture include rectangles, ellipse, line, arrow, textbox. In addition to these objects you can also control the object’s appearance through line color, line thickness and object arrangement.

The application contains a number of useful key bindings that enable you to capture the images while you are working. Other screen capture applications require that you activate the application and then perform the capture. By using the keyboard shortcuts, you can capture a region by hitting the “Print” key and choosing the capture region with your mouse. You can also use *window mode* by pressing Alt + Print to capture the active window and finally you have the option of Fullscreen by pressing Ctrl + Print.

If you are cataloging series of screen captures you can bypass the image editor feature. To do this you uncheck the feature to open in the editor and save to a directory. I especially like this feature as it allows you to quickly work through a document or website capturing images and then organize them in your document.

price: free (paypal)

format: .bmp, .jpeg, .png, .gif

SnagIt

SnagIt allows you to capture anything you see on the screen. Edit and combine those captures. Share them via your favorite applications. Organize and find them again later.

Read a comprehensive review

price: $49.95 US

UltraSnap

This screen capture application can be an active window or set by way of preferences to be hidden and resident in the system tray. By way of the context menu it offers the same features for capturing a region, window, full screen or repeat last capture as that of Greenshot. The image editor that is provided is quite robust and offers features by way of the settings menu to configure Hot Keys. The image editor contains many of the tools that you come to expect from Paint.Net or Paintshop. There is also extensibility built into the editor by way of the plug-ins option.

Full feature list

price: $38 US

format: .bmp, .jpg, .gif, .png

MWSnap

The install was very straight-forward and painless. I was a little surprised after firing up the application as my initial impression was that of a throwback from VB4 days.

After spending a couple minutes fiddling with the settings and functionality I was blown away as I was clearly working with the Swiss Army knife of screen capture utilites.

Not only does the application capture the standard formats (see below) using the standard methods but offers a wide array of additional functionality:

• auto-print
• auto-save
• hotkeys
• window info – feature provides the left and top position and dimensions of the selected window, window text, window class name, and window handle
• color picker – feature provides the ability to create a palette of 10 color selections with many levels of zoom along with a color information window providing the color values (RGB, HTML, Delphi, System)
• zoom – feature allows you to zoom in on any area of interest
• ruler – feature allows you to measure any object on the screen in pixels either vertically or horizontally
• image viewer – feature allows you to view all of the listed output formats and two additional formats (.wmf and .ico)
• missing feature is the get-a-cup-of-coffee

price: free (paypal donation)

format: .bmp, .jpg, .gif, .png, .tiff

Windows Vista Snipping Tool

Vista has stepped up the screen capture capability quite a bit. To access the Vista snipping tool, click on the Start Menu and start typing “snipping” into the search box. The Snipping Tool should show up in the Programs list above the search box, and you can click on it to start it.

Instructions on usage are contained in this simple tutorial

price: free (you pay the vista tax)

format: .jpg, .png, .gif, .mht

[mac]

skitch

Highlights

• Snap a website
• Capture a chat moment
• Screenshot an application
• iSight snap your bad hair day
• Quickly sketch an idea
• Tap into your iPhoto Library
• Re-open images from your Skitch History

Read an existing review

price: free (public beta)

LittleSnapper

LittleSnapper allows you to take screenshots of an entire webpage, or specific portions of your screen in general, without cluttering your desktop with a ton of icons. It then organizes those snaps into a library where you can tag, rate and comment them.

Features

• Full webpage capture
• Element snapping
• Rating feature
• Library to organize snaps
• Support for annotation
• Flickr and FTP support

Read an existing review

price: $39 US

[browser]

Fireshot

Fireshot is the 800-pound gorilla of web capture utilities. The capture functions provide the ability to capture the visible area, an entire page or all tabs.

Each of these options allow you to edit, upload, save, print, copy to clipboard, email or open in external editor. To put it bluntly, there really is not anything that you cannot do with this add-on.

As an added bonus, Fireshot supports not only Firefox but also Internet Explorer. This add-on can be accessed by way of the status bar, button on the menubar or the context-menu

Full feature list

price: free (Pro version – $34.95 US)

format: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png

Capture Fox

Capture Fox is more of a movie maker than a screen capture utility but it is useful if you are looking to capture the flow of a web site for demo purposes or you are looking to see how users use your site. A nice poor man’s tool for usability testing. The basics of this add-on include the ability to capture the entire screen or just the Firefox window. It offers three (3) levels of quality – Low, Moderate (default) and High with the ability to record sound if you have a microphone. Finally, the file output can be edited using alternate video editing software. Records the action from your Firefox screen only or from your whole desktop.

Author’s page

price: free

format: .avi

Screengrab

Screengrab is another context-menu driven add-on that is very utilitarian in its offering. The options are to either either copy or save content. It can get much more straight-forward than that. Though that appears to be basic functionality you can do what the name implies “grab a screen”. The options for a screen grab include a complete page/frame, visible portion, selection and finally window.

These options are identical between the copy and the save.

price: free

format: .jpg, .png

DashBlog

DashBlog offers you the ability to capture content on the web and forward it along to your blog, vlog, twitter or what-have-you.

Since this add-on offers a very simple to use web page capture feature, it warrants being included in the mix. The utility is very straight-forward and can be accessed by way of the icon in your menubar or the via the context-menu. When using DashBlog you have the options to grab video, screenshot, “text as a quote”, images and mp3. When capturing a screenshot, the page is selected with a gray overlay with a sidebar containing the commands available for capture and manipulation.

Within the screen capture you also have the ability to do some basic annotating of the selected content with the option to “save to disk” or “post”. Available post options include the following services: tumblr, Word Press (this may come in handy), twitter and blogger (may be handy again).

price: free

format: .png

Recommendation

It is truly a challenge to recommend any single tool in this space as each caters to a specific audience and makes sure that their needs are being met. The author has been a big fan of the Cropper tool over the past year but during the process of reviewing the tools and creating screen captures has been swayed to lean on Greenshot quite a bit more. Over time, you may find that you prefer one over the other depending on the type of work that you are doing and like the ability to immediately edit a capture before saving it to its final home on disk or just needing the ability to paste from the clipboard or send to your blog in which case your usage will change. A key point to remember if installing multiple screen capture tools is the potential keyboard mappings getting out of whack. Please keep this point in mind if you do choose to install multiple tools.

For the browser based tools, if you do not mind a little slower load and bit more memory consumption then I’d just recommend installing all four (4) add-ons. However, if you are looking for the single best tool to do the job, Fireshot is the add-on for you.

In closing, the best tool is the one that increases productivity. There are so many tool options out there in this category and the only room to review a handful so below is a list of some honorable mentions. Perhaps over time and as features are added these tools will get some space to tout their finer points to the developer community.

[mac]
Capture Me
InstantShot!
CaptureIt

[windows]
IrfanView
HandySnap
FastStone Capture
!Quick Screen Capture
xnView
Window clippings
Jing

Happy capturing!

Background:  I have been working on a GPS application that would allow the users to pick their work stops from an uploaded list of waypoints to the GPS device.  So, given that I have been building the database and filling it with a minimal set of test data to start running LINQ queries against.  Then I ran into a problem:  I had the address for all of the test waypoints (real addresses) but I did not have the GPS coordinates.

Enter GPS Visualizer!  I was able to enter either a single street address and have it plot the point on a map AND give me the coordinates that I needed.  So I ran a single address from the ‘Geocode a single address‘ link with the following result (see red arrows for points of interest):

Very cool! I had my GPS coordinates!

Next I ran all the rest of my addresses from the ‘Geocode multiple addresses‘ link with the following results (see red arrows for points of interest):

Also very cool!

This is not the only tool online or offline to perform this kind of service but one of my main goals when developing is to save time by not repeating what others have done AND keep things simple.  The online tool kept things simple, did what was needed, and left me more time to focus on the other tasks.

I also did not explore a great deal of the site so there are other features not discussed here – I encourage you to do so.

Finally, given that I was so pleased to get my locations (sounds inane I know..) I decided to buy something off the developer’s Amazon wishlist.  Here is the link to the main page with a link to Amazon on the right…

All in all a very cool tool!

Update:  The owner/developer of the site says:  “the only thing I’d say is that the geocoder is a very very small part of GPS Visualizer…”

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(if you rate this I would like to read your comments about your rating)

So, this is such a massively reviewed area of software that I hesitate to repeat all the info out there already. What I have done is compile only what I consider to be the best SVN clients along with a few extras (see Bottom) and review them based on some general common factors such as ease of use, feature implementation of Subversion itself, Operating System(s), and which IDE’s, if any, the client integrates with.

No matter which SVN client you use (especially if you choose the command line) you would be much better off reading the O’Reilly SVN book (free online at: Red Bean Book). I can’t stress enough on how valuable the documentation is and most of it (even the book) seems well written – it’s just a lot!

In order to run through some basic features of the SVN clients I decided to hook up to a C# source forge project called Feedling (a desktop RSS reader with a plugin architecture). Since SF supports SVN I figured this was a good fit. I am NOT going to go through every feature but I am going to touch on the features I find important…at first. Comments or requests for more info in certain areas will drive further updates as one of my goals is to continue to update past posts with current information and/or commentary.

Finally, I am NOT an SVN expert (most of my work has been with the Microsoft stack in terms of SC) but I kind of think that is a bonus as I am familiar enough with SVN to know what works for me and hopefully should work for the average developer with a general understanding of SVN.

(FYI: I uninstalled each package after reviewing it even if it meant having to reinstall later as in the instance of VisualSVN needing TortoiseSVN).

Update – 11.11.2009: Added vendor supplied information about iVersion: a basic iPhone based SVN Utility.  See the iVersion section for more information.

Update – 08.11.2009: Updates as follows for new version of Ankh-2.1.7141
Changes (from above link):

• Update Subversion Support to 1.6.4 level to resolve CVE-2009-2411 – More information.
• No other changes since previous release

Update – 07.29.2009: There have been some good updates to AnkhSVN 2.1

Update – 06.24.2009:  It would appear (I said appear) that AnkhSVN is now upgraded to work with TortoiseSVN v1.6.  I started up AnkhSVN today and it told me a major update was available which is located here:  AnkhSVN 2.1 Download

Update – 04.28.2009: Recently the server for my repository was upgraded and required me to update TortoiseSVN to v1.6.x.  That worked fine but AnkhSVN did not work so fine at all – I was getting some real quirky behavior such as files not getting checked in and when doing updates from the repository I was not getting the latest.  I am not saying that AnkhSVN was the culprit but it has not been updated to work with TortoiseSVN 1.6.x – yet!  So, you can help the AnkhSVN team by downloading the Daily Build here and testing it against TortoisSVN v1.6.x.

Update:  Based on some comments I would like to add:  It is within Windows guidelines to NOT have a link to the uninstaller in the Start | Programs | Application Menu and merely my personal preference.

Contents

• AnkhSVN Client
• RapidSVN Client
• TortoiseSVN Client
• VisualSVN
• iVersion
• Other SVN Tools
• Recommendation and Comments

SVN Clients

AnkhSVN (screenshots)

Platform: Windows

Type: IDE Based =&gt; Visual Studio.Net 2002/2003 (older version) & 2005/2008

Price: Free as in Open Source

I use AnkhSVN all of the time at my day job in VS.Net 2008 and I really like the ease of use it affords me when working inside of the IDE. All of the menu’s are context sensitive. So, for example, when you right-click on changed source file it offers the appropriate menu options.

After I load my Feedling project into VS.Net 2008 here is what the Solution Explorer looks like with AnkhSVN installed:

As you can see, every file has a checkmark next to it which indicates that the source has not changed. Kind of cool to see your file status right in the IDE!

Now, after I have added a file (see plus sign next to file) and have modified an existing file you can see that the FeedhandlerPluginInterface project is now red checked indicated a change to the project and the changed file (IFeed.cs) is now red checked as well (nice commenting in the source file by the way!) indicating the source file is changed.

Unfortunately, I am screen shot challenged when it comes to showing context menus in Solution Explorer but you can find that out soon enough if you try this tool. The AnkhSVN part of the Solution Explorer context menu will offer the appropriate menu options based on changes to your project/solution.

The other nice thing is that you can commit all of your changes right from the Solution Explorer via the context menu and you can also update your solution to ensure you have the latest repository changes right within your solution which is just about the best: load my project, update source to repository and start coding.

A really nice touch is the pending changes tool window which shows all of the changes that the Solution Explorer visualizes.

In addition, there are other tool windows (not shown here but see screenshot link above) such as Repository Explorer, History Viewer and Merging Tools which give you a great deal of interaction with your repository so you most likely will not have to resort to the command line or another SVN tool unless you want to.

AnkhSVN simply works and it works well and that is really all I want my various software tools to do!

I would suggest that you install TortoiseSVN and AnkhSVN together so that you can manage your repositories from your file manager (or Repo-browser) as well as within your IDE.

Tidbits:

• AnkhSVN also has an option to install for Visual Studio 2010 (plainly the developers of AnkhSVN are keeping up with the latest and greatest in terms of Visual Studio)
• No uninstaller or any menu in start menu as this is really a VS.Net addin – still and installation menu would be nice for docs and uninstallation (unless I missed it?)
• No standalone access – purely VS.Net IDE integration

RapidSVN (screenshots)

Platform: Cross-platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and others)

Type: Standalone

Price: Free as in Open Source

Connecting to a repository is completed by adding a bookmark. In my case, that means adding an existing repository located here: https://feedling.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/feedling feedling.

I attempted to do this twice with and without the feedling at the end of the URL with no success at all (this worked the first time with TortoiseSVN). What I received in the status message at the bottom was:

Error: Error while updating filelist (PROPFIND request failed on ‘/svnroot/feedling%20feedling’

Could not open the requested SVN filesystem)

I tried to switch the repository URL and got: Error: Error while preparing action: ‘.’ is not a working copy

I figured this was because I did not have a repository loaded but why would the menu option be available if the context (no repository) was invalid? That kind of stuff is a pain but for open source maybe it is not such a show stopper for some but it is for me. I guess if I am not paying for it I should not criticize but personally if I am going to put a product out where user’s interact with it I think it is my duty to ensure that the usability is intuitive from the get go.

So, plainly this makes me a real dummy! I think that for me this is the kind of tool I would have to spend a good amount of time with be comfortable in. Personally, my job is to provide solutions to my clients via software and not to spend a lot of my time working with tools that are not obvious in their implementations. For instance, a series of wizard type screens (I hate that word, wizard, but..) which would simply walk you through hooking up to a repository would be cool. How about something obvious like the Repository menu actually having a ‘Connect to Repository’ menu option instead of having that feature under the Bookmarks menu?

I am not saying RapidSVN doesn’t work or isn’t a good tool: it’s simply not as intuitive as it could be for my usage.

Tidbits:

• No context menu through file manager (course that’s been done by other SVN tools)
• Help file is online only and is basically a wiki page.
• No uninstaller
• No IDE integration by design

TortoiseSVN (screenshot)

Platform: Windows (32/64 bit)

Type: Explorer integration

Price: Free as in Open Source

I am sure there are many ways of doing things with TortoiseSVN but I am just going to cover the ways I do a few things. Accessing the Feedling repository (that means adding an existing repository located here: https://feedling.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/feedling feedling. ) couldn’t be easer. I just right-click on the folder where I am thinking I want to checkout the repository and select Repo-browser. Up pop’s up a dialog asking for the URL if the folder you right-click on does NOT have an existing repository:

Then Repo-browser pops up and after time to load you have a file manager like view of the repository. Feedling took some time to load but once it did I was ready to continue using the context menu in Repo-browser to checkout the source and perform just about all SVN tasks I need to do on a regular basis. If you are not a file manager type person (ie. you don’t like using explorer) then Repo-browser is the next best thing if not better.

Using a file manager (good luck getting a screen shot from me here!) you will find that not only can you access all of TortoiseSVN command (especially after you turn on other menu options in the settings) they are completely contextual to the area in the file manager. Hmmm.. that’s kind of unclear. So, if you are in a repository folder that you have source that is managed by SVN you will get a much more detailed and relevant menu than if you were in a regular folder that was not managed by SVN. That’s nice because your context menu’s content alerts you to the fact you are in a repository even if you don’t have the icon overlays. Oh, right, Icon Overlays: this is way cool because you can see at a glance which files are checked out, which are modified, which need to be added to the repository, etc..

Obviously, I like this program. It has helped me tremendously in my job and along with AnkhSVN I have a fully rounded solution to working with SVN source. I really, really like how the UI is minimalist using a context menu so that I don’t have to use another tool to work with source if I don’t want to (I have my file manager, Total Commander, running all the time in the background anyway).

While some SVN procedures using TortoiseSVN can be confusing (ie. Merging from Branch to Trunk) you will find that the documentation is quite complete and there are many tutorials on the internet (search results return 100,000+ hits for TortoiseSVN tutorials).

Tidbits:

• Context menu in file manager
• Repo-browser (mini file manager for repositories)
• No uninstaller
• No IDE integration by design

VisualSVN (screenshots)

Platform: Windows

Type: IDE Based =&gt; Visual Studio.Net 2003/2005/2008 (not express versions)

Price: $49 per seat (includes future minor version upgrades)

VisualSVN is a snap to install and integrated well into VS.Net 2008 but on a suprising note: TortoiseSVN is not required but apparently full SVN functionality will be missing if it is NOT installed – interesting but a smart choice to focus on the core VS.Net functionality (Solution Explorer enhancements).

Initially attempted to load up the Readling project which had already been checked out using TortoiseSVN and worked fine with AnkhVSN. The project loaded fine but there were no indicators that VisualSVN was even working or that the project was under source control:

I am not sure why this is so but perhaps since I had AnkhVSN installed prior (I uninstalled it prior to installing VisualSVN) that some markers from AnkhSVN were left in the repository??…

Anyway, I loaded up another project I had sitting around: An Apache Log4Net wrapper called LoggingLocal (my own project) and the Solution Explorer accurately reflected that my project was in the repository and under source control as this screenshot shows (notice the green markers for unchanged files):

I played around with the project for a bit by changing the app.config and adding an about box to see how VisualSVN would reflect those modifcations. It seems to show new files with the same yellow status as it shows changed files as this screenshot shows:

I also worked with the VisualSVN menu and it appears that much of the features are processed using TortoiseSVN which is pretty much what I expected but some of the features such as the Branch option which calls the TortoiseSVN branch option simply hung up (that could just be my system). It actually felt as if VisualSVN’s major contribution was markup of the Solution Explorer and the rest shuffled off to TortoiseSVN.

So, without spending a lot more time it appears that VisualSVN does what it says it does but somehow for $49 I expected there to be a bit more features and frankly I had a better, more satisfying experience utilizing AnkhSVN than I did with VisualSVN plus the free price of AnkhSVN makes it a hard sell for me to dish out any money for VisualSVN.

Tidbits:

• No uninstaller but the installer does offer integration options for VS.Net 2003/2005/2008 and the Subversion command line
• Help file is online only
• Steep price for less functionality than AnkhSVN (in my opinion)

iVersion (screenshots)

Platform: iPhone

Type: Mobile Phone Based

Price: See the Apple App Store

I no longer own an iPhone so I could not test this first hand.  In place of my comments here are the developer’s comments:

iVersion is not intended to fully replace the your svn desktop client, but is meant to provide basic svn access when your on the move.  For example if your away from the office and you’ve received a critical bug report, you can open up your source code and look for the offending line. If the bug is an obvious one (for example a typo) you can fix it immediately without needing to go near a desktop PC.

Due to the iPhone’s lack of mouse and small screen iVersion’s interface is different to one which you would find on the desktop. When first loaded you will be created with a connection screen where you can put in the host information of your svn repository. Click connect and a progress bar will appear from the bottom of the screen. When the directory contents have loaded you can browse to a new file or folder by simply clicking on the icon. you can navigate to the parent directory by clicking the arrow icon in the top right.

You will notice that you browse to a folder you have already visited the contents will be shown immediately, this is due to iVersion cache.

If you wish to clear the cache click the refresh icon. Scrolling to the bottom of the browser shows the actions available for the folder or file. Here you can delete, copy, move, open, checkout, bookmark or view more information for a node.

When you checkout a directory you will be taken to the working copies view which allows you to view the local copy stored on your iphone.

When you open a file from the working copies view you are able to make edits and save the changes. Committing the changes to your local repository is as simple as clicking “Commit File”, which then prompts you to enter a log message describing the changes you’ve made.

Here is a video with iVersion in action: Click Here

Other SVN Tools and Links

Subversion Links Page on Tigris – a great page with just about all other clients, tools, etc that have to do with Subversion.

SVNMonitor (screenshots)

Platform: Windows

Type: Standalone – system tray

This is actually an outstanding tool! I can’t tell you how many times I just simply wanted to be notifed of all changes within the repository without having to fire up the file manager/TortoiseSVN combo or Visual Studio. The cool thing about this is that you can monitor multiple repositories and perform updates to your local source from within SVN Monitor (it calls out to TortoiseSVN to perform these kinds of functions).

The nice thing about SVN Monitor is that you are actually interacting with TortoiseSVN through a UI instead of the file manager. In addtion to the UI there is also a system tray icon that allows you to receive notifications about repository changes.

Here is a screen shot I took before configuration (see the screenshots link for more detail):

Finally, I do NOT know nearly enough of what this tool can do to feel comfortable telling exactly how it works in all areas but I did find it only took me a few minutes to add my repository to the SVN Monitor and that is worth a lot to me.

This is the one SVN tool from this review that actually has an uninstaller! Not a big thing I know but it shows the care the developer is taking with the entire presention of this utility. Once word gets out on this I expect they could and should charge for a supported version of this.

SlickEdit Tools for Visual Studio – includes CVS/SVN integration but has a price of $49 – I did NOT install this or test it but you might want to check it out.

Books (not endorsing bookpool or amazon)

Subversion books on BookPool BookPool is no more – sigh…

Subversion books on Amazon

Recommendation (TortoiseSVN and/or AnkhSVN)

My own personal use tends to go along the lines of AnkhSVN with VS.Net and TortoiseSVN when I am working with files in Explorer (or any other File Manager that supports icon overlays). I have tried RapidSVN in the beginning but I do not feel as productive or competent when working with my source code as I do with AnkhSVN and TortoiseSVN. VisualSVN is certainly a top notch product (and it should be for $49 but my rule of thumb is to NEVER pay for something that I can get close enough to for free. NOTE: I do ask and recommend that if you utilize AnkhSVN and/or TortoiseSVN that you consider contributing something back to the respective development teams of these fine products. Along with AnkhSVN and TortoiseSVN I DO recommend that you give SVN Monitor at try as it is a real time saver and worth good money to me even though it is free (see just above for some comments).

In addition, I have found the MOST of my issues that I think are with the SVN clients I use actually turn out to be my misunderstanding of how the core SVN server itself works (read the docs!).

In Closing

Since SVN is so pervasive these days you will find general SVN clients built into many tools you might be using or want to use such as Komodo IDE, XCode OS X IDE, Eclipse, or Netbeans.

Finally, this review was not to meant to be all encompassing as you will find many reviews (ie.. Wikipedia) or pages that seem to cover any and all things. I am merely trying to provide info on tools that will be productive. I also have a bit of a peeve when it comes to programs – where’s the uninstallers! I get sick of loading up the Add/Remove programs to uninstall something in Windows. Of course that’s not such a big deal with OS X as it’s just a drop of the app into the Trash bucket. I just think that an uninstaller (even if it’s just an .sh or .bat script) is a good touch to any program.

Last note: You can find just about all the SVN clients here at the Subversion site.

Please contribute other SVN Clients or Tools I most likely missed and I will update the post to include them.

This is my first post of this kind so any input would be welcome as to format, content etc…

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Check the About Me page to see what I am about and what this blog will be about.

First post is going to be about SVN Clients and Other Tools and will be migrated from my blogger page in a few days.

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