Product Reviews: DevToys

Three-Word Review

Get it. Now.

More Than Three Word Review

DevToys is a Windows app which provides a series of helpful tools for developers. We know they’re helpful because in many cases, there are popular websites which provide these tools. For example, there is a built-in PNG/JPEG compression tool, similar to what TinyPNG offers us. I’m a big fan of TinyPNG—it’s a great service which I’ve used many times in the past—but if I’m on an airplane or otherwise offline, I can’t use the service. Because DevToys is a desktop app which doesn’t use web services, I can use all of the tools regardless of whether I’m online.

As far as tooling goes, here are some of my favorites:

• Color Blindness Simulator. It’s not as in-depth as Coblis but it’s also easier to make a quick point that yeah, that color combination isn’t great.

• PNG / JPEG Compression. I compress the background images I use in presentations and this gives me a convenient way to do so.
• Regex Tester. The highlighter acts a little wonky sometimes, as it will continue to highlight statements which don’t no longer pass the RegEx. Clearing and re-entering the RegEx and text tends to fix this.
• JSON formatting. You can also format SQL (of various flavors, including T-SQL) and XML.
• URL encoding & decoding. %20 is easy enough to remember but some encoded characters can be a real pain to memorize.

There are quite a few other tools available but these are the ones I use on a regular basis.

Conclusion

Get DevToys. It’s under active development as an open source project. It’s free to download and use. And you don’t have to worry about a third-party service seeing, storing, or using your data—that’s critical if you work in a highly-regulated environment.