CodingBobby / Awesome Tools, Services & Projects
This is a list of great pieces of software and hardware that I found particularly useful and have served me over some time now. Most will be very specialised, so you might not realize why I’ve put them on here but maybe you’ll stumble across something you have searched for ages.
What you will find here1:
Great Applications
These are programs that provide an entire environment to work in, so I wouldn’t classify them as “tools”.
iTerm (+ Extensions)
There isn’t much to say about this – iTerm is probably the best and most unixy terminal emulator for macOS out there. I’m impressed by how many features are packed whilst maintaining such simplicity. You can get version 2 here.
I have also installed Z shell, oh my zsh, Powerlevel10k and Fig to name a few awesome frameworks and extensions.
Veusz
This is an open-source application for plotting data in (probably) the most scientific way possible. Veusz is entirely written in Python and is also hackable with custom Python-scripts. Although the interface and internal structure takes some time to understand, it has a very logical and reliable approach. Even the default stylings are good enough for scientific papers and only little fine-tuning is necessary for flawless results.
Here you can find extensive demos and examples.
JabRef
This open-source reference and literature organizer is very lightweight as it is mostly just a GUI for the standard BibTeX format used in the typesetting language LaTeX. Grouping and keywording as well as downloading sources is made easy. It also has an inbuilt search engine that combines multiple academical literature databases.
You can download it for most operating systems on their website.
Gephi
This software can handle massive datasets and visualize them as graphs, even with real-time animations. It has a steep learning curve but when you know what to do, it will be the holy grail for network analysis. It’s also open-source.
Find out more here.
ScanTailor
If you often have to scan documents and want to get a clean result, this might be the tool for you. You can crop, rotate, optimize, warp and remove dust from scans and photos to such a precision that your final document will almost look like freshly written on your computer.
The website of the open-source software can be found here.
Tools for Special Tasks
Small applications that only have one special job which they perform greatly.
ToyViewer
An image viewer that can open virtually any image format. I started to use it because it can display various .ppm formats. This type of file consists of raw RGB pixel data put as a list which is easy to generate when you want to code a simple renderer or image processor.
It’s for macOS only and you can get it from the official Mac App Store.
iConvert Icons
A small and simple tool that can convert .png files to .ico or .icns. Very handy if you make an app logo and want to use it as a proper icon.
There is a version for macOS, Windows as well as one that runs from the browser here.
Just Color Picker
It really just does what it says. Via a keyboard shortcut, you can save the colour at your cursor’s position. The recorded hex-codes will be put into a list so you can compare even slight differences.
The tool is available for both macOS and Windows here.
Passive Tools
These are apps that you’ll mostly just look at because they display data, work as a dashboard etc.
Stats
This macOS system monitor lives in your menu bar and provides detailed real-time information about your Mac. It can be heavily customized to show only what you want and to look like you like it most.
You can find the GitHub repository here where they also give instructions on how to install it.
Übersicht
This widget manager lets you add mini-applications directly to your macOS desktop. From simple calendars over realtime system monitors to alternative menu bars with minimalistic looks, almost anything is possible. Reason for this is that those widgets are actually just small HTML-pages which run JavaScript in the background and can be styled with CSS.
If you want to take a look at the community-made widgets or learn how to make your own, visit this website.