Software Development Productivity in Windows 7

   This won’t replace my AutoHotKey but it’s a step in the right direction from Microsoft Windows.

   I recently stumbled across some keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7 that have increased my productivity as a software developer. If you’re a developer you probably favor the keyboard over the mouse when getting your work done. I’m constantly on the lookout for keyboard shortcuts and new automation tools to help liberate me from that pesky mouse and speed up my work process.

   Windows 7 has some nice new keyboard features I didn’t know about until recently. I actually stumbled upon them quite by accident and did a little exploring. When I put 2+2 together in my head I came up with a quick way to jump around to all of the applications I use frequently during the day.

   Here are some applications I use constantly and their corresponding shortcut key combinations. These keyboard combinations are built into Windows (since Vista) as described by Wikipedia.

   That’s right – starting with the first application running it’s the Windows Key + 1 [ 2, 3, … n ] to bring up the application (Win+0 is the 10th and final application shortcut in the chain).

   Now the first thing that’s nice is that I will get the running instance of the application if the application is already running or a new instance of the application if it is not (singleton approach). If I want to start a new instance of the application rather than pop up the instance already running all I need to do is Win+Shift+1 [2, 3, … n].

   If I have multiple instances already running repeatedly hitting Win+Ctrl+1, Win+Ctrl+1 will alternate between (in my case) my instances of Visual Studio 2010 that are running. Alternatively, simply pressing Win+1, Win+1 will alternate between the desktop preview windows for that application and releasing will bring up the application instance.

   As long as I keep these application pinned to my taskbar in the same position Win+1 will ALWAYS be Visual Studio 2010, Win+2 will ALWAYS be Microsoft Blend, etc.. That is a big deal coming from the Alt+Tab world.

“Now you may be thinking “so what” I use a keyboard mapping or macro program called AutoHotKey (or something similar) and already have this set up. Me too - 

but wait, there’s more!”

   If we press Win+Alt+1 [ 2, 3, … n] we get access to the application’s '”Jump List”. This is where these keyboard shortcuts really start to shine. Here’s what I get when I press Win+Alt+1 asking for Visual Studio 2010’s Jump List – and yep, I can use the good old arrow keeps to get to the solutions I’m currently working on

   I’m currently doing development in WPF so it is a HUGE time saver to switch between Visual Studio & Blend using Win+1 and Win+2 respectively. Alt+Tab is great but  sometimes you go to other application in between using your core tools and it’s always that few milliseconds spent recognizing where the application I need is in the Alt-Tab chain that drives me insane.

   By the way, if you use Alt+Tab quite a lot with many windows open, you can use the arrow keys to navigate the large tiled list. For instance the down arrow will take you down a row of applications after you’ve started the Alt+Tab maneuver, skipping a few Alt+Tab key iterations.

Software Developer Browser and Plugin Choices

Firefox
I do a lot of Asp.Net development and I use Firefox as part of my development toolkit when diagnosing performance and design issues with any website I'm working on. I'm not going to touch on various methods of developing a website as I feel that's akin to trying to change someone's religion. Most of the tools I use however are software development platform choice independent.

Firefox really shines as a development tool when you start utilizing some of the powerful developer-minded plug-ins that are available. I'm going to take the long view of some of these plug-ins in this post then drill down into some of the various features of some of the more comprehensive tools in future posts.

Yahoo! YSlow: I love it when powerhouses like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft give back to the developer community by providing some free and useful tools. YSlow is a monster albeit a well designed one in that it's features aren't invoked until you ask for them thus keeping your average browsing experience relatively quick. This tool is indispensable for analyzing website speed bottlenecks and consequently design (layout) issues. Yahoo's YSlow relies on another must-have tool Firebug. Again, I will go into much greater detail about these tools soon but if you're not currently using them I highly recommend checking them out. They will make your website development a brighter world and neither are specific to Asp.Net.

Skynet's HTML Validator: Even if you're not a standards compliant centric developer (shame on you) this tool is invaluable. There have been countless times I've run into a layout or design flaw that I couldn't figure out even with FireBug. Sometimes the issue is, quite simply, that I have an artifact in my outgoing XHTML that is propogating down the DOM model to create very undesired results. The HTML Validator is a great tool for catching these flubs.
If you are a standards minded developer and strive to add the...

(or similar compliance) logo to your website then this tool offers huge time saving by bring the validation service to your local machine via Firefox.

Colorzilla: This is a handy tool for fetching HTML color codes in various formats. Although not a power tool in terms of performance analysis I couldn't live without this tool and use it daily.

LiveHttpHeaders: When I need information on what is being posted/received in the HTTP headers this is where I go.

IE Tab: Although I do my personal browsing and development testing in Firefox my target audience is typically an Internet Explorer browsing crowd. This tool is great for switching your gecko rendering engine over to IE to take a look at what the customer will see. I'd rather not load up IE 8 just to take a look at each web page I've designed to make sure it looks the same as my Firefox page, this is how. Also, if you've ever been to an ActiveX dependent web page, having filled in form information only to get stopped because the page requires IE, this is a great way to switch over, refresh the page and not lose everything you've typed in up to that point.

FireShot: I use this extensively for documentation provided to clients of the websites I'm working on. The ability to grab complete screen-shots of a web page, not just the portion visible on the screen/browser, is invaluable. It also provides powerful annotation/editing tools to make documentation simple and easy.

ShowIP: A nice quick tool that keeps me from having to dig up the IP Address of the server I'm working on.

Extended Statusbar: This is a useful one-stop shop for page download and render times.

Clear Cache Button: O.K., not really a developer tool but install it and try living without it. Often I need to clear the browser cache to ensure I'm looking at my last minute development changes.

Google Chrome: While Firefox will probably always remain my workhorse for development testing and debugging sometimes I need a light-weight browser just to take a quick test run through some code changes. Please note: Firefox is a very lightweight browser until you load a ton of plug-ins into it. As a contract software and web developer I do a lot of work on laptops when I'm not at home. When I'm working on a less than hardy development workstation such as a laptop I'll use a default, no frills,  install of Chrome to view and test website changes with. It carries a much lighter footprint than Internet Explorer of course, while also providing me with glaring design flaws under the WebKit rendering engine. The WebKit rendering engine is also used by Safari so if you don't have a Mac lying around somewhere this is a simple and easy way to get a look at what your Mac based audience is typically seeing. Please note that Chrome and Safari do not run parallel compliance to the WebKit versions so Chrome is not a replacement to Safari targeted development. So, until Firefox (or a plug-in) makes profile switching a breeze, allowing me to mindlessly run a stripped down version or bloated version of Firefox with ease I will continue to have a place for Chrome in my toolkit.

That's all for now. Soon I will do a much more detailed write up of FireBug and YSlow.