By
Delia
/ Last
update
January 25, 2022
What is DevToys
Microsoft PowerToys is a free suite of system utilities that can be used by advanced users to tweak and simplify Windows operations to improve efficiency. And another Microsoft developer, Etienne Baudoux Veler, has released DevToys, which can be described as developer-oriented, open source PowerToys.
DevToys includes 14 different tools designed to simplify developers' workflows. Available tools include Json to Yaml, Yaml to Json conversion, encoding/decoding, text comparison, image conversion, and more. The tools also feature a new Windows 11 design that supports light/dark mode.
According to the official description, DevToys is useful for everyday tasks and some of the tools may be useful for non-developers as well, such as text compare for writers and graphics processing tools for designers.
In addition to the tools, the application has some other valuable features, such as the ability to pin specific tools to the Start menu, dark themes, and the ability to run multiple instances.
It is currently only version 1.0 of the application and there should be many more tweaks and new features added over time. In fact, the developers have indicated that more tools will be coming.
How to use DevToys
Like PowerToys, DevToys is completely free and it is open source. Users can download it from the Microsoft App Store or GitHub to try it out.
DevToys system requirements
Windows 10 build 1903+ or later
How to run DevToys
Using Start Menu:
Open the Windows Start menu, type “DevToys” and press Enter.
Using PowerShell:
One of the cool things about DevToys is that you can start it from the command line. To do this, just open PowerShell and type start devtoys:?tool={tool name}
List of the tools you can use:
- base64 - Base64 Encoder/Decoder
- hash - Hash Generator
- uuid - UUID Generator
- loremipsum - Lorem Ipsum Generator
- jsonformat Json Formatter
- jsonyaml - Json <> Yaml
- jwt - JWT Decoder
- colorblind - Color Blindness Simulator
- imgcomp - PNG/JPEG compressor
- markdown - Markdown Preview
- regex - Regular Expression Tester
- baseconverter - Number Base Converter
- string - String Utilities
- url - URL Encoder/Decoder
- html - HTML Encoder/Decoder
- diff - Text Comparer
- settings - Settings