UltraMon

Realtime Soft

If you often use more than one monitor at the same time, you probably appreciate software that facilitates this task. This is UltraMon. UltraMon is a program that allows you to control various screens and coordinate work amongst them. You can do things like moving windows from one monitor to another or work with more than one application at the same time, using as many screens as you like. Furthermore, UltraMon can add a little taskbar to the bottom of each of the monitors so we can manage them more comfortably, or even re-dimension by itself a video we are playing in case one of the screens doesn´t have the same capacity as the rest. The program also has options that make it visually more attractive, like the possibility to create wallpapers and screensavers that use all the active monitors at the same time, obtaining magnificent and completely surprising results.

Actual Window Manager

Actual Tools

Actual Window Manager is a good toolkit whose goal is to make things easier when dealing with different windows. It softens the image of the windows desktop and add more functions in a comfortable way. Actual Window Manager basically modifies the usage options of the windows we open on the desktop. It adds new functionalities to several applications by selecting and modifying them from the setup menu within it. Those functions are represented by different icon that will appear in the title bar of each window. Those functions are: -Ghost: When you enable this function, you'll be able to view any window, but when you'll click it, it will disappear. -Priority change: We'll be able to change the execution priority of each process. -Resize: Its name says it. it will let you change the size of each window in simple clicks. -Alignment: Thanks to this option, we'll be able to place any window on any lace in the desktop in just one click. -Transparency: Click this button and you'll apply the chosen transparency automatically. -Move back: Click this and you'll send the window behind all of them. -Always on top: Click it and make that window to be always viewable.

VirtuaWin

VirtuaWin

Virtual desktops are very common in the Unix community and once getting used to this, it is very hard to manage without it. VirtuaWin offers you that feature in a Windows environment. If you use a virtual desktop manager you can organize applications over several "virtual" desktops. By that way you will be able to run different applications in different desktops, having them clean enough. In order to know the wallpaper you are working on, the number of the desktop will be indicated by a small icon in the system tray. You can even use custom icons on the system tray. For using this feature you only need to add them to the icons directory in the install directory of VirtuaWin. VirtuaWin supports up to 9 virtual desktops, we think they will be enough, won’t them?

Dexpot

Dexpot.DE

Dexpot expands your windows working space by up to 20 times! This free program makes your life easier when organizing your icons, windows and applications. How does Dexpot work? Simple. From the tray system you can instantaneously access as many independent desktops as you want. You can have a leisure desktop, a working desktop, a desktop to surf the web...and each will be independent of each other, with different backgrounds, resolutions, etc. Management of multiple desktop is now fast, easy and free.

AquaSnap

Grégory Journé

AquaSnap is a free application that will make possible to power up these two functions by assigning them new operations and multiplying their possibilities. AeroSnap can beassociated to 8 different positions of the screen, allowing us to place windows in 8 different ways. AeroShake let us position the shaken window over the rest and apply transparencies. In addition, AquaSnap offers us the function AquaGlass, that applies transparencies to windows when we move them.

DeskScapes

Stardock

DeskScapes is a small program that allows you to decorate your desktop with animated wallpapers. Planet Earth slowly rotating and viewed from Space, a green field bathed by the sun and waving in the breeze, and an aurora borealis shining over an empty snowscape are just some of the many animated backgrounds that you can add to your computer. In addition to the default backgrounds, you can easily create your own in minutes from images and video. You can even change certain parameters of the pre-made backgrounds included in the set. DeskScapes will make your desktop truly beautiful to behold, so anyone who likes a little variety should give it a try.

Nexus Dock

WinStep

Windows Start menu is less used day by day. Bars or docks are appearing more and more day by day in all Windows based computers. They are very easy-to-use and give really fast access to all programs included in the dock. Nexus Dock offers us an attractive and easy way to access our favorite programs without having to renounce the start menu nor shortcuts. Nexus Dock appears as a bar in the upper side of the screen and we can place any shortcut to any program or folder there. From that moment, you'll only have to click on the icon and the program will be ru or the folder will be opened. That's easy. Nexus Dock features amazing effects and the aspect can be modified: change the reflections, the size of the icons, animations... Finally, Nexus Dock also includes some widgets and utilities that can be really useful to know more about the CPU status, weather forecast or the status of the recycled bin.

RocketDock

Punk Labs LLC

Its name is RocketDock and you'll be surprised when you'll install it and you'll see those rolling effects and you'll experience the new look of your desktop. RocketDock renders very fast, and the graphics offered by it are really good, you'll be surprised because of the stability that it offers which is really better than other similar programs. If you have never used a program like this, RocketDock will help you a lot when working because it will save you a lot of time and it will give a great look to your desktop. Organize your shortcuts, programs and running tasks into an attractive and fun animated Dock. In addition, RocketDock is compatible with Mobydock, Y'z Dock and ObjectDock skins, in addition, the developers tell you to send them a screenshot if any skin doesn't work well and they'll try to fix the bug.

Classic Shell

Ivo Beltchev

Despite being designed to work with Windows, the new Start menu, which made its appearance in Windows Vista and was kept in Windows 7, has just never be able to convince many users. Until now, they were happy with the Start menu from XP. It's for this reason that programs like Classic Shell exist, which offers us the possibility to enjoy a similar XP Start menu on Windows Vista/7. The new Start menu is visible from the moment one finishes the installation. On the menu, we can see the typical options in XP: programs, documents, settings, search, help and run. The menus are customizable and we can activate or deactivate functions from the preferences window of the program, in the Configuration section. If, until now, you haven't been able to handle the new Start menu very well, Classic Shell can be the solution to your problems.

Start11

Stardock

DisplayFusion

Binary Fortress Software

If you usually work with more than one monitor plugged to your computer, for sure that more than once you'll have missed some more configuration settings than those offered by default by Windows. And here's where DisplayFusion comes in: a useful app that allows you more accurately define your ideal monitor setting. Among its many features, DisplayFusion allows you to adapt the specifics of a screen wallpaper to your monitor, for instance, by escalating its size or setting different images for each monitor (if you're using more than one). Furthermore, DisplayFusion offers a link to Flickr, so you can download any image to serve as your desktop's wallpaper.

RJ TextEd

Rickard Johansson

Finally there's a free tool you can use to edit the source code of a huge number of files programmed in different languages like HTML, Java, Pascal, CSS, Perl.... With RJ TextEd, you won't have to change applications every time you open a document programmed in a different language. This tool recognizes the different variables, functions, classes, and reserved words from each language and assigns them different colors. It also lets you group code into blocks through the use of brackets, parentheses, etc. Other interesting features are: - HTML label assistant, which lets you easily enter titles, paragraphs, images, charts, frames ... and correct your page's source code; - Style sheet editor, which you can use to define styles without having knowledge of a particular language; - A tool for encrypting all the resulting files. It also includes an FTP program for uploading the resulting files to a server.

CudaText

UVviewsoft

CudaText is a cross-platform text editor for Windows that is quite complete, thanks to the huge amount of Python plugins that you can add to it. Replacing SynWrite, this program comes to greatly facilitate the work of programmers, developers, and code editors. It was late 2019 when CudaText released its first stable version to the market. Developed in Lazarus, the program has multiple options that will help increase productivity in any environment. Thanks to the GUI capabilities and the tool's good compatibility between Windows, Linux, and Mac, all work can be easily exported. On the other hand, it should be noted that CudaText incorporates the option of collapsible code and Code Tree. The latter will help you to make it much easier to run good management of multiple files or code folders. The program will even help you to set relationships between lines or install and uninstall plug-ins— always under the possibility of using the dark mode to give more rest to your sight. CudaText is an excellent open-source editor to find no platform barriers. You will even have syntax highlighting for C, C++, JavaScript, Python, or HTML.

Geany

Enrico Tröger

Geany is a text edition tool that uses the GTK2 toolkit with some basic integrated features that make programming easier. The main features offered by Geany are syntax corrector, code folding, autoclosing HTML tags, comprehensive symbol lists, simultaneous editing of multiple files in different tabs, and support for C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python, Perl, and Pascal. Geany is a full-featured and complex application that will delight any user with programming knowledge and desire to program. If you are getting into this exciting world, Geany can be really helpful.

Brackets

Adobe

One of the best ways to move forward in web development is to unify and create links between design and implementation. Brackets is an editor for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript developed by Adobe that aims to do just that, offering tools to streamline the page-making process and improve conversion between graphic editors and their interpretation into a given language. Brackets is an open-source tool with a clear and straightforward interface that automatically detects code. It helps in writing it, too, by indenting and color-coding segments for easy identification and organizing all the project elements in a work area where you can categorise everything in a tree and where code files and visual elements make up the page you're programming. One of its most interesting features is the Live Preview mode, where you can open a project in the browser and see the changes you make in the source code in real time. In addition, its functions can be enormously expanded with third-party extensions. One of them, called Extract for Brackets, comes pre-integrated into the program and allows you to export data in the PSD format typical of Photoshop files, although this also requires registering for an Adobe account.

UltraEdit

IdmCom

UltraEdit is the perfect editor for any programmer, because it will ease his work, highlighting the keywords of evey programming language (Java, C/C++, VB, Perl and HTML are already preset). It allows autocorrection and autocomplete functions, it includes some advanced features like hexadecimal editor, ASCII table, full featured menus for printing, multifiles,... In addition it allows you to open a FTP connection. If you want more programming languages, you can download them from the Official ite for free (ASP, C++, MathLab, Oracle, PHP, Delphi, etc.)

Vim

Bram Moolenaar

Vim is an excellent text editor that has been designed specifically with programmers in mind and is based on the popular Unix Vi editor. This remake, also available for Windows, stands out mainly thanks to its capacity to work on the same task in different modes: command mode, Ex mode, insertion mode, visual mode, etc. As we mentioned before, Vim is a tool that makes things easier for programmers as it includes several interesting options, such as the capacity to locate compilation errors, show them on a separate window and then guide us back to where they are located so we can correct them. Once this is done, Vim goes back to looking for mistakes until the text is fully revised and corrected. Among its features are a spellcheck, the ability of grouping files in tabs, command auto-complete, file words and names, executed commands history, and an optional graphic interface.

Atom

GitHub

GitHub is one of the best software development communities on the Internet. Atom, an open-source text editor that can be used as an IDE for a huge array of programming languages, can open up loads of opportunities thanks to continuous support from this community. It includes all the features you could ask for in a code editor, like a syntax highlighter, auto-detect for languages, automatic text completion, the possibility to use several panels and save your project to several folders, support for snippets, and a powerful search tool. The best feature is the modularity of the environment, to which you can add more features by installing extra packages. It also includes a control system for Git so you can publish your content using the GitHub platform. Atom is multiplatform (Windows, Linux, and Mac) and allows cross-platform use for your projects. Customization is the IDE's biggest appeal: At time of writing, there are more than 2,000 packages and 600 themes. Given the degree to which you can customize the program and the number of features already included, this is definitely one of the best web development tools available today. What makes it even better is that it doesn't take up much space on your computer when compared to similar alternatives.

Visual Studio Code

Microsoft

Visual Studio Code is a reduced version of the official Microsoft development environment focused exclusively on the code editor. It's cross-platform supports syntaxes for a large number of programming languages. The tool provides support and assistance to field many different languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, different variants of C, JSON, Java, SQL, PHO, Ruby, Visual Basic, and many others, supporting highlights, auto-indents, snippets, and auto-complete. The environment is not fancy and focuses exclusively on providing flexibility and simplicity to promote compatibility across the platforms offered, beyond support for Git repositories or the ability to open multiple files iterations in one window.

Clip Studio Paint

CELSYS,Inc.

Clip Studio Paint is a drawing program that you can use to let your artistic talent shine. Through an intuitive interface, you will have no trouble accessing the software's numerous tools. By doing this, you will get highly polished drawings that you can impress the whole world with. One of the key aspects of Clip Studio Paint is that the program is completely compatible with the main digitizer tablet brands on the market, such as Wacom or Samsung. This means that you always have the basic functions to finish any drawing, comic or manga easily. Simply use the resources as effectively and with as much organization as possible after completing each project. Another interesting function of Clip Studio Paint is that it has a very extensive system of rulers. With these lines, you can take on perspectives and realistic depths that will help you to finish each composition without losing time on outlines. What's more, whenever you need it, there is a multitude of colors and paintbrushes ready for you to use to paint any of the drawings that you've created. All of this will allow you to digitize any picture composition easily. Clip Studio Paint is an outstanding drawing program that lets artists create compositions and digital drawings intuitively. It's as if you were in front of a blank canvas and had the ability to carry out each project until you get the desired result. Lastly, it's worth mentioning that you have the option to export the result in the format and quality that suits you best, so you can print out your drawings or add them to any digital means or post.

Blender

Blender Foundation

Blender is a powerful development tool to create 3D images and animations, whose main advantage regarding other similar tools like 3D studio or Maya is that this is a completely free application. The program lets you model, render, texture, illuminate, animate and post-produce any kind of three-dimensional scenes. Its complex interface lets you work with an endless amount of tools like primitive functions, nurb curves,… Blender is compatible with most formats and standard programs like 3D Studio, Autodesk FBX, Collada, Wavefront or Stl. Maybe the main problem of Blender is its high difficulty which might make learning it quite complex. Without a doubt, it has a big user community and there are endless tutorials and examples on the internet. It’s being used by professional studios and they have even made video games and movies with it. Each new version includes new tools and utilities to apply to our creations: flow simulator, special render filters, completely customizable physics engines or combustion systems among others, which turns Blender into a versatile and complete software.

Capture One Pro

Phase One

Capture One Pro is professional photo management software that lets you obtain images in RAW format stored on your camera and then apply effects on them. It's the ideal application for people who work with reflex digital cameras. It supports many different models from the most popular brands: Canon, Sony, Olympus, Nikon, Minolta, Pentax, etc. One of the most interesting features is, without a doubt, the option of being able to get snapshots of the images taken with the camera. Using Capture One Pro you can modify the images in the following ways: - Add white balance to the images. - Adjust exposure, and saturation. - Correct focus and sharpness. - Batch processing, and much more.

RawTherapee

RawTherapee

RAW-formatted photographs are much higher quality than any other format, but they are almost always incompatible with image editors. RawTherapee is an editor that addresses this problem. This tool is compatible with the majority of formats used by DSLR cameras (like NEF, DNG, and others), and is also capable of processing common formats like JPG and TIFF. The way RawTherapee works - and even the way it looks - may remind you of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and although its effects are applied a little slowly, the results are quite gratifying. The tools included in this program are basic photo processing stuff, like brilliance, contrast, levels, colors, sharpness, and noise, as well as cropping, resizing, history of changes, and photo metadata. It's easy to use; just direct it to your file explorer and open the folder that you need. Once there, you will view all of your images, and can then make use of RawTherapee's scoring and classification system. With this program, you can recover a photograph with little light by using a mixture of curves, smooth the skin of a portrait subject, clean up a photo's coloring, and even eliminate spots, among many other examples.

Darktable

darktable

Darktable is an incredibly comprehensive photo processing program that lets you edit your RAW image files in a digital darkroom. The idea is to be able to work with your negatives and easily return to the original way in a non-destructive way. The program is compatible with over 400 different camera models, letting you edit your photos completely and professionally with endless features. When it comes to working with your photos, you can import them from your desktop computer or directly from the camera you work with. The great thing about Darktable is that it offers a complete and customizable importation system. For example, it even lets you turn a series of photos into a time lapse, among other options. Once you've opened your negatives, you can go directly to the darkroom where you'll find several panels with all the available options. On the left side menu, you'll find features to catalog the images, get information about them, open the color picker, or manage the masks. Meanwhile, on the right side of the screen, you'll find all the modules available for working with the image itself. One of the great things about Darktable in comparison with other similar tools is that it gives you a non-destructive way to work with your images. Plus, it also offers a change log that you can use to undo any changes or go back to the original at any time. Darktable offers tons of useful tools and features, making it an excellent option for working with your photos. In addition to everything mentioned above, the program lets you work with 4K and 5K monitors, supports 3D RGB LUT, and includes all sorts of modules, shortcuts, and modes that will make your life so much easier when it comes to working with your photos.

Paint.NET

Rick Brewster

Paint.NET is a totally free photo- and image-editing tool that, although it was created in 2004 as a simple improvement to Microsoft Paint, over time evolved into a much more complete and full-featured program capable of competing with other great image-editing programs for Windows. Paint.NET's interface is definitely one of its greatest strengths. This program is intuitive and easy to use, regardless of the level of experience you have with other similar apps. All your tools, layers, projects, and options are no more than a couple of clicks away. On the official forums, you can find tons of tutorials, plugins, and other forms of help for all levels, no matter whether you're a beginner or a real expert in the field. Another advantage of using Paint.NET is its performance. During development, the efforts of its developers were focused on improving the program's performance. And it shows. You can run Paint.NET on almost any computer, with any CPU and any graphics card, as long as you have about 200 MB free on your hard drive. As usual with this type of program, Paint.NET supports a wide range of formats, including BMP, PNG, TIFF, JPG, and GIF. Likewise, you can save all your projects in more than 20 different formats. Paint.NET is an excellent photo-editing tool, thanks to which you can easily retouch all your photographs in a matter of minutes. With this program, you can use dozens of filters and special effects to give a unique touch to any image. It even keeps an exhaustive history of each action, thanks to which you can undo mistakes you make at any point of the process.

Inkscape

inkscape.org

Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor similar to apps like Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, and Xara X. This program lets you convert any sketch or drawing into a professional piece that's ready to be published on any website or in print. With this program, you can create your own vector graphics from scratch, as well as import images in any format to work on them. Inkscape supports all the most common formats, such as PNG, JPG, BMP, and TIFF. When you're finished with a project, you can save it in SVG to continue working on it in the future, or you can export it in tons of different formats, such as PNG, PDF, DXF, or EPS. The amount of tools included on Inkscape is so great that it would be impossible to list them one by one. In the left menu, you'll find all the editing and drawing tools for creating shapes or drawing by hand. In the right menu, on the other hand, you'll find tools for managing layers and grouping, cloning, or duplicating objects. There are also lots of interesting filters you can try from the upper menu. Inkscape is a drawing and design tool as powerful as it is easy to use, thanks to which you can create professional projects on your desktop computer with nothing more than your keyboard and mouse. This program also has a huge community of users who are constantly contributing tips and tricks on the official forums and channels.

Krita

The Krita Team

Krita is a program focused mainly on digital painting, although you can also use it to retouch photos or even edit vector images. Initially made for Linux as part of the KDE and included in Calligra Suite, the first stable version for Windows was launched in May 2014 and offers all the power of the previous versions in a Windows environment. The interface is influenced both by Adobe products and by digital drawing applications like Corel, so any Photoshop user can quickly familiarize him or herself with the program. It includes a wide array of brushes and strokes, the ability to work with layers, support for the majority of the most common image formats, cropping, vector modification, color palette management, and various retouching assistants. The best thing about Krita is that it's a free program under the GNU license. A more than worthy alternative to GIMP, the free image editor par excellence.

Canva

Canva

Canva is a very popular image and video creation and editing tool among content creators for social networks. Its multiple functionalities make it possible for you to find all kinds of tools that you can use to create impressive posts and edit your photographs. Canva for PC has a clean and easy-to-use interface, and the first time you open the app, you'll see a tutorial that will show you everything it has to offer. Its tools allow you to do everything from creating posts for any social network to editing photos, videos, and even creating a whiteboard where you can place all kinds of GIFs and icons. Canva also has an extensive gallery with tons of filters and other elements, although some require money. This program is free, but if you're interested in its paid features, you can subscribe. But don't worry: the free version of Canva offers many interesting features, although it also adds the program's watermark to your creations. On the other hand, Canva is an app that allows you to be as creative as you want while also providing you with a series of customizable templates so you can make professional-looking projects. Download Canva here.

CorelDRAW

Corel

Corel Draw has been being a reference for graphic design software a lot of years. The new version is called CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and it's an exceptional tool and application pack granting you the possibility to create any vectorial image, bitmap and compose your own designs (even animated ones). It is valid for both novice and professional users, of course these latest ones will take the most out of it. Now CorelDRAW is much easier to use than before and its interface has been updated. Finally, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite includes: · CorelDraw X3. · Corel Photo Paint X3 · Corel Capture X3 · Corel PowerTRACE X3 · Bitstream Font Navigator

GIMP

GIMP

GIMP is an open source image- and photo-editing app, thanks to which you can edit anything you want with a range of high-quality tools. In addition to retouching photos, this program also offers all the tools you need to create your own professional-quality illustrations from scratch. When it comes to creating unique illustrations, GIMP offers a range of tools that will probably be familiar to most users: brush, pencil, clone, marker, smudge, airbrush, and so on. In addition, users can customize their brush set to suit their needs and preferences. Photo-retouching also offers a lot of tools. From the menus at the top, you can quickly access color, brightness, and saturation adjustments, white balance, exposure, and much more. All these features can be used to give a more professional and polished touch to any photograph. The general features offered by GIMP are similar to other popular image editors: layers, alpha channels, document history, selection and transformation tools, masks, gradients, and so on. Thanks to this and the fact that the program's interface is very intuitive, it's easy to get the hang of things. There are also tons of tutorials available on GIMP's official website. Some interesting tools on GIMP worth highlighting include the ability to convert images between different formats, process batches of files, compose vector images, and edit animated graphic formats. In addition, all these features can be extended by installing plugins; there are more than 100 to choose from, and they're all completely free. GIMP can work with virtually all current image formats, such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, MNG, PCX, PNG, PSD, PS, PDF, TIFF, TGA, SVG, and XPM. In addition, its fragmented interface is particularly useful, since you can move the floating windows at any time to adapt the layout to your preferences. Or, if you prefer, you can return to the classic layout, which makes the interface as similar as possible to other programs with which you're more familiar.