It's safe to say that being a developer in this day and age (not regarding the current shift started by AI and potential geo-political changes) is a lot better than it ever was. Well, at least when it comes to the amount of both online and offline tools available out there.

Still, there's no "one-stop shop" app for all possible tasks and all possible developers. Still, when it comes to common, specific small tasks, there are tons of good online tools.

But what if you want something a bit "closer to your desktop?" or a bit more "local"? The answer might just be - DevToys.

Marketed as a "Swiss Army knife for developers," it's a cool mixed bag of developer tools. Don't think IDE level of tools, though, but rather tools for small, fast, specific jobs.

Some good examples include a range of converters (JSON <> YAML, numbers, bases, dates), encoders and decoders (HTML, JWT, Base64, GZip, QR codes), formatters, generators (including hash, checksum, Lorem Ipsum, passwords), testers, text helpers (compare text, change case, reorder, markdown, etc.), and some graphics tools for compression and conversion.

The first impressions, I have to say, are quite good. I particularly like the Smart Detection feature that automatically detects the best tool that fits your current clipboard content. Just look for the lightbulb icon.

What I found even better is the fact that you can customize the behavior of the Smart Detection feature from the Settings section.

While we're on the subject of Settings, let's just say there's plenty of "that." The Settings section provides a wide range of switches, toggles, and small menus that allow oyu to tweak the way the app looks and operates.

There are around 30 developer tools in total (which I found plenty of, but then again, I'm not a developer). The fact that the app also boasts a CLI version is something that I haven't used a lot, but it should come in handy to those developers who are innate keyboard demons.

Clearly, a lot of work has gone into making DevToys available and I'm not here to throw stones at the developers, but it's my duty to point out that the app is not perfect.

For starters, making a .NET app cross-platform (and with decent Linux integration) is not an easy task. Even though the app uses a GTK wrapper, don't expect it to be a pure Linux app (because it isn't).

Since I tested the app on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, I can say that there's still a bit of work required in terms of stability. However, it should work a lot better for 22.04 LTS users, according to the dev. It's not the most lightweight, or the most snappy app out there, that's for sure.

Still, at the end of the day, it's a good thing that DevToys exists, and I truly enjoyed using it. There are some niggles that will probably be sorted with future releases, and I really hope that the developers manage to make it more usable.