What are ToolThings? (Pinnacle Publishing's ToolThings Visual Basic productivity tools) (Software Review)(Evaluation)

Visual Basic programmers aren't necessarily lazy, but they almost certainly are spoiled - by add-ons like ToolThings from Pinnacle Publishing, a suite of productivity tools for VB's design environment. ToolThings adds some cool features to VB, but you still find some empty calories here and there. Ten tools are included in ToolThings.

How are Things?

Each Thing is docked in a small launcher program (figure 1). This toolbar manages the Things in a nice, neat row, and provides a lot of configurable options. The toolbar an be arranged vertically or horizontally, and you even have the choice of keeping it on top all the time. Even if you bury it under other windows, the ToolThings toolbar is accessible from VB's Window menu command.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Things can be divided into two groups: Things that deal with the edit window and coding, and Things that deal with everything else in design time, like sizing and placement. Some Things are hot, and some are not. Let's look at the code-automating tools first.

Code Things

DentThing - DentThing lets you define a set of rules for indenting code. The DO..LOOP …