Tools we use.

Sourceforge

Sourceforge offers us CVS, webspace, release system, trackers, mailing list and so on. And somehow they even manage to support all this (thanks to Jacob Moorman here).

JBuilder

The editor of JBuilder is great and unlike C++ Builder it doesn't mess up your code and directories. Sometimes the GUI designer tool is useful for RAD. Commercial but free (as in beer) "Foundation" version available. The new commercial version supports XML, too -- not tested yet.

CVS

Our version management tool. Not as sophisticated as the commercial ones but solid and you can do nice hacks in CVSROOT ;-)

WinCVS

The CVS frontend for Windows. Helps avoiding a number of CVS problems and unless you install Cygwin using the command line on Windows is no fun at all. Check out TortoiseCVS (follow links on page) if you want even more convenience.

XMLSpy

XML editor with validating mode (where you get proposals of all allowed elements/attributes while typing) and -- best of all: graphical XML Schema editor. XML Schema can be easy! Commercial, free time-limited trial available.

WebDraw

An SVG editor whose main interface is similar to typical GUI drawing tools, which is great to learn SVG. It also offers a sourcecode editor and its capability to switch easily from canvas to code and vice versa is very useful. A third mode offers a click-and-drag interface for creating filters. Unfortunately a commercial tool.

XML Cooktop

A sometimes weird but often quite useful and free XML editor for Windows. Supports stylesheets, DTDs and much more. Read the customer reviews on the website *g*.

JEdit

A very nice general text editor written in Java, GPLed. Thanks to a plugin and a scripting interface it seems to evolve to an Emacs a non-Guru can use. XML syntax highlighting and a treeview plugin is available, XML elements can be folded.