Toolbox

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The toolbox is a collection of many useful tools:

• Open Autostart Folder: Opens the 'Autostart' folder. Since Windows 8 it's not easy to find anymore.
  

• Opens the 'Services' control panel. Was never easy to find in Windows. As a bonus the last used window frame is retained. Hold [Ctrl] to start it in administrator mode.
  
  
• Show System Metrics: Opens a window that displays all the Windows metrics values (.NET and Win32 combined):

• Show Folder Paths: Opens a window that displays all the special folder paths in your system. You can easily open a File Explorer window on them. It is also especially useful for .NET programmers that must find out the correct statement " Environment .GetFolderPath( Environment .SpecialFolder. ??? )) ". There is a filter box which helps finding the right path quickly.
  
  
• Open Character Map: Opens a window that displays all characters of all fonts currently in the system. You can copy some out to the clipboard. As a bonus the window's position is retained. You can activate this also very quickly by pressing RightCtrl-M from any other application on your machine. See Hotkeys.
  
  
• Font Picker: An extended version of the somehow very basic font picker dialogs in other applications. Here you can see the font with all of it's capabilities including fore- and background color and the point sizes are correct. If you press OK the example text will be copied to the clipboard so you can paste it into another application to have the style there.
  
  
• Color Picker: An extended version of the somehow very basic color picker dialogs in other applications. The color can be specified in several different ways. If you press OK the colored example text and a rectangle filled with this color will be copied to the clipboard so you can paste it into the other applications and have the color there. The dropdown box with all the .NET names of colors is especially useful for programmers who are looking to pick a color for their source code.
  
  
• Start Timer: Like a stopwatch, but all the times are recorded in the Log panel. If you write a description in the right box you will later be able to identify the times easily. If you press 'Clear' while the timer is running a lap time will be logged. Note that you can activate this very quickly by pressing RightCtrl-T from any other application on your machine. See Hotkeys.
  
  
• Countdown: Basically like a kitchen timer, but at zero you can let it execute one of the actions in the Actions tab and it can either go into minus (so you see how much behind you currently are) or let it restart at the initial time. The cyclic mode is quite useful for doing some cyclic actions in the real world or measuring something over a longer timespan to make the result more precise.
  
  
• Create GUID: Creates a new GUID with either upper or lower letters. For those who doesn't know what it is, it's a combination of letters and digits that is globally unique, with extremely high probability. You could use it for example as part of a filename to make it unique on the planet. This function can also automatically copy the GUID to the clipboard which makes it quicker than the one of Visual Studio especially if multiple ones are needed.
  
  
• Show last Exception: The last encountered exception internally will be displayed. This can also be such that were caught silently. Can deliver more info when something doesn't work according to plan.
  

Note that you can activate most of these function also by Mighy Command resp. Hotkey.