The .net framework comes with a bunch of really useful libraries, but there's always something better out there.
What 3rd party libraries have you found that you can't live without now?
is it C5?
is it db4o?
is it something off CodePlex?
Share with the rest of us!
EDIT: Please post both Free and Non-free libraries- but it would be nice if we knew which were which.
HTML Agility (Html Parser) - Largely compatible with XmlDocument in .NET, but loose enough to accept real-world HTML.
Micrsoft Enterprise Library "a library of application blocks designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges" - Include Logging, Configuration, cross-platform database access and other areas.
SharpZipLib - This is a library for compressing files in zip format.
MS Enterprise Library (app blocks for data, logging, validation and security)
I'm looking forward to hearing the responses here, because I disagree with this:
The .net framework comes with a bunch of really useful libraries, but there's always something better out there.
Coming from the Java world, I found .NET to be sorely lacking in quality, free 3rd party libraries. Many that exist are half-implemented ports of Java libraries that may or may not have the functionality that you need.
Castle - ActiveRecord, Windsor, Monorail, NVelocity - every project I work on uses at least one.
Subsonic. I created a maintainence app for 200 lookup tables (countries, towns, airports etc.) in a day pointing at SQL server. A day later I was able to host the exact same set of tables on MySQL. I wouldn't use this for enterprise scale apps, but for rapid scaffold tooling for CRUD operations this can't be beaten for simplicity.
You should mention if you are referring to "FREE" or "NOT FREE" 3rd party libraries.
I find this one very usefull. http://mathnet.opensourcedotnet.info/
Ninject Framewor. It is a great fluent Dependancy Injection Framework. It is lighter weight and more very quick. I fell in love with it the more I use it in the ASP.NET MVC projects I am working on.
ASP.NET MVC - its about time, and boy are they doing it right.
jQuery - not really a 3rd part Framework for ASP.NET, but its a great compliment to ASP.NET and honestly I couldnt do my job without it.
MS Ajax Client Templates - If you havent checked this out yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. It is a way to bind Javascript Objects to controls and have live templating, so it a 2-way bind like in Silverlight and WPF. Its a great javascript library, that will hopefully get better and more mature.
If anyone is interested in these things, check out my latest 2 blog posts at polymorphicview.blogspot.com to see how I am using them together.
I use SubSonic alot for ORM, Migrations, etc. It's pretty handy! (http://subsonicproject.com/)
Also, it's free.
It's commercial software (you have to pay for it), but Aspose makes some good products for working with office files. I've used their software to greatly simplify working with Excel spreadsheets and creating Word documents as part of a CMS solution.
Open-source: NUnit, Log4Net, SharpZipLib.
I like StructureMap for dependency injection and inversion of control. Combine that with MbUnit for unit testing, log4net for logging and SubSonic or NHibernate for an ORM (depending on your app) and you are off to a pretty good start for developing most apps.
Best yet, they are all free.
It is indispensible when tracking those errors that only happen in production.
It's really dynamic and depends on what you are doing and what is your area. One thing I find useful .Net libraries is to read other people blogs. That's always true. In the same way, you should write some blogs about your programming experience as well, for yourself or sharing with others.
DXperience by Developer Express - they make a comprehensive set of UI and ORM components w/source code, and I find their support very responsive and helpful. Not free at all, but well worth the cost IMO.
I really like CodeBetter.Extensions, in particular the IEnumerable.Each() extension for looping an action for a collection. I don't have a project without it!
Also, I know you only asked for one, but I must give an honourable mention to the Dynamic LINQ library blogged about my ScottGu here.
I feel i also need to anti-vote Dundas Charts - after spending a lot of money on v6.1, they tell me that in order to upgrade to a minor revision (v6.2), i needed to spend an additional $1500 or so just for the upgrade. I can understand having to pay for a major revision, but a minor one? What about bugs in the software?
As the founder of Umbrella, the intent of this project on CodePlex is to provide a structure and central repository for extension libraries. We already cover much of that CodeBetter.Extensions is covering and contributors from other libraries have started to merge their content into Umbrella.
It is usint xUnit as its testing framework, is leveraging and extensind parts of Enterprise Library and Unity although it is not bound to it.
In upcoming contributions, we'll add "Umbrella Over DataServices, WCF, EF, WPF, ..."
Feel free to contribute by contacting us on CodePlex.
And don't worry, documentation is on the way...
as mentioned: log4net, umbrella, nunit
For the Desktop Apps I like to use commercial component suite by DevExpress
SharpTemplate.NET is a lightweight general-purpose template engine for .NET 2.0. It is very easy to use, yet very powerful. It supports a pluggable syntax, full C# compliant expression parser, caching and macros.
LazyParser.NET is a light-weight late-bound expression parser compatible with C# 2.0 expression syntax. It allows you to incorporate user-supplied mathematical expressions or any C# expression in your application which can be dynamically evaluated at runtime, using late binding.
A compression module for ASP.NET that works with WebResource.axd, JavaScript, and CSS
DigitalRune Text Editor Control for .NET
DigitalRune Text Editor is a .NET control for Windows Forms. It offers syntax-highlighting, source code formatting, code completion, and more.
The control is derived from the text editor in the SharpDevelop IDE.
The software is open-source
DigitalRune Docking Windows is a .NET library that adds docking capabilities to Windows Forms. Features
- Dockable windows similar to Microsoft® Visual Studio®
- Docking via drag-and-drop (including visual docking hints)
- Complex layouts
- Tabbed documents
- Auto-hide windows
- Floating windows
- Custom tooltips and context menus
- Persistence of window layout to XML
- Different rendering styles and color themes
The software is free for non-commercial use. If you want to use the software for commercial purposes, you can test the software for 30 days and then you must purchase a valid license.
NDepend.Helpers.FilePathDirectory is the library used by the tool NDepend to handle common path operations. Benefits of the NDepend.Helpers.FilePathDirectory over the .NET Framework class System.IO.Path include:
- Strongly typed File/Directory path.
- Relative / absolute path conversion.
- Path normalization API
- Path validity check API
- Path comparison API
- Path browsing API.
- Path rebasing API
- List of path operations (TryGetCommonRootDirectory, GetListOfUniqueDirsAndUniqueFileNames, list equality…)
Here are a good ones not yet mentioned:
The free Krypton Toolkit from Component Factory (part of Krypton Suite which is commercial)
GemBox.Spreadsheet. Excellent library for reading and writing Excel files in a variety of formats (XLS, XLSX, ODS, CSV, HTML).