Software
Welcome to the software page! All of the software listed is free to download for all. This page is here as a resource when looking for programs to get stuff done. The page contains excerpts from each program’s respective wikipedia article and a link to its official website. The software list is broken up into several categories and has a brief explanation of what each piece of software does. If you would like to see a software added to this page, please contact us as by email.
General
BricsCAD
BricsCAD is a .dwg CAD software similar to AutoCAD, but much better. The first advantage of BricsCAD over the dominant CAD software AutoCAD developed by the flagship company AutoDesk is that AutoCAD costs $1700 a year for each user. AutoCAD is only available under a software as a service SaaS or subscription model, so if you decide to use AutoCAD for seven years a company and then all the sudden you decide you want to a different less expensive option, you will have to keep paying thousands of dollars to access your old files and make new ones and even view .dwg files, regardingless of the construction date. BriccsCAD offers a one-time purhcase for $590 to $1780 for BricsCAD. This perpetual license is the cost of one year of AutoCAD. Students can use BricsCAD Ultimate for free. BricsCAD Ultimate includes BricsCAD Lite and the Drafting workspace for making shapes in two dimensions, BricsCAD Pro which includes 3D modeling features, BricsCAD Mechanical which includes mechanical modeling functionality, and BricsCAD BIM or Building Information Modeling. BricsCAD has an awesome feature called the Quad cursor that uses your command history to suggest commands such as Move, Copy, Extrude, and Manipulate to anticipate what command you will use in your workflow.
There is also a free version for everyone named BricsCAD Shape. This includes a built in library of furniture, vehicles, materials like stone brick and metal (there’s even gold), and plants and landscape features.
Firefox
Firefox is a free and opensource web browser developed by Mozilla. The browser prides itself on its concern for user privacy and its dedication to helping develop and free and open internet for the world to use. Firefox is very customizable and is packed with plenty of features. Click here to download and try it out for yourself.
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite, developed by The Document Foundation. It was forked from OpenOffice.org in 2010, which was an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite comprises programs for word processing, the creation and editing of spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, working with databases, and composing mathematical formulae. It is available in 110 languages. It is free to download and supports almost all document types (excluding Apple’s office suite).
Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform email, news, and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy was modeled after that of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Just like Firefox, Thunderbird is highly customizable with thousands of useful addons for users to enjoy. To give it a try, just follow this link.
Computer Aided Design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computer systems to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations.
FreeCad
FreeCAD is a free and open-source (under the LGPLv2+ license) general-purpose parametric 3D CAD modeler. FreeCAD is aimed directly at mechanical engineering and product design but also fits in a wider range of uses around engineering, such as architecture or other engineering specialties. FreeCAD is currently in a beta stage of development.
Fusion 360
Fusion360 is a powerful piece of modeling software by CAD giant AutoDesk, developers of the original industry standard AutoCAD. It’s graphical parametric modeling interface allows you to design parts and assemblies through point and click to add dimensional and relational constraints.
Fusion360 is free for use by students, hobbyists, and startups making under $100k yearly. You can learn more about getting your license on the YouTube channel Make Anything, where 3D printing guru Devin Montes walks through the process step by step.
Graphic Design
This section contains information on programs used to create and or manipulate images for the purpose of graphic design.
GIMP
GIMP (an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks. It is pretty much the open source version of Photoshop. Even if you are not into graphic design, this is a highly recomended program due to its extreme usefulness in all matters photo related.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor; it can be used to create or edit vector graphics such as illustrations, diagrams, line arts, charts, logos and complex paintings. Inkscape’s primary vector graphics format is Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) version 1.1. While Inkscape can import and export several formats, all editing workflow inevitably occur within the constraints of the SVG format. Highly recommended if you are into graphic design.
Integrated Development Environments
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of a source code editor, build automation tools and a debugger. Most modern IDEs have an intelligent code completion.
Eclipse
In computer programming, Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE). It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. Eclipse is written mostly in Java and its primary use is for developing Java applications, but it may also be used to develop applications in other programming languages through the use of plugins, including: Ada, ABAP, C, C++, COBOL, Fortran, Haskell, JavaScript, Lasso, Lua, NATURAL, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, R, Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Scheme, and Erlang. It can also be used to develop packages for the software Mathematica. Development environments include the Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) for Java and Scala, Eclipse CDT for C/C++ and Eclipse PDT for PHP, among others.
The initial codebase originated from IBM VisualAge. The Eclipse software development kit (SDK), which includes the Java development tools, is meant for Java developers. Users can extend its abilities by installing plug-ins written for the Eclipse Platform, such as development toolkits for other programming languages, and can write and contribute their own plug-in modules.
Released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, Eclipse SDK is free and open-source software (although it is incompatible with the GNU General Public License). It was one of the first IDEs to run under GNU Classpath and it runs without problems under IcedTea.
PyCharm
PyCharm is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used for programming in Python. It provides code analysis, a graphical debugger, an integrated unit tester, integration with version control systems (VCSes), and supports web development with Django. PyCharm is developed by the Czech company JetBrains.
It is cross-platform working on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. PyCharm has a Professional Edition, released under a proprietary license and a Community Edition released under the Apache License. PyCharm Community Edition is less extensive than the Professional Edition.
Text Editors
Text editors are very handy for a variety of tasks. They do not take as much time to load when compared to a full on IDE, they are light weight, and there are a ton of them to choose from. The few listed here are the ones preferred by the club. Keep in mind that editors like text edit and notepad are not included because they are built in apps for OSX and Windows. The ones listed below are for download across all operating systems.
Brackets
Brackets is a free open-source editor written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with a primary focus on Web Development. It was created by Adobe Systems, licensed under the MIT License, and is currently maintained on GitHub. Brackets is available for cross-platform download on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
On November 4, 2014, Adobe announced the 1.0 release of Brackets. The update introduced new features such as custom shortcut key combinations and more accurate JavaScript hinting.
Komodo Edit
Komodo Edit is a free text editor for dynamic programming languages. It was introduced in January 2007 to complement Active State’s commercial Komodo IDE. As of version 4.3, Komodo Edit is built atop the Open Komodo project. Many of Komodo’s features are derived from an embedded Python interpreter.