Salesforce Tools

Salesforce Tools: Some good tools for developers

Salesforce Force.com Explore:

This is the very first tool which comes in my mind for salesforce.com developers. Its a tool where you can explore salesforce Meta Data ( standard / custom objects, field and others.). I think as of now its best tool to write and execute SOQL queries. You can view your query history and export data to your m/c too.

Write / execute and test your SOQL queries in this tool before adding it to your apex code:

Download salesforce Force.com Explore :

Installation Guide :

http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/ForceExplorer

Make sure you have Adobe AIR installed
Then download the latest release of Force.com Explorer



Force.com IDE:

The Force.com IDE is a full-featured, Eclipse-based coding environment, with capabilities like code completion, version control, collaborative development, and project sharing.

Using this plugin, development, maintain code become very easy. Also you can deploy code&metadata ( like email templates, reports, objects etc) from your Sandbox to production easily. ( note: deployment activities varies from one Org/individual to other. There are different ways to deploy to production e.g. ANT, Eclipse Force.com plugin or salesforce application deployment interface ).

http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Force.com_IDE_Installation

Workbench :  

Workbench is a powerful, web-based suite of tools designed for administrators and developers to interact with Salesforce.com. 


https://workbench.developerforce.com/login.php


http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Workbench


Force.com Data Loader:

Using this tool you can export and import data out of salesforce.com instance. This tool is very much used by SFDC admins and developers for data import and export tasks.

you can download the Data Loader from the SFDC Setup menu, under Administration Setup - Data Management.
find more details on :
http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Data_Loader