Most users utilize hex editing for trivial purposes like cheating at games by modifying certain offset values. You can do that with even the most basic editor. But when you need a professional application, Hex Workshop might be a great solution.
The first thing I liked about Hex Workshop was that it doesn't just help you get the job done, but it allows you to do it in your own way. There is a wide variety of user customization options that will definitely streamline your interactions with the application. You can change colors, use tags and even place bookmarks which will help you save time when working on large files.
I was also impressed with the multitude of handy features which Hex Workshop has to offer. It provides a hex calculator, it can quickly compare any two files that you desire and even provide you with character distribution statistics. Furthermore, it can calculate the checksums of your files.
As a conclusion, I think that this application is pretty expensive for casual users, but if you are a programmer and you need to debug your code, Hex Workshop is a program that could really help you out.
v6.7.25284 [Jul 30, 2012]
Hex Workshop v6.7: Expanded Encoding and Character Set Support
Hex Workshop support for character encoding and character sets was expanded across the application to include UTF-8, Unicode, and code page specific ANSI strings.
Users may now select the code page for rendering ANSI string using Character Maps. Hex Workshop ships with pre-configured support for the standard OEM and ANSI code pages, along with EBCDIC and Mac. Additionally, users can add support for more pages by creating new character maps.
The Hex Workshop structure definition language now supports pragma to specify the code pages and new keywords to designate between ANSI, UTF-8, and Unicode characters and strings.
The Hex Workshop find/replace features are now character set and encoding aware.
Users can now specify the character encoding and character set for individual bookmark elements.
The text export facilities now support BOM markers for UTF8/Unicode along with a character set designation for ANSI text.
Hex Workshop now includes a more modern application icon.
A "Copy Address" menu item was added to the Edit and right-click document and structure context menus.
The user interface renders quicker with many structures
Hex Workshop no longer crashes when passing a relative path via the command line.
Launching online help now displays context senstive help sections when focus is on the Results Windows or Structure Viewer.
The replace dialog now properly displays the hex search strings for quads and uquads. Additionally, the hex search string is now updated when swapping the byte order.
The replace dialog not properly validates data input based on search type.
The structure viewer no longer displays extra leading zeros when displaying lengths.
The Structure Viewer now updates structure content on undo/redo operations and when changing sectors.
Floating structures now remain expanded when swapping between documents.
