20 tools to make web development easier
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It’s clear that web development has changed. Instead of having a lot of time on their hands to think things through, web developers are today expected to be increasingly productive and complete projects faster and better. That’s why every serious web developer should have some tools at their disposal to make the most of their time working on a project. Here are 20 essential tools to help you become more a really productive web developer.
HTML5 Maker
HTML5 Maker is easily one of the most appreciated online tools that helps users to create all kinds of animated multimedia – from banners to sliders, users that boast no design skills can have a great visual element ready in a matter of minutes. The tool is intuitive to use and includes many interesting templates and features like the Online Animation Editor or the Online Image Editor. Moreover, all content you create is compatible with Google AdWords and Google Double-Click.
Fontello
This is a free tool perfect for those looking for a set of icons with a great look and consistent feel. Fontello features a wide variety of fantastic icons. You can also pick and choose the glyphs you require and compile them into a minimalist set of your own. The entire set of icons is available on GitHub, but the tool offers an intelligible interface that renders font customization much easier.
Free Icon Maker
An alternative to Fontello, Free Icon Maker is a tool that enables developers to design limitless icon sets in a very short time. If you cannot find the perfect icon, you can try making your own here – the tool offers a vast icon gallery. Picking an icon set you like, you can move on to customize it with color, inner shadow, gradients and size. When resized, the icon set won’t lose quality because all files are vector based.
Tickera
This tool is a WordPress plugin and probably the simplest event ticketing system around. If you’re looking for an easy way to create and sell tickets on your website, this is the tool to go for. It’s free and comes with a Barcode Reader which improves the check-in process to become faster and smoother. The tool supports more than 85 payment gateways in over 50 countries – you can change your payment gateway at any time.
Adobe Edge Inspect
Formerly Adobe Shadow, this is a new platform that helps to create mobile-ready and responsive apps or content with the use CSS and HTML, both of which target modern mobile and PC browsers. The tool basically grants developers a viable method for building interactive websites without using Flash.
PixelDropr
This is a smart Photoshop plugin that will help you to easily create a wide range of visuals, such as illustrations, buttons and icons. All those elements can be later dropped to any PSD file.
Daily Hosting
(http://www.dailyhosting.net/)
If you’re on the lookout for the best web hosting solution, head straight to DailyHosting.net, which is a considerable repository of information crucial to choosing and buying a solution that will match your needs. There’s a free guide to help you compare various hosting options and a range of useful reviews with lots of practical insights about different hosting solutions.
XQual
XStudio is a smart test management solution that can handle many aspects of your projects, including their versions, tests, test reports, customer business requirements and problems. You can design, carry through and log manual tests, as well as schedule fully automated test campaigns. The tool uses MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server for data storing, so it works on Windows, Linux or Mac. Moreover, it features versioned data which allows to quickly receive the required metrics and indicators – test coverage, progress or team’s performance.
Webflow
Webflow is the best solution if what you’re after is an easy way to design a website without having to actually write any code. By drag and drop you can add elements you’d like to have in your visual design tool and the app will generate the code for you. Webflow features a range of tools essential for customizing the design of your website. All HTML5 and CSS3 code generated by the tool is W3S compliant and compatible across browsers.
Prefix-free
(http://leaverou.github.io/prefixfree/)
This is a very neat tool created by Lea Verou that basically allows you to use unprefixed CSS properties. It works in the background of your design and adds the current browser’s prefix to any CSS code, but only when it’s necessary.
Foundation
A tool created by developers for other developers, Foundation is a really great prototyping tool which can act as a blueprint for responsive design projects. Its brand new version is basically an easy grid-structure that makes customization easy and flexible. Foundation works with SASS as well as CSS.
WP Adverts
WP Adverts will be of value to anyone looking for an easy solution for creating a classifieds website or adding this functionality to an existing website. Created by the same team of WPJobBoard, Adverts is a WP plugin that manages classifieds in a professional way. It works perfectly with any WordPress theme, and can be integrated with other plugins, for now with Yoast SEO and Jetpack – but more are coming.
Uptime Robot
This is an online service that helps to monitor HTTP(s), Ping, Port and Check Keywords. Web developers love it because it allows access to 50 monitors, keeping them up to date on their uptime, downtime and response times. It’s really easy to use and has a user-friendly interface. You can be notified about problems in many different ways – from SMS to email or mobile push messages.
BLOKK
BLOKK is a really cool font tool that will be perfect for “clients who do not understand Latin”. It can make the life of web developers way easier when they’re about to show design mockups to clients and instead of the classic Lorem Ipsum, they’d prefer some generic text instead. Such mockups or wireframes make a better impression and won’t confuse anyone.
Opinion Stage
If you need some feedback from your users or you’re interested in increasing daily pageviews of your website, Opinion Stage will be your friend. It’s basically an opinion polling service for websites, where you can easily create your own polls which boost engagement or target social sharing. All polls can be customized – you can for instance choose from answers with multiple choice or head to head kind.
Basecamp
This classic tool developed by 37signals, Basecamp is probably the most popular online tool to help you manage your project management and collaboration efforts. The tool runs in the cloud and you can count on your team to be already familiar with it. Working with Basecamp will help you deliver projects faster and make sure that every member of your team is productive and knows what to do.
Themify
If you’re interested in a wide choice of functional templates, have a look at Themify. They’re not only easy to customize, but also offer a host of features like Drag&Drop Builder, shortcodes and custom widgets, so you won’t need to write a single line of code. The tool is constantly expanding – recently, the creators added a brand new set of tools called the Builder Addons, which basically extend the Themify Builder functionalities.
Browser Shots
Browser Shots is a tool for generating screenshots of websites appearing in different resolutions and different web browsers. You can see how your website looks like at 800×600 and 1024×768 resolution and check whether six commonly used web browsers display it correctly. It’s enough to submit the web address and a group of distributed computers will upload screenshots of the website for you.
Kukook
Web developers are so busy that they rarely have time to take proper care of their own resumes. Fortunately, there’s Kukook – the ultimate repository of fantastic CV templates. You can see them all in the tool’s vast gallery and then can modify them to suit your purposes. With such creative resumes, you’ll stand out from the crowd and show off your expertise and drive to innovation. You’ll impress recruiters and significantly improve your chances at landing the job.
Load Impact
We all know that load time has a tremendous impact on the conversion rate of website. To make sure that your website’s load time is impeccable, use Load Impact. This is a tool based in the cloud, and it helps to test and optimize websites by means of of a generated traffic load from simulating users. You can test the performance of a website, a web app, a mobile app or even an API with up to 1.2 million concurrent users.
Web development is a rapidly changing industry, so it’s only natural that developers stick to those tools they know will improve their productivity and allow them to work on really exciting projects.
The article was contributed by Torri Myler of http://www.bankopening.co.uk/