All web developers should have available the tools to make good-looking web
sites. This includes having installed all the main web browsers; tools for
modeling Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); sample test environments; places to test
JavaScript, HTML, and CSS combinations; confirmation that your code is
compliant—i.e., HTML and CSS validators; color wheels, coordinators, and
selectors; graphics and image editors; on-screen rulers; code books for HTML character entities, Unicode,
and solutions for problems; web design tools; and places to get free code.
I have focused almost exclusively on tools that are free of charge, that are
open source or "free software", or that are uncrippled shareware. In a very few
cases I may list commercial programs. For nearly all of these links, this is
what I use and what I recommend to others who need to create web sites.
The three major browsers today are IE, Firefox, and Chrome
- Internet Explorer - IE is installed automatically with Windows
- Firefox - Mozilla browser, supports many plugins
- Google Chrome - For personal computers and mobile devices
- Apple Safari - Comes with Mac, available for Windows
- Opera - The 2nd oldest browser, following IE, was once a contender but is now nearly forgotten
- Lynx - Lynx is a fully-featured, non-graphical (text-only) browser. It has no capacity for pictures or images. Because Lynx is the primary browser used by blind or vision-impaired users, web developers should always test their work in Lynx to confirm that their web pages render properly for full accessiblity. See also http://lynx.isc.org
- ELinks - A fork of Lynx, ELinks is another non-graphical text-based browser. Features tabbed browsing (yes, in a non-graphical display), HTML rewriting for pages that would otherwise display poorly, full-color control, and apply external editor to web pages
- eww - Emacs version 24.4 now comes with a built-in web browser. Called eww, when properly configured, it displays web pages, including graphics, in an Emacs editing buffer.
- w3m - In a Unix or Unixish environment (like Cygwin), w3m is both a browser and pager. It accepts a url or a file as a command-line argument. It can also work inside Emacs as emacs-w3m, where the editing buffer is colorized and hyperlinked.
- Netscape Browser Archive - Obsolete versions of Netscape stored here
- The Browser Archive - You can get every obsolete and defunct browser from here
Editors with WYSIWYG features, some things for novices but others for professionals:
- Kompozer - Standards-based, free, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux
- Blue Griffon - Free WYSIWYG, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux
- Page Breeze - Free Windows editor for personal and non-profit use
- Visual Studio Express 2013 for the Web - Free, Windows required. See comparison with below at http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/tools.aspx
- Microsoft WebMatrix - Free, Windows required. See comparison with above at: http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/tools.aspx WebMatrix will be discontinued by Nov 2017
- Microsoft Expression Web 4 - Free, requires Microsoft .NET, 2GB free space, 1 GB RAM
- Google Web Designer - Free, for Windows, Mac, Linux, tablets, other platforms
Editors with emphasis on code, more for experts:
- RJ TextEd - Closed-source but free Windows editor. Strong focus on web technologies, regularly maintained, and my favorite
- Light Table - Open Source Windows/Mac/Linux next generation programmer's editor with good features for HTML and web
- bluefish - Open Source for Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, Solaris
- OpenElement - Very powerful, free open-source editor for Windows. Good community.
- PSPad - Free Windows programmer's editor with special features for web editing
- CodeLobster - Free Windows PHP/Web IDE, with options for commercial features
- Notepad++ - Free Windows programmer's editor, offers many plug-ins for extensibility
- SynWrite - Programmer's Editor with many features HTML and web
- Aptana Studio 3 - Open source Windows/Mac web dev IDE, supports PHP and Python, uses Eclipse
- NetBeans IDE - Free, open source IDE for Java 8, HTML5 apps, XML, JavaScript, PHP, and C/C++ languages
- EPIC IDE - Open source Perl IDE, including editor and debugger, based on the Eclipse platform
- KDevelop - Free, open source cross-platform IDE for C, C++, Python, QML/JavaScript and PHP
- Padre - Perl IDE, including debugger, regex editor, Perl::Critic, integrated web server
- Xenu's Link Sleuth - Local util to catch broken links, files without internal links, dead links
- W3 link checker - Online check for dead or invalid links
- HTML Tidy - Confirm whether HTML/XHTML is syntactically correct
- W3 HTML validator - Formal checks whether web pages are standards-compliant
- W3 CSS validator - Formal check to see if your CSS is standards-compliant
- JSFiddle - An online resource that lets you enter HTML, JavaScript and CSS separately, and see the results in real time
- XAMPP - Use your laptop or PC as a local web server, using Apache web server, MariaDB, PHP, Perl, and more. If you are a full-time or professional web developer, you will find XAMPP extremely useful
- AMPPS - Similar to XAMPP, except that AMPPS focuses on PHP, uses MySQL instead of MariaDB, with options to purchase Softaculous toolkit
- Fenix - Very lightweight desktop web server for Windows/Mac. Open source with GNU GPL. Work on multiple sites simultaneously, give external access to other users temporarily
- Server2Go - Self-configuring web server, runs Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL. Can be used on a CD-ROM or USB
- UniServ Zero - A free and open source Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP-Perl server suite, small enough to carry on a USB stick
- W3 schools - Well-advertised site for html, css, graphics, and modern web work
- WebPlatform.org - Documentation from the W3 Consortium on all web-related things
- Code Avengers - Free, video-led, structured teaching on HTML and CSS for beginners
- CSS-Tricks - Splendid help with tutorials, videos, forums, job postings, etc. for newbies to pros
- Code Tut Plus - Code, Tutorials, courses, eBooks, and more
- Dynamic Drive - Free DHTML/JavaScript/CSS scripts and code, categorized and nicely arranged
- Front End Rescue - Good list of blogs, resources, experienced code writers
- A List Apart - Advanced discussion on web design, development, styles, readability, and web technology
- Web Designer Depot - Nice collection of articles, freebies, discounted resources, code demos and more
|
