2014-11-28

Post pobrano z: 20 Must Have Tools for Web Development



It is vital for all businesses and organizations to have a strong presence online nowadays. This has put quite a lot of stress on web developers to be constantly innovative and always create new and exciting websites. Luckily, there are a number of tools out there that can help make web development a lot easier. Here are out top 20 picks.

Gridgum



Gridgum is a market place for themes and templates that aim to be both beautiful and responsive. Gridgum offers premium quality responsive themes and templates, you check out the excellent selection of Bootstrap themes they’re offering right now. They accept themes created with Foundation, Gumby or Skeleton frameworks. You can even choose to use your own responsive framework. Gridgum offers incentive both for sellers and buyers. Since they aim to become a niche market place for responsive themes, they offer sellers 70% commission for exclusive themes and 45% for non-exclusive ones. The authors can also add an installation package that will charge extra for those users who need a little more help on installing their theme. As a buyer, you can always reach out for support to the author of your theme. With each purchase you will receive points that you will be able to use for redeeming a discount on your next orders. Moreover, Gridgum doesn’t have a PayPal surcharge that other markets apply to purchases pay for through PayPal. If you decide to sell your themes on Gridgum, take into consideration that it the theme has to be fully responsive, it must have a unique name, it has to be tested in several browsers, and the documentation must be in English. Also, don’t forget that static HTML templates must use index.html as the filename for the home/default page.

ExpressionEngine



Wouldn’t you like to be able to display the content of your website anywhere without having to adhere to some pre-established design patterns? With ExpressionEngine from EllisLab you be able to do just that. ExpressionEngine is a great tool that will help you manage the content of your website very easily. Whether you have a personal blog, an online shop, a real-estate website or a tourism website, ExpressionEngine will fit any sort of requirements. Even if you don’t have any development or design skills, you’ll be able to easily use this tool without having to write any coding knowledge. If you are a programmer, however, you’ll be delighted to discover that ExpressionEngine is one of the most powerful and flexible content management tools out there. What’s more, if you ever have any problems with the application you can quickly solve them by going to ExpressionEngine Answers and getting the help you need.

HTML5Maker

The newest trend taking over the Internet nowadays is using animations in your website. Whether you want to enhance the appeal of your personal website to attract more viewers or maybe you want to attract more customers and create an ad campaign, you need to use animations. HTML5Maker is one of the best online services that will help you create animated multimedia content such as sliders or banners. There’s no need to have any programming skills, as HTML5Maker has many great features that will make your work very easy. The Online Animation Editor and the Online Image Editor will get you started and put your imagination to work. There are many great ready-to-use templates you can choose from. Plus, the animations will be compatible with Google AdWords and Google Double-Click. Besides, you can embed your animations from the cloud into your website and share them with your friends as a Template.

Argento

If your eCommerce website needs a bit of refreshing or you’re planning to start an online shop, Argentotheme.com is the place to go. They developed one of the best Magento templates there are. Argento theme was created based on the best eCommerce strategies available and according to Magento developers’ guidelines, making it one of the most functional and flexible templates out there. The template is also optimized for SEO with tags and HTML attributes. Besides, Argento also responsive and it scales to fit any screen resolution. It works smoothly with iOS, Android and Blackberry so you don’t have to go through the trouble of creating a separate mobile application for your template. Argento comes packed with a lot of great features that will make your website become more user-friendly such as: easy sliders, AJAX search and products highlights. The team at Argentotheme.com offers to install the template for free in less than 24 hours, so you don’t need to worry about wasting time with installation.

Kukook

When looking for a job, the first step you should take is to create the best possible resume for yourself. In truth, having a good resume means that half the work you need to put into job hunting is already done. Also, having a professional, elegant resume speaks volumes about your attention to aesthetics and your care for details, both very important features to look for in a web developer or designer. This is where Kukook comes in. Kukook is the best supplier of professional resume templates you’ll find. This service offers you a gallery of diverse resumes to choose from and as soon as you decide, you can download the template and start modifying it in order to make it suit your needs. Kukook is definetely the right choice when you’re looking to create a resume that will impress your future employers. By using one of the templates provided by Kukook you are sure to stand out from your competiton.

Themify

If you’re looking for a new functional theme for your website, check out Themify.me. They offer a great variety of functional and customizable themes. You can customize your theme with the help of tools such as the Drag&Drop Builder, custom widgets and shortcodes, without having to deal with writing code. Recently, Themify.me has come up with a new set of tools called the Builder Addons. These applications extend the Themify Builder and can be used with any Themify theme and the Builder Plugin. The Pointers tool helps you draw attention to your images by adding different pointers to them. With the WooCommerce tool you can customize your shop pages.  The ProgressBar allows you to display the progress of an ongoing project in an animated way. The A/B image module allows you to compare two images side by side. Plus, with the FitText tool you can create and customize poster ads. You can also upload and audio file to your website thanks to the Audio feature.

Templates Master

For the best designed Magento templates that work smoothly Templates-Master.com is the place to go. All of their templates are designed based on improved HTML with SEO in mind. They come up with regular updates to make sure their products will be compatible with any recent Magento releases. Saving time is essential in a business nowadays, so the team at Templates Master developed the Magento Page Cache tool with the sole purpose of making your store faster and helping you pay less for your hosting packages. The tool is based on core Magento architecture that supports both static and dynamic blocks. No need to worry about installation either. Installation instructions and manual are provided on the website. Plus, the team of professional developers offer 1 year of free support if you have any trouble with the tool. Page Cache also comes with some additional extension settings that will allow you to set flexible cache rules.

Free Icon Maker

FreeIconMaker.com lets you create an unlimited number of beautiful icon sets without requiring design skills or a lot of time on your part. Free Icon Maker is free for personal and commercial use and will help you create cool iOS 8, Flat and 3D icon sets for mobile applications and websites in the blink of an eye. At Free Icon Maker you can browse through a gallery of hundreds of icons and choose the one that best suits your web site. Or you can upload your own vector (SVG) icons and customize them the way you like it. Play around with colors, gradients, inner shadow and share your icon sets as templates with the other users once you are all done. If you’re worried that your icon set will lose quality once it’s resized, you can rest assured that won’t happen because all the files are vector based and they’ll preserve their sharp design.

BugMuncher

BugMuncher will deliver feedback and bug reports from your users straight to your mail box in just a couple of minutes. This cleverly designed tool allows your user to go on your site, highlight the problem and take a snapshot of it. This way, you’ll get the full picture of the issue and even additional info about your user like his operating system, what browser he is using, what plugins he has installed and even the path he took through your website. You are also allowed to pass custom data about your users into BugMuncher, for example the authenticated user’s ID. This info is then saved with the feedback report and screenshot. Using all of this you will be able to recreate the conditions under which the feedback report was sent, pinpoint the issue and move on to fixing it. BugMuncher supports a lot of integrations by default, it works both on iPhone and Android and it has an awesome UI.

Tickera

Still looking for a solution to handle all your event tickets, to speed up the check in process and leave less people waiting at the door? Tickera is an easy to install WordPress plugin that will help you create and customize tickets to sell them on your web site. Tickera allows you to have different ticket templates for different kinds of tickets. This way, your Standard, Premium or VIP tickets can have different designs, but similar elements. Experiment with the different font sizes, color, paper size and orientation until you’re happy with your ticket. Tickera includes many popular payment gateways like PayPal Standard and Pro, 2Checkout, Stripe, Braintree and Vogue Pay and more. This smart WordPress plugin will let you check in your attendees straight from your iPhone or Android device. What is more, it has support for a barcode reader allowing you to pave the way to a smoother and faster check in process.

VirtueMart

If you are looking to start your own eCommerce site or polish the one you already have, VirtueMart offers many cool features that will boost your site’s looks and productivity. VirtueMart is a full eCommerce solution that can support an unlimited number of products, orders, clients and categories. With VirtueMart shoppers can enjoy a customizable input form, so they don’t have to always fill in the Bill To and Ship To fields. Also, VirtueMart lets you display different prices for different shopper groups. The price will be shown according to the selected currency, the country and time zone. Another useful feature is the inventory or stock tool that will let you know at all times how many items you have left. It will also send customers alerts to inform them about the low stock. VirtueMart has a Dynamical Calculator that will calculate tax and discounts for you, taking into consideration the country, category and shopper group of the client. Also, VirtueMart is integrated with the Joomla! management system and as of their latest release, VM3, this integration has been cleaned up and dependencies have been sorted out. Check out their website to see what other cool stuff they’ve included in this recent release that will make developer’s lives a lot easier guaranteed.

MotoCMS

If you need some help with creating and managing web sites, but you don’t have programming or coding skills, MotoCMS will come to rescue. This is a website builder (content management system) that will enable you to update your site literally in the blink of an eye: you’ll be able to apply and view the changes on the spot. MotoCMS boasts an intuitive interface and it will help you make SEO friendly websites that will look neat and professional. Whether you are looking to add a search field, an extensive photo gallery or a subscribe button to your web site, MotoCMS has got you covered. The Image Editor and Media Library will keep your media organized and your posts always looking sharp with the custom widgets integration, custom fonts, image editing, and much more. Don’t hesitate to reach out to their supportive staff that will be glad to assist you on any issue.

Opinion Stage

Opinion Stage is an opinion polling service for web sites that will help you engage your users and get their feedback in a simple, quick way. You will be able to create a social or standard poll and get it running on your web site with just a few clicks. Customizing the polls is entirely up to you. Decide what type of answers you want to receive from your users (multiple choice or head to head) and what information is displayed on your polls (like the number of voters and votes). Opinion Stage even allows you to monetize your polls by embedding commercials or promoting other polls across the network.

Once your polls are ready to be released in the online world you can check how they’re doing on your dashboard: at a glance you’ll be able to see how many time they have been shared and even how much traffic they are currently bringing in.

Webflow

Designing your very own website has never been as easy as Webflow makes it nowadays. With this amazing tool you can create your very own website straight from a visual editor that allows you to drag and drop elements in your page. Also, you will have full control over the design of your elements straight from within Webflow, no need to use Photoshop any more. Also, all code generated by Webflow is fully W3S compliant, be it HTML5 or CSS3.

Uptime Robot

Uptime Robot is a must-have tool in any developer’s portfolio, it allows you to constantly monitor your website or server and be informed when something happens and it stops responding. Uptime Robot allows you to define up to 50 free monitors that will send requests to your websites or servers every 5 minutes and let you know as soon as any issues are detected. What’s more, Uptime Robot offers you a modern, easy to use dashboard where you can create your monitors as well as choose the way in which you want to receive notifications from your monitors, be it SMS, mobile push message, email or more. In addition to all of this, you can also view statistics about your website’s uptime, downtime and response times straight from the dashboard. In case you’d like to use this very useful tool for your apps as well, Uptime Robot has a fully documented API to help you do just that.

Adverts

If you’re looking to create your very own classifiedes  website, then Adverts is the plugin for you. Adverts is a newly launched plugin that works with all properly coded WordPress themes and offers you a robust, flexible classifieds feature on your website. Adverts was created to be modular, this means that you get a core functionality for this plugin and a number of additional features that you can enable or disable however you see fit. In addition to this, Adverts integrates seamlessly with a number of third party plugins, amongst them you’ll find Yoast SEO, Jetpack and more, and also offers you full freedom to create your very own shortcodes as well as the option to define your very own hooks and filters. And more good news for developers, Adverts was coded to comply with all the best practices defined for WordPress plugins and offers complete documentation. Check out the demo right now.

CoffeeCup

CoffeeCup is an online development tool that was created back in 1996 by a team that met in a coffee shop. Fun fact aside, CoffeeCup offers one of the most widely used web design tools out there, namely the HTML Editor. Over the years, they’ve added a few more features to their functionality in order to help you create a strong presence online. Amongst these features you’ll find: a responsive layout maker, over 70 factors that will give you a better view of your website’s usability and search rank and a form builder.

Daily Hosting

At DailyHosting.Net you will find all the information and examples you need in order to make the best decision about what web hosting solution to choose. Daily Hosting has created several web hosting guides that explain and illustrate what type of web hosting solutions you will find out there, how much they cost and what they are suited for. These guides are completely free and will help you in your search. On Daily Hosting you can get familiarized with shared hosting, which is the most popular and affordable hosting solution. It suits a wide range of sites, from photo portfolios to eCommerce sites. If your site brings in heavier volumes of traffic per day, then Daily Hosting suggests VPS hosting. This is indeed more expensive than shared hosting, but in the long run it’s more reliable and safe. Finally, dedicated hosting is ideal for application based websites and it is also the costlier of the bunch.

GoJS JavaScript Library for HTML5 Canvas

Creating diagrams of complex Nodes, Links, and Groups is now simpler and quicker than ever with GoJS’ fully customizable templates and layouts. GoJS is a feature-rich JavaScript library that lets you implement interactive diagrams across modern browsers and platforms. GoJS supports graphical templates and data-binding of graphical object properties to model data. Only the model, consisting of simple JavaScript objects, needs to be saved and restored. Thanks to the fact that this feature rich JavaScript library does not rely on any JavaScript libraries or frameworks, your users will enjoy interactivity without having to install plugins like Flash or Silverlight and without round trips to servers. GoJS offers plenty of advanced tools that take user interactivity from dull and basic to fun: you can pan, scroll, select, delete, undo operations, drag and drop, copy and paste elements and have fun experimenting with GoJS’ extensible tool system for custom operations, event handlers and overviews.

XQual

XStudio is a test management solution that will manage the entire life-cycle of your projects from beginning to end: products, releases, requirements, Agile projects, tests, test campaigns, test reports and defects. XStudio has an open source (LGPL) SDK allowing it to interface with all types of automated tests. The versioned data lets you quickly get the necessary metrics and indicators like the test coverage, progress and team’s performance. For storing data, XStudio uses MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server, so it can be used from Windows, Linux or Mac. XStudio incorporates a wide catalog of almost 50 ready to use launchers. All of these come with their binaries, source code, configuration file and build script within the XStudio package. Schedule fully automated test campaigns with XStudio with the leading test automation frameworks like Selenium, Ranorex, Sahi or TestComplete. XStudio is the only test management tool that can be interfaced with proprietary tests thanks to its highly flexible and easy to use Java SDK.

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