22 Extremely Useful Tools for Web Designers and Developers

Written by Kevin Liew on 01 Jul 2009
52,082 Views • Web Development

Introduction

As a web designers or/and developers, I believe we all have our own favourite tools. For me, I have heaps of them and some of them are extremely useful. Because of these plugins, air apps and editors, I able to finish my projects on time, going back home on the dot. :)

To all the fellow developers who have make all these wonderful plugins/applications.

A HUGE THANK YOU!

 

Firefox Plugins

A lot of Firefox plugins have changed web designers and developers' life. :) For myself, I'd be least efficient if I work without firebug and web developer. Debugging html, css layout is so much easier with all those plugins. The following is my favourite plugins:

  • Web Developer Tools

    The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
  • ColorZilla

    Advanced Eyedropper, Color Picker, Palette Viewer and other colorful goodies for your Firefox
  • Screengrab!

    Screengrab! Firefox Extension is a handy web development tool with 6 excellent options. Screengrab! saves or copies to clipboard web pages as images.
  • HTML Validator

    HTML Validator is a Mozilla extension that adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla. The number of errors of a HTML page is seen on the form of an icon in the status bar when browsing. The details of the errors are seen when looking the HTML source of the page.
  • Firebug

    Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
  • FireRainbow

    FireRainbow brings javascript syntax highlighting to Firebug.
  • Live Header

    View HTTP headers of a page and while browsing.
  • Dust-Me Selectors

    Dust-Me Selectors is a Firefox extension (for v1.5 or later) that finds unused CSS selectors.
  • CSS Validator

    CSS Validator is a Mozilla Firefox extension which Validates a page using the W3C CSS Validator.
  • IETab - windows only

    IE Tab, an extension from Taiwan, embeds Internet Explorer in a Mozilla/Firefox tab.

Adobe Air Applications

Adobe Air application is like mac widgets. They are small but extremely useful. The following are the apps that I think can be very inspiring for designers and helpful to developers.

  • colorPicker

    colorPicker is a widget-like AIR application that lets you either choose a "web-safe" color from a color grid or design a color using sliders to adjust the red, green, and blue values of the color.
  • Color Browser

    This application is a simple way to create and organize your favorite color palettes. Sets of colors are easily viewable in a clean interface. Edit them, rearrange them, create new sets, make them your own.
  • Kuler Desktop

    Browse, search, and save themes directly from your desktop with this Adobe AIRâ„¢ application. Drag individual themes to your desktop, where they can be scaled to any size
  • Em based layout

    A calculate to save the hassle in calculating the em of any give px.
  • Polaris Google Analytic Reporting

    Polaris is a cross-platform desktop widget for Google Analytics. With 8 standard reports it's the easiest way keep your data always instantly available. The rich interface and swift navigation make it a pleasure to use.
  • Pixus

    Pixus is a tool to measure the screen objects in pixels using both mouse and keyboard control and preview your design with skins and presets.
  • JustResizeIt!

    JustResizeIt! introduces a brand new way of resizing images – just drag and drop them!

My favourite Mac & Windows Tools

For me, I have two different working environments - windows and mac. Therefore, I have the chance to try out different kind of softwares. In my opinion, I think notepad++ is the best editor I ever used. I have been trying out all kinds of solution out there, forexample, coda and textmate, none of them can give me the robustness that notepad++ offered. The rest of the software I find myself has been using it, and I'd like to share it with all of you.

  • Notepad++ - win

    I have to admit, this is the BEST web development editor! Unfortunately it's only available on windows! It comes with tabbed interface, configurable syntax highlighting, syntax folding, line numbering, multi-view, bookmarks and regular expression search and heaps of useful features.
  • Putty - win

    PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.
  • Filezilla - mac, win

    FileZilla is free and powerful cross platform FTP solution.
  • Clyppan - mac

    Clyppan is a free and Open Source clipboard history application for Mac OS X that’s always at your fingertips.
  • TextWrangler - mac

    TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.

 

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16 comments
Ben Burleson 15 years ago
Filezilla is also a Linux app.
Reply
choen 15 years ago
before i use Filezilla, now i use FireFTP - Firefox.
Reply
dlv 15 years ago
great list!
i discover "Dust-Me Selectors", but it doesn't work in FF 3.5 jeje, i have to wait...

I agree with Notepad++, excellent software, and it become with an FTP client out the box

Pehaps, you should add the new Google's PageSpeed utility :)

thanks, adeux from argentina
Reply
Rubens Mariuzzo 15 years ago
I agree that n++ and putty are two powerfull apps. Also, FireRainbow is new for me, I'll give it a try.

Thanks for this article.
Reply
Mike Kivikoski 15 years ago
@dlv to get Dust Me to work try doing:
Open about:config,
right-click new boolean ´extensions.checkCompatibility´,
set false,
restart.
(via @jeresig)
Reply
Phaoloo 15 years ago
Awesome useful tools. They boost your productivity
Reply
dlv 15 years ago
oh yes, i forget that solution
thanks Mike to tell me that !
now "Dust-Me Selectors" is working in FF 3.5

adeux!
Reply
Ewout 15 years ago
Great list. I love Notepad++, it's the best editor out there.
Reply
Ryan 15 years ago
Thanks these are very handy indeed!
Reply
Muhammad Siyab 15 years ago
Great tools. I especially like Em based layouts.. :)
Reply
saiful103a 15 years ago
I had no idea.This is great.Really really great.Bookmarked...
Reply
e-antz 15 years ago
nice..I use some..
Reply
drain cleaning 14 years ago
I am a web designer...new to this proffession and your tips are really useful for beginners like me.
Reply