As a web developer, there are new and interesting techniques that you could use to enhance the functionality of the websites you build. Responsive websites are the bane of digital exposure. The web tools used to build such websites come in many forms including plugins and add-ons. These tools are meant to raise productivity and speed of the website. Unfortunately, most developers simply rely on the big browsers and utilize the standard web tools in the market. There are a few tools however, that could greatly enhance your productivity yet you most likely don’t know about them.
1. CSS Guidelines
These CSS Guidelines are some of the most optimizing and practical web development tools in the market. They are created by a UK-based independent Drupal hosting Consultant Front-end Architect. These tools aren’t really for beginners. They are sophisticated advice and utilizing them will result in more responsive CSS in your site. Even the most experienced web developers could do with a brush up every now and again. The CSS guidelines go over Architecture, formatting, syntax, CSS selectors, commenting, Specificity, and naming conventions. The author keeps adding to the guidelines, so web developers always have the most up-to-date information to go about their work.
2. Play Framework
This is a top-notch development tool for building sites using apps like Java and Scala. It’s very developer friendly since it’s designed to only need a browser and a text editor. One of its most critical features is that it has inbuilt testing tools. It is possible to scale this web tool as it has a stateless web tier and relies on a fully asynchronous model built on top of Akka. It has incredible mobile optimization and responsiveness. Most importantly the complier and runtime are fast since they run on JVM, and you are able to build apps on it.
3. Dimensions
This is an open source web development tool that acts as a Chrome Browser Extension. This app is designed to help you measure anything that pops up on the browser. These ranges from videos, buttons, and images, to text, buttons, input-fields and even icons. When you have mocked up the website onto a PDF, you can simply use the browser to measure each of its features and elements. It’s possible to create a feature through which you can enable or disable the tool. This can be achieved through setting a keyboard shortcut in the Chrome settings usually slated at the end of the extension list.
4. Apache Couch DB
This web development tool is often described as the ‘database for the web.’ It is also an open source product and can be customized by any developer to suit their site even for Drupal hosting. This web tool allows you to utilize cloud-based saving and storage of data and documents. You can do this as JSON documents. After saving them you can index, transform, and combine your documents using JavaScript. Once you’ve installed this web tool, you can then use HTTP to query your indexes using your web browser. It has an easy to use interface for admins and also has real-time change notifications.
5. Haml
This web tool’s name is an acronym for HTML abstraction markup language. It’s expressly designed to enhance the aesthetics of the markup. Not only does the markup enhance rendering of web pages by browsers, it is also user-friendly in a way that makes it easy to monitor and navigate it. It’s clinical and generates clean codes. The tool achieves this by avoiding repetition of text in every space where the element has been named twice. Alternatively, it invokes an indentation. The web tool is designed to simply describe the HTML without relying on inline code.
6. Converse
This web tool allows you to set up single user chats as well as multi-user chat rooms. You can send, accept, decline or add chat status on the platform. The user is free to update whether they are ‘available” or “busy.” This web tool can be screencast to chat with other users on jabber.org or Gmail and has the ability to translate to at least 15 languages. It’s written in JavaScript and can run on many web platforms like Roundcube and WordPress.
7. HumHub
This web tool allows your website users to chat with each other. It does this on such a huge scale such that you can create an entire social network using it. This web tool is especially critical for sites that are built to connect persons or groups. It offers the platform for networking, communication, and collaboration. Every user is assigned a V-card which gives an overview of their identity and profile as well as a place where groups can be set up. Once signed up users and follow, post, comment and react to each other’s content as well as share and discuss files on the tool. It’s also mobile-friendly.
Just like all other professionals, learning is a lifetime process. Web developers are no exception, for with technological advancements comes new challenges, expectations and tools. The list is but a sample of the tools you might not have been using, it may not be comprehensive, but it sure is among the best available and not commonly used. Try them to better the developer in you.
