Web Developer Tools

Web Developer Extension for Firefox is an extremely useful add-on for Firefox that allows web developers to analyze the compete structure of the page, including elements like CSS style sheets, forms, cookie data, ID and Class details, Java Scripts, images and much more. It also allows you to edit the current style sheet of the page and see the effects in real-time, load a user defined style sheet, or disable styles altogether. The extensive outlining options allow you to visualize the CSS and HTML elements of the page by outlining tables, DIVs, frames or any other element that you define. You can also view form input data along with field names and values and manipulate forms for testing. Other features include links to online code validations, browser window resizing, source viewer with syntax highlighting and more.

The Regex Coach is avery handy tool for anyone that needs to work with regular expressions. It can often be very time consuming to figure out why a certain expression is not working the way you think it should. This little program allows you to interactively create your expression and preview the effects instantly under different conditions. It tries to describe the regular expression in plain English and provides a graphical representation of the parse tree of the regular expression.

Clickteam Install Creator is is an easy to use, yet professional tool to create software installations. It offers a wizard interface that lets you select the files to include in the package, specify installation paths, add license agreements etc. and then compiles the complete installation package for you. You can add custom icons, logos and text and also use the configuration interface to define additional options, which include optional DLL, OCX, REG and TLB registrations, installation of Fonts, desktop shortcuts and more. Clickteam Install Creator can also include a complete uninstall option. This free version is fully featured and the installer can be used for personal and commercial distributions, however it adds a credit to the last page of the installation wizard. An optional Pro version is also available.

Codex is a program designed to help in the publishing of source code, be it in print or webpage format. Codex can export source code to HTML or RTF format, for publication, with fully customized syntax highlighting and styling. It can export directly to an FTP or to your local drive. It has a batch export mode and supports over 30 languages and file types. Supported source types include: C++ Java, Object Pascal (Delphi), VBscript, Visual Basic, SQL, Javascript, HTML, Perl, PHP, CSS, Python, Fortran, AWK, Baan 4GL, DSP, Foxpro, Galaxy, 68HC11 and x86 Assembly, GEMBASE, Tcl/Tk, SML HP48, Kix script , Modelica, Modula 3, Inno setup scripts, DOS batch files, Progress, ini files, CA, Clipper, Cache format. The program offers a print preview and complete color control. Tip: The color configuration is a little hard to find, you need to click on cube in the black bar on the right side of the interface (see screenshot).

BK ReplaceEm is a sophisticated string-replacing utility. At its core, BK ReplaceEm is essentially a text search-and-replace program. However, unlike the search-replace functionality of a standard text editor, BK ReplaceEm is designed to operate on multiple files at once. The program does not limit you to one search-replace operation per file, but you can setup a list of operations to perform in a single run. You can also specify a backup file for each file processed just in case... Additional features include support for regular expressions, file filters and more. A very powerful and fast utility.

PPWIZARD is a powerful multi-platform HTML preprocessor, that is useful for automated web site development. It supports inclusion of external files as well as SQL and powerful macros and conditional compilation. Probably the most common use of ppwizard is to include external files (such as common bits of html) and to create macros that represent smaller fragments of text such as web or email addresses, logic or both. This allows you to keep common components or definitions in one place and reuse where required. This is a command-line/scripting tool and does not have an interface.

WebFormDesigner provides a WYSIWYG interface to visually design complete web forms, that can be submitted via (your) script, or by using a free form-to-email service that is provided by the author. The program allows you to design your form by simply dragging elements into place, and offers support for form validation and required fields. WebFormDesigner produces the complete HTML code that you can copy into your page.

PagePainter is a unique tool to create and test web page color schemes. First you can create color sample books and add your favorite colors, then you can load the web page (or a template) and apply the new colors directly to the HTML objects, by simple point an click - no need to edit the code, or to use generic templates. You can maintain a record of colors applied to your web page so that you can easily revert to earlier colors, and also save color collection in swatch books, that can be used to build a collection of color schemes for other projects as well. The fact that you can easily preview and apply new color schemes directly to and HTML file, makes this a very handy tool for web designers.

HTML Splitter is a little utility that helps you put large documents on the Internet (or into HTML format). This is done by splitting each document into smaller HTML documents, and by linking these documents together. A lot of documents are asking to be published on the Internet. But when large documents are directly converted to the HTML format, the resulting pages are not easy to read. Reading them goes with a lot of scrolling. Therefore, documents often need to be split up. You can do this by hand, but you can also let your computer do it, using the HTML Splitter program.

Ever had the problem that you frequently use a file type with more than one application, while you can only associate one application with that file type? OpenExpert is the answer to this problem! Instead of messing around with a fixed association of a file type with only one application, it adds an "Open with" item to the context menu of the chosen file type with all the applications you decide. So you can easily open your graphic files in your favorite paint programs or view your HTML files in either Netscape or Internet Explorer, just with a few mouse clicks. You can even add different versions of the same program to the OpenExpert menu.

Sizer is small utility that integrates into the Windows shell and allows for precise resizing of any Window. It adds a new resize menu item to the right-click menu for any application window, as well as a tooltip, that displays the current size when a Window is resized manually, using your mouse. It comes pre-configured with the most common sizes (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768) and you can easily add your custom specifications if needed. Sizer is very useful for web developers, that need to preview web design on different resolutions.

Source Morph is program that converts C, C++, Visual Basic, QBasic, Java, JavaScript, and Perl programs into webpages that display your code with the same syntax highlighting as your programming environment. You can customize the color schemes as well.

Clippy is an extremely handy tool to convert text from the clipboard, based on user defined criteria. Common uses include cleaning up email forwards by getting rid of the > symbols. However, there are many other options and uses that allow you to trim white space, remove duplicate lines, strip HTML and much more from your clipboard text input.

TemplateShaker (Free Edition) offers a WYSIWYG environment to create a CSS driven web site based on 4 different layout templates that can be customized your preference. The step-by-step process allows you to pick colors and fonts for your page content, insert images, tweak the page layout and more. Once you are satisfied with the design you can preview the XHTML and CSS code and export all the necessary files into your web folder. The free version is restricted to non-commercial use and inserts a credit line into the bottom of each page.

CodeBank is a simple, hierarchical database (XML) for code snippets. It supports syntax highlighting for several popular programming languages including Java, XML, Visual Basic, SQL, PHP and others. It allows you to store and organize your source code snippets in a easy way. It offers an Explorer like interface, that allows you to drag and drop snippets between folders, as well as a search function, export/import and auto backup.

Absolute HTML Compressor is an easy-to-use tool that optimizes HTML files so their size reduces. Compressed pages appear in the browser without changes. You can specify various options of the optimization, compress single files or entire folders. The program can create backup copies of the optimized files, so you can be sure that you`re not messing up your code - and if you do, you can restore it back to the original.

Social Bookmarks Manager is a tool for bloggers and webmasters that is designed to simplify the process of adding links to social bookmarking services to your web pages. It includes profiles for 59 popular social bookmarking sites, and allows you to quickly generate the links for all the services you select. You can choose to create the links as icons-only, icons with text or text-only and you can add a custom prefix and separator. The HTML code can be copied and pasted into your pages.

MTBrowser is a simple tool for web developers, that allows you to launch a specified URL or local file simultaneously in different browsers. It supports all popular browsers including IE, Firefox, Opera and Netscape, as well as Amaya, Lynx and others. You need to have each browser installed on your system before the preview option becomes active though - this is not an emulator. In addition, the program links to HTML validation results, can convert between pixels and percentage design specifications and includes a forefound/background color checker against WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 2.2 recommendation.

Guestbook Generator allows novice users to create an online guestbook without any HTML or ASP knowledge. It offers a simple 3-step wizard that lets you customize the (basic) guestbook design in font and color, and then generates all the output files for you to upload to your web server. The generated guestbook does not require any database connectivity, however your server must support ASP.

Resize Browser is a small utility that will resize your Internet browser window. You have the option to set it to 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x768 and in addition define the browser window position. You can also choose to include/exclude the size of the taskbar. Handy utility for web developers that want to test their site on different browser resolutions..

HTML Shrinker Light reduces the size of your web pages by removing superfluous spaces, empty lines, characters and more. Size reduction can result in file sizes of up to 30% less than before - which will not only make them load faster but also save bandwidth and server space. The light version supports HTML, SHTML, JHTML, CFML, JS, CSS and PHP files. You can shrink plain html code as well as JavaScript, Php and VBscript code. The original files are automatically backed up by HTML Shrinker and can be restore if you run into problems. The light version has many advanced features disabled and requires you to post a link on your site, however you can keep it and use it for free. It will work fine for the average home page webmaster. Pro version costs $29.95.

StrikeIron Web Services Analyzer is a desktop-based client that enables you to connect to any SOAP-based Web service, and visually analyze the structure of the WSDL service. You can enter input values and invoke the service, print or export the node tree, save input values and more. The tools is designed for testing of local or remote web services, and also to introduce the StrikeIron directory of web services.