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Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category

If you already use it, then you know that LESS is a "time and byte-saver" when creating + serving stylesheets (if not, you should definitely check it).

You either use the .less files directly (via less.js or on the server with Node.js) or compile them into CSS from command-line and use only the CSS.

Crunch

Crunch is a free Adobe AIR application that eases the compiling part without the need of command-line but via a user-friendly interface.

It is a simple CSS/LESS editor with syntax highlighting and multi-tab support.

Once a LESS file is saved, the CSS version is created automatically (which is handy for anyone willing to develop with LESS but don't want to rely on JavaScript on the client-side).

There are various PNG optimizer apps for Mac OS X (check this WRD article for them) but only a few for Windows.

PNGGauntlet is a free Windows application for squeezing each and every byte in PNG files.

With a very nice drag 'n' drop enabled user interface, the application can optimize any given number of files pretty quickly.

PNGGauntlet

It combines the algorithms of PNGOUT, OptiPNG, and DeflOpt for creating the smallest file and generates a lossless output.

The image to be minified doesn't need to be in PNG format, other popular formats can be used as well for converting them to PNG.

There are also several settings for anyone looking to fine tune the compression process.

AMPPS is a software for quickly installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl and Python and creating a web server environment.

What differentiates it from other similar solutions is the built-in Softaculous package which makes 1 click installations of popular web apps possible.

AMPPS

There is a huge list of installable apps (250+) including WordPress, Joomla, Magento, phpBB and much more.

Using the AMPPS panel, the server resources can be configured and all the installations can be managed.

It has versions for Windows + Mac OS X and also installs phpMyAdmin + SQLite manager for controlling databases.

DOM Monster is a bookmarklet, created by Thomas Fuchs of script.aculo.us, for analyzing the DOM and several other features of a page.

It works cross-platform/browser, checks the HTML + JavaScript codes and can come with warnings/suggestions like:

  • Reduce the number of tags that use the style attribute (85 elements)
  • Found 16 JavaScript globals. Reducing them can increase performance
  • and more..

The bookmarklet is not an all-in-one solution, however, can be used side-to-side with other tools like Firebug, PageSpeed, YSlow, etc.

Also, it is open source and can be improved/customized further.

DOM Monster

JPEGmini is a free-to-use online service for compressing JPEG files up to 80% without any perceivable loss.

It uses a new/patent pending technology, works only on JPEG files and generates JPEG files again as the output.

JPEGmini

The performance reaches the top when the images are high quality photos and edited-resized-processed images gets minor improvements (but still good).

Currently, it is available only as a web-based service (no command-line, API, etc.) and although it is possible to compress images with no sign-up, a free account comes with features like bulk upload and unlimited usage.

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  • Filed under: Extras, No License, Tools
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  • loadUI is an open source, cross-platform and free load testing tool that supports all the standard protocols-technologies.

    With a slick, drag 'n' drop interface, it allows us to create new tests and fine tune every detail very easily.

    The tool consists of various components that play with each other very well like statistics, scheduler or analytics components.

    loadUI Load Testing Tool

    loadUI can send multiple requests from a single machine or the requests can be distributed across any number of remote machines by installing agent apps to them for a real-world simulation.

    Multiple tests can be ran at the same time, the details of each test can be viewed live and it is possible to compare them with previously-ran tests.

    Also, it has a powerful reporting engine that can auto-generate detailed and easy-to-understand reports with only few clicks.

    WIODE is an open source and web-based IDE application which focuses on simplicity and expandability.

    It is built with PHP-MySQL and has an interface that will feel familiar to anyone working with desktop IDEs.

    The application is very easy to work with; it can manage multiple projects, a file-tree helps browsing files-folders where double-clicking an item is displayed in a new tab (multiple tabs, yay!).

    Wiode

    Right-clicking on files/folders (context menu) brings options like "create copy, rename, delete or "FTP upload".

    For the opened files, there are features like syntax highlighting, line numbering, auto-indenting, saving and previewing.

    Also, a "system" menu displays the lists of projects, number of files in each and presents options like taking backups or archiving them.

    WIODE is a multi-user application where users can work at the same time without overwriting each other's files.

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  • Filed under: Extras, GPL License, Tools
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  • Bookmarklets are amazing little helpers whether you are a web designer/developer or a standard internet user. There is a handy one for everybody.

    For ex, lately, I am regularly using Holmes.css as a part of my HTML debugging process, Syntaclet on dev-related articles and Readability for reading long articles.

    And, there are many other useful bookmarklets out there (check out 15 Must-Have Bookmarklets For Web Designers And Developers).

    Boo.kmarked

    Boo.kmarked is a very simple and free to use web application that converts any given JavaScript into a bookmarklet.

    The application just adds the <a> tag with a function that calls your script accordingly and that's all.

    P.S. There are also other alternatives like Bookmarkleter or Bookmarklet maker.

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  • Filed under: Extras, No License, Tools
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  • PhantomJS is a command-line tool that acts like a WebKit browser without any interface.

    It has a fast and native support for various web standards:DOM handling, CSS selector, JSON, Canvas, and SVG.

    PhantomJS

    The tool can be totally scripted via JavaScript and is a handy solution for many things like:

    • automated testing of web apps
    • site scraping
    • capturing pages
    • PDF converting
    • and much more..

    Also, it can work on Windows, Mac + Linux environments (and, the next version is expected to support CoffeeScript).

    Reading codes in websites can be challenging if no syntax highlighter is used (check 11 Syntax Highlighters To Beautify Code Presentation).

    Language specific tags, functions, etc. will be hard to recognize specially in long pieces of codes.

    Syntaclet

    Syntaclet is a bookmarklet which can automatically highlight codes on web pages that are not already highlighted.

    The bookmarklet auto-detects the language used and applies syntax coloring with line numbers to all the code on the page.

    Simply drag it to your bookmarks bar and press it whenever you see any hard-to-read codes on any web page.

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