These are the favorite free web developer tools I use to run this website. Even if you are using a blog, wiki or CMS that tries to do everything for you, eventually you will want to do something that you need to dip into code for. For example set up a Print Stylesheet. Here are some of the free web development tools that have made my ventures into web development loads of fun.
HTML-Kit
HTML-kit is a free editor for (x)html, CSS, javascript, PHP etc. There is no WYSIWYG mode to mess up your code, but there is point and click coding, a great pre-view window plus a code checker that will pick out all the mistakes you make. The user community cheerfully turns out loads of useful plug-ins. Making your own plug-in is easy. You can customise tags and gather them together on your own personal toolbar. Fabulous!
Even without plug-ins HTML-Kit will spellcheck your text and if you like read it out to you; particularly useful to check if your grammar sounds correct.
HTML-Kit taught me to code from scratch.
Firefox
If you are into website development you are already into mozilla firefox, it is simply a better browser. But amongst its great extensions and plug-ins you will find a couple I use every day.
Chris Pederick’s Web Developer simply changes the way you look at web pages. This Firefox extension allows you to analyse any website you visit and learn about its structure, elements, formatting and styles. It will even let you change the coding of the page to see what difference it makes to the page’s appearance. Magic!
FireFTP is a simple, secure, reliable, easy to use FTP client that just sits there in your browser ready to go at the click of a button.
Sitemap
Automapit
Automapit Is a free sitemap generator and the support provided, even in the free option is second to none. I no longer use it since I changed to a Wordpress platform but I thoroughly recommend it.
Web Promotion
Web CEO
I use the free version of Web CEO for my SEO tool. As well as helping you decide on the best keywords for your site it will help you promote, analyse and maintain your site. It has some great features, for example, not only can you find out how often any keyword is searched for, but how much competition there is from other websites using that keyword. It presents this information in a useful ratio.
There is a paid version with even more functionality and I am longing to upgrade but the free support is good and the knowledge base is regularly updated with no time limit. The more I use it, the more powerful it gets.
Stats
Smarter Stats
I used Smarter Stats with a previous hosting service and loved it. My new host did not provide this programme and I changed to Google analytics. Now, I find you can download a free version of Smarter Stats, which has all the functionality of the professional editions but limits you to one website.
If you are not happy with your current stats and want plenty of detail, customisability and great presentation try Smarter Stats.
I am not knocking Google analytics. It has a new interface now and is easy to use, customisable and presents lots of useful stats. You will still see the Google analytics codes at the bottom of my xhtml until I get to know its extended capabilities.
Wordpress
I have shifted to a Wordpress platform now so the I can automate as many processes as possible and concentrate on the content of my pages. I will dedicate a future page to Wordpress and its wealth of plug-ins.
Tagged with: Development • Free
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