Web devlopment tools

Much like WordPress, Wix can be used to create a variety of different sites, including blogs and stores. Through its drag-and-drop editor, Wix makes it simple to set up and launch your site in just a few minutes.

Wix is a fully-managed subscription service, meaning that the company handles all the details around hosting the site, backing it up, and handling security.

Wix offers a free, ad-sponsored plan that includes hundreds of templates and options to choose from. Visit Wix. It lets you edit websites both by coding them manually and through an intuitive visual interface. Dreamweaver includes many of the features of a traditional, text-based Integrated Development Environment IDE like syntax-highlighting, automatic code-completion, and the ability to collapse and expand sections of code. You can even use Dreamweaver with Bootstrap! Adobe offers 7-day free trials for both options, and discounts for students are frequently available.

Visit adobe. Squarespace is another good website builder that serves as a third alternative to Wix and WordPress. Much like Wix, Squarespace offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for creating your website. Visit Squarespace. Here are a few great candidates to consider. Despite being one of the newest tools on this list, Figma is also one of the most powerful.

Much like Sketch, the next app on this list, Figma features an intuitive, vector-based interface that makes designing websites simple. What makes Figma really shine, however, is its collaborative, cloud-based approach.

With Figma, multiple team members can edit a design file simultaneously. Business stakeholders can also leave comments, and developers can copy code snippets to simplify the process of turning your design into a real site. Figma offers a free plan that includes up to 3 projects. Visit Figma. Sketch is an extremely popular interface design tool focused on simplifying the process of creating beautiful, high-fidelity mockups.

Sketch gained popularity in the early s when it won a design award from Apple. Designers love Sketch because its uncluttered and intuitive interface makes it easy to create beautiful designs quickly, without the steep learning curve often associated with other design tools. Sketch also has a comprehensive ecosystem of plugins and integrations that bring added power and make it simple to integrate Sketch into your workflow.

Sketch offers a free, full-featured, day trial. We've highlighted the best laptops for programmers. We work with industry-leading providers to match your requirements with their courses. Just tell us what you need to develop your career, and our most suitable partners will contact you to see if you want to take things forward.

Simply tell us a bit about you, what your career goals are, and leave some contact details. Great websites are more than just code, as they embody great design elements, including logos and images. It also lets the user create a master symbol, that can then be used anywhere in the document, and be resized as needed- such as for an icon or an avatar.

Furthermore, text and images can be manipulated into dynamic designs. There is also a cloud component, that is termed Libraries, that allows collaboration as symbols can be shared, and worked on together. Finally, custom fonts can be designed to give the website a truly custom look, in the FontRapid tool that can be then exported into an OpenType font file.

A limiting factor is that Sketch only supports macOS. The pricing is based on a single user license, which is a one-time payment, or as a monthly or annual subscription. With the list of top technology companies that use InVision Cloud including the likes of Amazon, SoundCloud, Evernote and Netflix, it clearly validates the method of using a digital product design platform. This approach includes a number of traditional design elements and processes, and takes them into the virtual age, with tools including an Element Library, a photography board, navigation flows, a web prototype for desktop sites, and the requisite in design, inspiration board.

Their Prototype tool will be of interest to web developers as it can make a prototype website with clickable elements for desktop or mobile use.

While it offers multiple tools, the other plus is that there is also a free tier, that can handle a single prototype. For more ambitious needs, the Professional plan can take on unlimited prototypes for a charge. Sublime Text is a popular code editor that is a useful tool for web design, and is available as a small download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Useful features include the GoTo Anything command for finding a piece of code, the Multiple Selections command that can make changes to recurring sections of code, and Split Editing that can maximize the display of code across a widescreen monitor, or even multiple monitors.

Sublime Text is free to download and evaluate, and then is available to purchase as an individual license which is not time limited, and then allows the user to install this on all the systems where you are the primary user. As a general principle, it is often easier to design something once the basics have been laid down. He uses the remote plugins for version control and to keep our global dev team working in the same virtual environment.

Web application frameworks or just web frameworks are software libraries that are designed to help you build web services, resources and APIs. Choosing the right framework for your project is super important. This is a big decision and this is only meant as an overview of options, so be sure to do further research before deciding on one.

Django is a high-level Python framework built by expert developers and used by giant web apps like Reddit, Instagram and Uber. In a nutshell, Django makes it easier to build great web apps.

One of the greatest strengths of Django is its community. Ruby on Rails is a favourite in the dev community. So why choose Rails? It has a clean design language, an intuitive workflow, and seamlessly integrates with third-party applications. It allows solo web developers to swiftly get projects off the ground and make changes on the fly.

Angular or Angularjs is a popular Javascript framework created and maintained by Google. React React. Made specifically for building user interfaces, it makes it painless to create interactive UIs in a visual way.

A component-based system means that individual components manage their own state, and can then be composed to build complex UIs. React can also render on a server using Node, and with React Native you can power mobile apps as well.

React is one of the most popular of the many JavaScript frameworks available. As with other leading frameworks, Vue allows you to take a webpage and split it up into reusable components. Meteor APM also provides real-time metrics so you can monitor how your app is running. Boasting almost 14, packages, over half a million unique installs and used by companies like Ikea, Qualcomm and Honeywell, Meteor is a strong option. Alright, by now this is a familiar story.

Prepare for the buzzwords and giant tech companies. NET is a free, cross-platform framework for building web apps and services developed by Microsoft. What sets it apart from other frameworks is that it uses C instead of JavaScript. Bootstrap is a leading open-source CSS framework created by a bunch of the developers behind Twitter ever heard of it?

It features Sass variables and mixins so you can assign variables to a name and refer to it rather than the value itself , extensive prebuilt components and comprehensive JavaScript plugins. In a first for front-end frameworks, it also comes with its own SVG icon library designed to work with your Bootstrap sites.

What they mean by this is that the tool uses words and classes as exchangeable concepts, giving you the same benefits as BEM without the headache. The folks at Foundation refer to their tool as "the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world", which is certainly setting the bar high.

Though it really is suitable for any device, medium and level of accessibility. Materialize is a modern framework based on Google's Material Design language, combining the classic principles of design with innovation and tech. As a language its goal is to help unify user experience across any platform, which is fitting, as this is a focus at Materialize as well.

From the animations to UI elements and everything between, there's a real focus on user experience above all else. That's not to say the technical tools aren't there.

They are. It's fast, robust and has a low learning curve. Chrome DevTools is the name for the web development tools built into the Google Chrome web browser. We love Svelte for two reasons. Some devs will be put off by this, but it makes it an ideal option for beginners or smaller projects. Out of the box you have all the tools to start building UIs that work on any device. The built-in development environment comes with fast rebuilds, auto-reload and a test runner.

Ember Data also lets you set up asynchronous relationships and keep models up to date across your app, which is perfect for remote work. Not sold? Some of the biggest and best development teams in the world use Ember to iterate on their products, including Netflix, Intercom and Apple.

But back- and front-end developers work with hundreds of programs. Which is why package managers exist. Yarn is a relatively new package manager built by Facebook.

It's known for its speed and stability—about the only two things you need from a package manager. But what sets it apart from similar tools is that it doubles as a project management tool. Installation is a breeze, and if you get stuck, the documentation is comprehensive. The Workspace feature allows you to split your project into sub-components, which is handy for keeping multiple versions of your project live. There is also a small plugin library to extend functionality. Node Package Manager is a package manager for NodeJS, created in as an open-source project to give JavaScript devs an easy way to share code modules.

The npm Registry consists of more than a million packages—making it the largest software registry in the world. Debian is a stable and secure Linux-based operating system extremely popular with web devs. Dpkg is a tool built specifically to manage Debian packages.

While dpkg does have a more user-friendly front-end alternative called aptitude , dpkg itself runs entirely via the command line. Both fetch packages from remote locations and deal with more complex functions. In Britain, 'Git' is slang for someone you think is a bit stupid. But in the world of web development, Git is the name for the software used to track changes in file sets.

A Git client is the software you use to work with Git repositories, which can be either remote or locally stored. These allow you to make changes to your Git project e. There are a bunch of different Git clients available across various operating systems. Built by GitHub, the authority when it comes to all things Git, Github Desktop is a tool that allows you to interact with GitHub from your desktop.

Quickly add commits with collaborators, see all open pull requests from your repositories, and easily see before and after shots of your work in progress with expanded image diff support.

They understand that Git can be difficult to learn, which is why they offer exhaustive docs, as well as integrations with GitHub, GitLab and Azure DevOps to make adding remotes easy. The UI is equal parts gorgeous and intuitive. One particularly helpful feature is the ability to map complicated commands to a single button or click of the keyboard. Other notable features include syntax highlighting, a nifty built-in code editor, interactive rebase and light and dark mode for those late-night coding sessions.

Built by Atlassian go Aussies! Leave the command line behind, or delve deeper to review change-sets, stash or cherry-pick between branches—built-in smart branching keeps development clean and efficient. Sourcetree is available to download for free on both MacOS and Windows. Web APIs are a crucial part of web development these days. APIs allow devs to access specific features or data within an application, service or other system.

For example, the tech world recently went nuts when Notion announced the beta for their API. By accessing the API devs can now connect other apps with Notion pages and databases. Here are some of the best:. Postman is an API platform for building using APIs duh with features centred around simplifying the process and streamlining team collaboration.

They promise 5x faster development, 4x faster bug fixes and a whopping 10x more effective team collaboration. Do they back it up? The 15 million developers that use Postman would say so. There are integrated tools for every stage of the API lifecycle, from design, mocking, testing and deploying all the way through to maintenance and deprecation.

It saves you time and effort through automating part of the boilerplate code required to set up HTTP connections, send and receive requests and parse responses. HoppScotch is a lightweight open source API development tool that runs smoothly and looks beautiful.

Whether you need to establish full-duplex communication channels or execute queries with GraphQL, Hoppscotch can handle just about anything you throw at it. Other features include collections to keep API requests organised, the ability to sync and restore request entries with a click, and real-time connections with WebSocket, MQTT and more.

LambaTest can. It also has the ability to auto-generate full page screenshots across any browser, OS, device or resolution. And with integrated debugging, geolocation testing and seamless collaboration via Asana, Slack and Trello integrations, Lambdatest is a must-have.

Part of being a web designer is understanding what goes into good UI and UX design —from prototyping and wire-framing to creating a visual language for your app. These design tools are vital.

Not anymore. With Figma , you get everything you need to design for the web, completely free and accessible from any browser. From UI, UX and graphic design to wire-framing and diagramming, Figma truly is the all-in-one platform for your design needs. Need to mock up a mobile app? Design an entire UI? Just use the drag-and-drop editor and away you go.

With version history you can even collaborate in real-time and not worry about breaking things. Adobe XD is just the latest in a long range of excellent design tools from Adobe. With XD you can sketch wireframes and mockups, build interactive prototypes and create high-fidelity designs for any screen, thanks to their vector-based system.

Flat images not enough? Above all, Adobe XD succeeds at making your prototypes feel like the real thing—with no coding required. Add user flows, interactions and motion, and save time by using reusable buttons and components.

Of course, Adobe XD works seamlessly with the rest of the Adobe suite editing. PSD files from Photoshop is a particularly handy feature. Sketch vs Figma is kind of like Apple vs Android: both offer very similar tools, and which one you prefer comes down to preference and your individual workflow. Sketch happens to be the app of choice for companies like Google, Facebook and Xbox. It's easy to use, offers a host of useful keyboard shortcuts, and is lightning fast no matter what you throw at it, from social media designs to working prototypes or fancy new icon sets.

Having said that, most web developers agree that Figma's prototyping capabilities are superior to Sketch. They also cite the built-in version history, collaboration features and the way Figma handles colour and text styling.

The Auto-Layout is also preferred over Sketch's Smart layout. That's not the whole story. Sketch is regarded as being more stable Figma can be on the buggy side sometimes , having clearer layer organisation, and being faster to load large files. There's also a dark mode, which we all know, is music to any web developer's ear.