Useful Free Tools For Website Designers

jhilgeman · #1 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 02:47 PM

I always happen upon nifty gadgets that I end up keeping, and I always look for free things. So here's a thread for posting your free or inexpensive (hopefully under $15) gadgets - free preferred.

WindowSizer
Cost: FREE! (hurray!)
URL: http://www.mlin.net/misc.shtml

I've been using this litle gadget for about 2 months now - I've put it in my Quick Launch bar, and it comes in real handy when testing site resolutions.

When you run it, it displays a list of open windows/applications. You simply select a window that you'd like to resize, and it'll show you the current size of the window. Just change that size to the desired size (like 800 pixels wide to test for 800x600), and press "Set" and it's changed.

It's small, free, and proven to be useful to me. I hope others find it useful, too.

- Jonathan

ranjan · #2 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 03:06 PM

Cost : Free
URL : http://asia.cnet.com/downloads/pc/sw...009823s,00.htm

SLUGS is a colour picker which can run on its own or as an HTML-Kit plugin. It can make suggestions of colours which look nice with the selected colour. Features include HSL and RGB pickers, a 'grab screen colour' picker, support for many popular output formats and semi-intelligent scheme suggestions.

ranjan · #3 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 03:09 PM

Cost : Free
URL : http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

HTML-Kit is a full-featured editor designed to help HTML, XHTML and XML authors to edit, format, lookup help, validate, preview and publish web pages. Newcomers to web page design can benefit from letting it point out errors and provide suggestions on how to create standards compliant pages. Experts can save time spent on common tasks using the highly customizable and extensible integrated development environment while maintaining full control over multiple file types including HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSL, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP, PHP, JSP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, VB, C/C++, .NET C#, Delphi / Pascal, Lisp, SQL, and more.

ranjan · #4 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 03:13 PM

Cost : Free
URL : http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/

A-Prompt will ensure that client Web sites are accessible to the largest number of potential visitors – including those with disabilities. The tool's evaluation and repair checklist is based on accessibility guidelines created and maintained by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium.

jhilgeman · #5 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 03:21 PM

Some more web-based tools:

Page Size Bookmarklet
Cost: FREE!
URL: http://www.q42.nl/research/

This handy tool is a little different. It's not a regular program - it's a Javascript URL. You simply add it to your favorites and whenever you are on a web page and you want to see the total size of the web page (including the size of each component), you click on that favorite, and a little popup will appear and show you all the detailed info. This is great if you're trying to manage the size of your pages.

By the way, don't bookmark the above URL - that's just the homepage that offers the program. You need to go to http://www.q42.nl/research/ and follow their instructions. It's REALLY easy and REALLY useful.

You can find other bookmarklets at:
http://www.bookmarklets.com/tools/categor.html

Keyword Density Analyzer
Cost: FREE!
URL: http://www.keyworddensity.com/

Just go to the site, put in a URL, and it'll look at your page and show you keyword densities (if you're doing SEO work). Simple, free, and useful.

Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool
Cost: FREE!
URL: http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/

Shows you how many searches were done last month for a particular keyword or keyphrase, as well as many other related keywords and phrases. This one doesn't require you to "validate" yourself by typing in that annoying image-code thing.

jhilgeman · #6 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 03:25 PM

If I may make one more suggestion to make this a more useful thread - please try to limit suggestions to simple tools and gadgets. Nothing full-featured, even if it's a great product.

I think it's more useful to have tools that are small and fast to learn - things that you can start using within a few seconds. :)

- Jonathan

carbonize · #7 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 05:30 PM

Best free tool for web designers is Mozilla Firebird. With the right extensions, such as web developer, you can have it resize it's self, let you edit a sites CSS live, check the pages HTML/CSS with a multitude of sites.

Quote:

This handy tool is a little different. It's not a regular program - it's a Javascript URL. You simply add it to your favorites and whenever you are on a web page and you want to see the total size of the web page (including the size of each component), you click on that favorite, and a little popup will appear and show you all the detailed info. This is great if you're trying to manage the size of your pages.

Mozilla Firebird and standard Mozila offer page info which gives you info such as page size, encoding, render mode, page links, the url of all images on the page, and more.

jhilgeman · #8 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 05:38 PM

Tsk, tsk! What about my desperate plea for no full-featured programs...? :)

- Jonathan

vfaulkner · #9 (**permalink**) 10-01-2003, 09:25 PM

As this pertains to what my site is all about, free/lowcost resources, and am always looking for more....
:-)

carbonize · #10 (**permalink**) 10-02-2003, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhilgeman

Tsk, tsk! What about my desperate plea for no full-featured programs...? :)

- Jonathan

It's a web browser. If a web designer can't use a web browser then there's something seriously wrong. You have to be able to use a web browser for your javascript url do you not?

All of the features I mentioned are accessed, once the extension is installed, by a simple right click on the screen. Installing the extensions is simply a matter of going to the extensions page, which is listed in bookmarks, and clicking the install link for the extension you want.

jhilgeman · #11 (**permalink**) 10-02-2003, 11:32 AM

:) I know it's a web browser and it's probably a good one, but the intended purpose of this thread is to list little programs, scriplets, bookmarklets, etc...

Sort've like a thread for listing fuzzy dice to hang from your rear view mirror, not for listing a great car that comes with fuzzy dice. :)

- J

carbonize · #12 (**permalink**) 10-02-2003, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhilgeman

:) I know it's a web browser and it's probably a good one, but the intended purpose of this thread is to list little programs, scriplets, bookmarklets, etc...

- J

Hmm scriplets. A scriplet is a good description for the extensions :D

jhilgeman · #13 (**permalink**) 10-02-2003, 11:56 AM

ROFL! Then list the d--- extensions! :D

- Jonathan

carbonize · #14 (**permalink**) 10-02-2003, 12:20 PM

OK best three.

Web Developer
Lets you outline a pages block elements and/or it's tables, replace images with the alt text, remove images totally, resize the browser to one of three preset sizes, plus much more.

Checky
Lets you submit the page to over twenty different site checkers. Things from W3C HTML and CSS validation, colourblind filters to see how they see it, accessibility checking, wacthfire checking, etc.

CSS editor
Opens up a pages CSS in the sidebar and lets you edit it with the changes being applied to the page as you type. This is good for all the sites out there that use invalid CSS. And believe there are many.

tertius · #15 (**permalink**) 10-03-2003, 12:52 AM

Applet: Color Selector 3.0
License: Freeware
Information (as given at www.tucows.com - a source for this and other utilities): This program provides dynamically colored sliders supporting four color formats including RGB, HSL, HSB/HSV and CMY. It also has a color picker with zoom and area sampling, format converter, palette tool, seven built-in export formats, customizable formatting options including four built-in ones, and scripting support for VBScript and JScript, allowing you to replace export formats with anything you want.
Additional Software Required: VB6 Runtime Files and Windows Script Control

paulhiles · #16 (**permalink**) 10-03-2003, 12:02 PM

Any Password
Cost: Free
Url: http://www.romanlab.com/apw/index.html

Excellent little utility for storing all those usernames and passwords. Easily accessed and stored in a tree-like hierarchy.. all you need to remember is a single password to open the program. There is a neat little password generator for creating new passwords to your own specification.

carbonize · #17 (**permalink**) 10-03-2003, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulhiles

Any Password
Cost: Free
Url: http://www.romanlab.com/apw/index.html

Excellent little utility for storing all those usernames and passwords. Easily accessed and stored in a tree-like hierarchy.. all you need to remember is a single password to open the program.

Another wonderful feature of my suggestion, Mozilla Firebird, also a feature of Opera.

Another suggestion, although it may get classed as a full featured program, is Irfanview. It's a image viewing program that allows you to convert an image to a different format, crop images, apply filters, take screen shots, plus a lot more. Best off all it's FREE.

ps. A site worth visiting http://www.tinyapps.org

tertius · #18 (**permalink**) 10-03-2003, 02:00 PM

I also use ExamDiff, a freeware Windows tool for visual file comparison. It's great for line-by-line comparisons of 2 file versions when troubleshooting code!

Main website:
http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff
(Look for the ExamDiff (Freeware) link; ExamDiff Pro isn't the free version.)

FWIW!
-Tertius

brandblast · #19 (**permalink**) 12-28-2003, 11:39 AM

Hi everyone,

Here is great free tool to use when designing a site's color scheme

http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

Please help your fellow designers with your free links.

Thanks,

bubbasmurf · #20 (**permalink**) 12-29-2003, 01:01 PM

Thanks for the link,brandblast thats a great tool to have.

brandblast · #21 (**permalink**) 12-29-2003, 04:38 PM

Walt,

Glad you found that useful, I've got a couple other great tools I find useful from time to time.

Link Popularity Checker
http://www.widexl.com/remote/link-popularity/index.html

Meta Tag Analyzer
http://www.widexl.com/remote/search-...-analyzer.html

I know the future of meta tags is up in the air, but as of today they are still widely used by many search engines.

paulhiles · #22 (**permalink**) 12-29-2003, 05:49 PM

I just had to get in before carbonise.... if you just download the latest version of Mozilla Firebird.. strap on the latest extensions such as Web Developer and Edit CSS.. you'll have more web design tools than you've ever dreamt of!! ;-)

Phew... think I got in just before carbonise!! :o)

Paul

carbonize · #23 (**permalink**) 12-30-2003, 10:14 AM

It's CarboniZe grrrr. Actually you will see less of me on here as I am busy working on sites-designed.com and converting a program I wrote over a year ago from Visual Basic to Delphi. But yeah Firebird does contain a great collection of tools for the webmaster.