Web Developer Toolbox

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While working on the project a Web developer might encounter thousand problems. That is why it’s hard to imagine a Web developer’s life without good developing resources. In order to make your life easier we’ve gathered the list of the most useful tools available on the Web.

Social Media Sites

You can visit these sites to find most up-to-date developing resources. Find articles, guides, tutorials and more.

  • Slashdot: the site that has the latest news on issues that are important to developers. You can read more about each of the authors, including contact information, and figure out who to blame for what by reading The Authors Page. But the majority of the work is done by the tons of people who use the Submission Form to send in the stories that we post every day.
  • Dzone: a free link-sharing community for developers, where anyone can submit new links to the incoming queue, then members vote on upcoming links to determine what gets promoted. Everyone can browse, search and comment on links.
  • Tweako: a user-powered community website, and social network, specializing in all aspects of computing, technology, and the Internet. Users submit hand written articles, or links to outside websites, which are guides, tutorials, service reviews, new software, general information, how-to’s, and much more. It is a place to learn and share information and knowledge about every computer and technology topic out there.
  • java.blogs: a ‘blog community’ – that is a group aggregation site for blogs which discuss Java technology regularly.
  • Listible: a new way to get relevant resources quickly. By using Web 2.0 features such as AJAX, folksonomy (tagging), social elements such as voting/commenting and the listible’s listonomy (listing), resources can be sorted in a way that will be digestible. You can search what you need quick. You can contribute your resources easier. All of these technologies are powered by LAMP and Symfony PHP framework.

Blogs

Join these blogs to keep in touch with the community, learn the newest trends in design and many other useful things.

  • TechCrunch: a web blog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to new companies, we will profile existing companies that are producing an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space.
  • Smashing Magazine: It provides the readers with Developer’s Toolbox, tutorials and helpful posts that are sure to help you hone your development skills.
  • Signal vs. Noise: This 37Signals blog discusses trends in design, the Web and happenings in the company’s development.
  • Coding Horror: Read about a Vertigo Software employee’s adventures in coding.
  • Read/Write Web: is a popular weblog that provides Web Technology news, reviews and analysis. It is the lead blog in the Read/WriteWeb Network, a growing network of blogs about web technology. It’s features on web technology cover the latest in Web 2.0 and beyond.
  • O’Reilly Blogs: The O’Reilly network of blogs provides readers with a profound knowledge on everything from Linux to hot conferences.
  • MSDN Blogs: MSDN’s blogs discuss Microsoft-centric Web development from many different angles. Find training resources and special learning offers.

Forums

Join these forums to ask questions, get advice, discuss different matters and maybe even find a job.

  • CodingForums: Stop by CodingForums to take a look at hot topics on HTML, CSS JavaScript and PHP.
  • Go4Expert: Join these forums to get advice from experienced developers who know what they’re talking about.
  • Java Technology Forums: You can participate in discussions for both beginners and advanced users at these forums. Join these forums to discuss application development and deployment using Sun Studio and Sun Java Studio compilers and tools.
  • Web Developer: You can discuss here HTML, CSS, XML, Java scripting, and other client Side developer technologies, various back end scripting languages and their uses, and even business issues related to web development.
  • WebForumz: it has everything developers might need to talk about, from programming details to critiques. Join it for free and you will get lots of other benefits.
  • Internet Explorer Web Development: a forum that includes discussions about web development including HTML, CSS and Script for Internet Explorer.
  • DevShed: With almost 20 forums devoted just to various programming languages and even more about administration and operating systems, DevShed is an excellent resource of knowledge for developers.
  • Indian Web Development Forums: Visit this forum devoted entirely to Web developers in India. Discussions include the Web designing and graphics, programming and more.

Magazines

Check out these magazines intended for both beginners and professionals that will help you stay informed on the most important issues.

  • Vitamin: Vitamin is a brand new online magazine dedicated to that new web industry. It will inspire you, teach you, advise you and sometimes test you with its in-depth features, audio interviews, training sessions and reviews. It’s updated every week, and it’s free!
  • Digital Web Magazine: an online magazine intended for professional web designers, web developers and information architects. It consists of work contributed by web authors, as well as by others who occasionally delve into the web realm. The Magazine is recognized by nearly all of the major web design agencies in the industry.
  • DevX: DevX provides the international developer community with the information available on software development for corporate applications. The DevX network consists of sites that are leaders in their respective vertical markets, such as Windows and Web development, .NET, Java, XML, C/C++, Visual Basic, Database, Wireless, and Open Source. Featured sections include 50 new technical articles each month from leading experts, over 60,000 discrete source code files, discussion groups, thousands of concise programming tips and quick solutions, downloadable software and tools from leading software publishers.
  • Ajaxian: check out up-to-date information on all things Ajax. It provides news, articles, resources, trainings, conferences.
  • Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability: Check out Alertbox’s column for articles on usability, navigation and other issues for readers concerned with user-friendly Web development. The articles are also available in German and Japanese.
  • Wired: With intelligent thoughts on tech industry, conventions and even Martha Stewart, Wired is a must-read for any well-rounded Web developer.
  • Hiveminds Magazine: a a journalistic and resource website covering the use and development of open source content management systems. The main purpose of the Magazine is to review installations and usage of open source content management software using different scenarios. You can find here articles, stories, tutorials, online books, comics, user comments and many more.
  • TechRepublic: an excellent resource for Web developers that contains developer tips, whitepapers, Web casts and insightful articles.
  • Web Developer’s Journal: Check out Web Developer’s Journal for whitepapers, tips and features, articles. And don’t forget about the forums. You can find here Links to Selected Web Development Tools.
  • UX Magazine: was created to discuss the critical disciplines that all enhance user experience. UX Magazine combines original articles with the best from blogs and online media to deliver an online magazine that covers the best new thinking on design, strategy, technology and common sense.
  • SitePoint: a fast growing online media company and information provider targeting the Web professional market, specifically Web Developers and Designers. The company has five major revenue streams: advertising and sponsorship, content-based products both online and in retail, software, and more recently streaming video subscriptions and classified listings.
  • .net Magazine: .net delivers practical advice on the full range of topics essential for today’s web builders: design, development, sales, marketing, usability and accessibility, information architecture, security, copywriting, advertising and more. It is read by people who are serious about the commercial application of the internet.
  • Modern Life: a blog about the web – development, design, search engines and statistics. It contains a series of insights and research into the world of the web – presented in such a way as to be informative yet entertaining. The hidden world of statistics, trends and dark arts of web design, development, marketing & SEO are the topics of choice – delving into the facts and figures that form the future of the internet.
  • Center Networks: is meant to focus on the “new” Internet. It helps industry professionals learn more about topics including: social networking, Web 2.0, and social media. In addition, one of the main goals with CenterNetworks is to help create better web apps
  • Devlounge: provides you with the best possible content – from informative articles to fun interviews, quality goods to professionals, beginners, and everyone in between.
  • PHP5 Magazine: an essential resource for Web developers who work in PHP. You can find here PHP books, articles, Frameworks, Snippets and various tools.
  • Datamation: In addition to on-target articles, Datamation provides readers with scripts and “HTML goodies.” Stay in touch with the latest IT news.
  • Red Hat Magazine: Red Hat Linux users will appreciate the tips, news and features of this magazine.
  • Jax Magazine: the premier online resource for Java, Apache,XML, and Web services. Get the latest industry and technology information. You can find here the latest product releases, company issues, techological developments, the latest JAVA APIs, and opinions on the latest trends within the community.
  • CoDe Magazine: a Microsoft technology information resource. Each bi-monthly issue of CoDe Magazine contains detailed explanations of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, as well as other new Microsoft technologies and developer tools. Written by real-life developers who actually use the tools they write about, CoDe is a “must-have” reference for serious .NET and database developers. CoDe Magazine contains only insightful, common sense explanations that are based on the writers’ experiences.

Code Resources

Check out these cheat sheets, examples and other helpful coding tools that will definitely save your time and efforts.

PHP

  • PHP Code Exchange: an exchange site where you can search for categorized PHP code.
  • PHP Cheat Sheet: The PHP cheat sheet is designed to be printed on an A4 sheet of paper and live by a developers desk, to make life a bit easier. It contains a quick reference to functions, SuperGlobals and other helpful components.
  • PHP Code Examples: Check out various PHP code examples in the PHP Freaks code library.
  • PHPFAQ: Use this question-and-answer reference where you can find answers on all your questions concerning installation, PHP and MySQL, code, hosting questions and many others.
  • Admin Generator Cheat Sheet: a web application framework for PHP5 projects. It speeds up considerably the creation and maintenance of web applications, and replaces the repetitive coding tasks by power, control and pleasure. It is easy to instal on any configuration – you just need Unix or Windows with a web server and PHP 5 installed. It is compatible with almost every database system.
  • Smarty Cheat Sheet for Template Designers: Use this Smarty cheat sheet for functions, variables and loads of other references.
  • Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet: Reference regular expressions quickly with this cheat sheet. Sections include POSIX, character classes and quantifiers.

AJAX

  • Prototype Dissected: Use Jonathan Snook’s personal resource with nifty cheat sheet for Prototype as a quick reference tool.
  • AJAX Programming Online: Sang Shin of Sun Microsystems offers a free 18-week course on AJAX. Even if you don’t sign up for the course, this site can provide a wealth of information.
  • A Field Guide to Scriptaculous Combination Effects: By Amy Hoy, this informative PDF discusses default options, toggling and more.
  • Max Kiesler: Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials: There are quite a few AJAX demos and examples on the web right now. While these are invaluable to learning AJAX, some people need a bit more information than just a raw piece of code. There are many ways to learn AJAX including, books, classes, conferences, workshops and tutorials. Of these the only one that is free and accessible to everyone are web-based tutorials. The following is a list of the be the best and most helpful AJAX tutorials.
  • Max Kiesler: 60 More Helpful AJAX Tutorials: Here you can find more than 60 AJAX tutorials. This post is intended for individuals who learn best by example. Most of the listed tutorials come complete with instructions and source code. All of the tutorials are categorized for eazy browsing.
  • Mastering AJAX: You can find here three-part series on mastering AJAX. Besides, the author provides useful links and topics for discussion.
  • HTML to ASP Converter: Converts HTML code for use with ASP. Provides conversion to an ASP string or to ASP code using the Response. You can Customize ASP string name, preserve original HTML line breaks or stack code according to a given number of characters per line, remove additional tabs and spaces between closing and opening tag for extra compact ASP code and include or exclude ASP delimiters.

JavaScript

  • JavaScript Cheat Sheet: is designed especially to act as a reminder and reference sheet, listing methods and functions of JavaScript. It includes reference material for regular expressions in JavaScript, as well as a short guide to the XMLHttp Request object.
  • Venkman JavaScript Debugger: the JavaScript debugger for Mozilla based browsers, such as Mozilla 1.x, Netscape 7.x, and Phoenix/Firebird. This page contains the latest Venkman news and development releases.
  • Regular Expressions: a quick reference sheet for client-side JavaScript compiled by VisiBone.
  • JavaScript General Introduction: Check out this complete guide to JavaScript for a primer on the language.
  • HTML to JavaScript Convertor: Use this converter to this tool take your markup and convert it to a series of document.
  • Introduction to Events: Events are the beating heart of any JavaScript application. The page represents an overview of what event handling is, what its problems are and how to write proper cross-browser scripts. IT also provides pages with the details of event handling
  • JS/DOM Object Quick Reference: This appendix from JavaScript Bible which consists of the JavaScript and Browser Objects Quick Reference.

Ruby on Rails

  • 19 Rails Tricks Most Rails Coders Don’t Know: a collection of tricks and techniques that will help you make more efficient use of your code.
  • Resistance to Persistence: a cheat sheet which represents a compilation of information from various books, tutorials and Web sites about Ruby on Rails.
  • Ruby QuickRef: a printable quick reference to Ruby details, from general syntax to object design.
  • InVisible Ruby on Rails Reference: a “short” Ruby on Rails reference which can give you an overview over the most used functions, methods and classes. It’s not a tutorial, but as a handy guide when you already know your way around.
  • Ruby on Rails Caching Tutorial: a tutorial that will show everything you need to know to use Caching in your Rails applications, so when you get digg’d or slashdot’d you won’t be left begging your hosting provider for more CPU processing power.
  • Faster Pagination in Rails: This resource helps you understand pagination and what you should be doing about it.

ASP

  • Best ASP.NET Practices for Shielding Your Site From Hackers: This webcast examines some of the techniques hackers employ to attack web sites, and demonstrate how ASP.NET developers can thwart those attacks preventatively. The webcast starts by presenting some ASP.NET code; then it exposes some typical, attacking hacker code, and finally – shows how to neutralize the attack with the corrected ASP.NET code.
  • ASP/VBScript Cheat Sheet: The ASP cheat sheet is designed to act as a reminder and reference sheet, listing various of the oft-forgotten parts of ASP / VBScript. You’ll find reminders for regular expressions, file modes, methods and properties, among others.
  • Common Applications of Regular Expressions: Regular Expressions provide a way of matching patterns of strings that may be simple or extremely complicated and they do it in a very efficient manner.
  • ASPFAQs: This ASP FAQ list is categorized and updated. Check out the Ten Most Viewed FAQs for a quick rundown. Find FAQs on ASP.NET, Databases, Networking, Security, Uploading, XML and many more.
  • ASP from A to Z: There’s lots of helpful information about ASP available on this site and other sites.This article provides an easy way to find information that pertains to ASP, including a short definition of what ASP is, how ASP works, and an alphabetical list of terms and tips that relate to ASP. This article is constantly updated with new tips and removing tips that no longer apply.

CSS

  • CSS Cheat Sheet: The CSS cheat sheet is designed to act as a reminder and reference sheet, listing all selectors (as of CSS 2.1) and properties. It includes a visual example of the box model, unit reference for CSS units and the various media types CSS makes allowance for.
  • CSS Property Index: an alphabetical index of properties as well as the various statistics and details that go along with each of them.
  • CSS Shorthand Guide: A JavaScript, CSS, XHTML web log focusing on usability and accessibility. Check out this awesome tutorial compiled by Dustin Diaz’s.
  • CSS and Design Gallery: Although written in German, Dr. Web’s gallery offers links to a massive number of CSS designs .
  • A Roadmap to Standards: Is designed for those who want to learn more about web standards, CSS, XML, and XHTML. This is a comprehensive, informal, and somewhat long-winded roadmap for anyone who has heard about web standards, thinks they might want web standards, but doesn’t know where to start.
  • CSS Panic Guide: This “guide for the unglued” provides a collection of links to many helpful CSS resources.
  • Layout Gala: This resource provides 40 downloadable CSS layouts.

HTML

  • A Simple Guide to HTML: A simple guide to HTML compiled by Robert Duncancontains tags for text formatting, tables, frames and more.
  • Composing Good HTML: The document that attempts to address stylistic points of HTML composition, both at the document and the web level, although slightly out of date.
  • HTML & XHTML Tag Quick Reference: This reference sheet covers the most important tags and rules for HTML and XHTML.
  • HTML Color Code Combination Chooser: Use Site Pro Central’s Colour Scheme Chooser to see your color before committing to a hex code.
  • XHTML Cheat Sheet: This updated cheat sheet points out elements, characters and more.
  • Quick Escape: a tool that lets you quickly paste in HTML and for that to be converted to escaped characters which can be pasted back in to your HTML source code so that it renders on screen.
  • HTML & XHTML Entities: provides a set of tables containing the 252 allowed entities in HTML 4 and XHTML 1.0, as described in section 24 of the official HTML 4 specifications. The tables are divided into logical categories, such as entities for characters with special meaning in HTML and XHTML, entities for accented characters, accents, and other diacritics from Western European Languages, entities for punctuation characters, entities for mathematical and technical characters, entities for shapes and arrows.

Other

  • Perl Regular Expression Quick Reference: Use this PDF for quick reference to characters, quantifiers, modifiers and more.
  • Python 101 Cheat Sheet: a quick reference document and learning tools for newcomers who want to get to know the language. You can print it, keep it close at hand, and get down to programming!
  • htaccess Cheatsheet: Here you can find is a simple cheatsheet for the .htaccess files.

Essential Resources

The following resources are for those who are in search for essential tutorials and knowledge.

  • W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. It is a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding. You can find here news, links to W3C technologies and ways to get involved.
  • A List Apart: Meant “for people who make websites,” Check it out for well-written articles on different topics such as code, content, design, process and many other.
  • O’Reilly Network: O’Reilly Media shares the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazine, and conferences. It offers features on topics such as Apache, BSD, MySQL, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby on Rails and Proxy.
  • W3Schools: At W3Schools you will find all the Web-building tutorials you need, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.

Usability and Accessibility

Check out these resources that are written by various usability engineers and are used to get more efficiency.

  • Useit: Jakob Nielsen’s Web site offers news, reports, books, consulting services and tips concerning simple, usable Web development and design.
  • UXMatters: a volunteer-driven Web magazine that delivers compelling content about developing effective user experience (UX) strategies, designing digital-product user experiences that optimally serve people’s needs and satisfy their desires. You can discuss progressive ideas about important issues relating to user experience in a forum. The magazine educates both the broader product development community and consumers about the value of designed user experiences. It provides opportunities for community building among UX professionals through blogging and collaborative work.
  • WebWord: a usability blog of John S. Rhodes. You can find here criticism, praise and the latest news on the field of usability here.
  • Dive Into Accessibility: This book answers two questions: “Why should I make my web site more accessible?” and “How can I make my web site more accessible?” A 30-day program provides tips for accessibility as it pertains to people, disabilities, design principles, Web browsers and publishing tools.
  • User Interface Engineering Brain Sparks: Brain Sparks shares and continues discussions “customer care words” and other interesting topics that come up in the course of conducting user interface research.
  • Microsoft Usability Publications: a Web site that offers papers and presentations written by various usability engineers from Microsoft. You can find here articles, methods and techniques, guidelines, and tools devoted entirely to usability.

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