My Web Design Toolbox – 25 Tools

• Jul 6, 2009
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In this post I want to showcase all the applications that are very important in my web design & development process. From commercial applications to Firefox plugins, this post will cover all my favorite web design tools.

1. Adobe Photoshop

When it comes to web design, graphic design, photo manipulation and many other things – Adobe Photoshop is the best tool.

2. Adobe Illustrator

From time to time, when I have to make some icons I use Adobe Illustrator. It has some great features and with the latest releases I can set the interface to look like Photoshop – which is very helpful.

3. Google Picasa

Although I’m not a Google fan, for graphic files management Google Picasa is the best free choice.

4. Microsoft Visio

For wireframing and flowcharts Microsoft Visio is the right tool. Of course that you can do it with a pen and a paper but this is an alternative.

5. Notepad++

I know that there are many users of Adobe Dreamweaver, but I’m not one of them. I prefer Notepad++. This open source application is the best code editor from my point of view. It has many features and additional plugins.

6. Intype

An alternative to Notepad++ is Intype. This editor is free and it has the best snippets bundled with the application. Great for productivity.

7. EasyPHP

EasyPHP is a complete package that includes an Apache server, a MySQL database, PHPMyAdmin as well as easy development tools for web sites and applications.

8. Firefox

This is my browser of choice, not only because it is fast and reliable, but because it has the best plugins.

9. Firebug

The first plugin for Firefox installed on my PC is Firebug. It is a powerful debugging tool for websites.

10. Web Developer Toolbar

Like Firebug, this is another debugging plugin for Firefox. It has additional features to Firebug and that is why I have both installed.

11. Opera

When you want to see the flaws your site has, Opera is the best tool. From my point Opera renders the site the right way.

12. Safari

Being one of the most popular browser Safari must be a first priority tool. You will want to test your site on Safari since it has around 8% or the browser market share.

13. Xenocode Browsers Sandbox

This tool is for testing purposes: it enables you to test your site on most important browsers without installing them.

14. W3C Validators

The HTML and CSS validators are very important because from time to time I check for my code compatibility with the standards.

15. CleanCSS

This is a site that optimizes and helps you compress your CSS code based on several options that you can select.

16. A List apart

Please tell me that you know this site. This is the foundation site for web designers.

17. WordPress.org

Since I am an avid WordPress user, WordPress.org is one of my favorite destinations for tips and plugins.

18. Smashing Magazine

The best web design magazine on the web. It has great articles and freebies.

19. Nettuts

Nettuts is the best web development tutorials site. It has great tutorials from various web development areas.

20. CSSGlobe

CSSGlobe is a web design articles aggregation site. It has some of the most interesting links around the web.

21. UI-Patterns

This site has a great collection of UI elements and it is a great resource for inspiration.

22. Yahoo! Developer Network

Performance information, optimization, javascript library, user interface, APIs and web services etc.

23. SourceForge

This is where I search for different software like – code editors, image manipulation applications etc.

24. Zoho

What can I say about Zoho except from: the best office suite and more available on the web?

25. DimDim

Desktop sharing web application that is free and has some really nice features.

So, this is my website design and development toolbox. I’m sorry that in this list there are no links from CSS frameworks or templates – I don’t use them.
Cheers!