Must Have Web Development Tools
Everyone with Internet access can teach themselves Web development. Numerous key techniques are involved in developing websites, including using hypertext markup language and cascading style sheets; client-side scripting, typically through JavaScript; and optionally server-side scripting using a language such as PHP. Web development can also involve database programming and extensible markup language, but only in advanced cases. There are a number of tools that can make the Web development process easier, faster and more successful.
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Highlighting Text Editor
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The importance of having a text editor that highlights your code is impossible to overstate for Web development. This is an essential tool for writing code of any kind, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other languages such as PHP and XML. Your computer may have a text editor already installed, but if it does not highlight code your development tasks will be more difficult. There are many free and commercial highlighting text editors available for download, including Notepad++ on Windows, TextMate on Mac and Gedit on Linux.
FTP Client
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You need a file transfer protocol client for uploading and downloading Web content. In some cases, your Web host may provide an interface, accessible through your browser, that also provides uploading and downloading, but an FTP client is generally an essential tool. Most FTP clients are intuitive to use, and many of the best options are free to download. Among the most widely used FTP programs are FileZilla, Cyberduck and FireFTP.
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Graphics Tools
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Even if you are primarily a developer rather than a designer, you will likely have to do graphic design or image editing at some point. This may be as simple as resizing or optimizing the file size of an image or as complex as creating custom graphics. There are many sophisticated proprietary programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, but free programs are sufficient for many developers, including the GNU Image Manipulation Program, known as GIMP; Paint.NET; and IrfanView for batch processing.
Browser Tools
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When developing websites, it is essential that you can see how your sites appear and behave in the different Web browsers available, so it's worth having an installation of each of the major browsers in use. These include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome. There are also many browser extensions that can help with Web development, including Firebug and Web Developer. Browser tools can help you examine the elements in a Web page and to troubleshoot problem areas.
Advanced
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There are many advanced tools for Web development, such as Dreamweaver and Flash. These tools are not essential but can automate the building of complex or multimedia components. If you are involved in a lot of programming, you may find an integrated development environment useful, such as Eclipse. These tools are particularly useful when you are building large Web applications using technologies such as PHP and are perhaps using databases such as those in MySQL.
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References
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