Web Design and Development Software Reviews

Firebug Logo

One of the most influential and essential add-ons from Firefox geared towards those who write code, Firebug helps with HTML, debugging JavaScript, and so much more. Firebug is a free and open source (BSD) extension for Firefox web browser users that allows you to do the following:

BrowserShots Logo

If you are looking for a tool which can check your website’s browser compatibility then you can check out BrowserShots. To check the compatibility of your website you can directly enter the URL of your site in BrowserShots by simply clicking a submit button.

MS WebMatrix

WebMatrix is a new web development application from Microsoft. Not to be confused with the 2003 disaster bearing the same name, this WebMatrix is slick, compact, powerful, and packed with quality resources. But what exactly does it do?

phpMyAdmin Logo

For most developers, going into the command line to meticulously set up and edit their MySQL databases can be a chore. Others seem to get some sort of sick pleasure out of it, but the rest of the civilized world prefers some sort of application to handle routine database creation and management because it speeds up the process and makes life easier.

HTML Validator Logo

First, let's look at why you need an HTML Validator in the first place. Ever wanted to see how many HTML “bugs” are on each page of your site at a glance? Now, while each page may be operating just fine, there are some issues with browser compatibility that have plagued developers ever since the days of Netscape versus Internet Explorer.

EasyPHP Logo

EasyPHP really is as easy as its name implies. If you’re a PHP developer, you probably don’t mind getting your hands dirty. But why go through the hassle when EasyPHP does it for you?

Notepad Plus Logo

If you are a hardcore web developer that likes to get his or her hands dirty with the code, Notepad++ is the application for you. Unlike Dreamweaver and FrontPage, it does not have a graphic What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface for designing web pages. Instead, it looks a lot like the standard notepad.exe that comes with Windows. Where it differs from Notepad is that it carries a multitude of features and is designed specifically for text-based code development.

Zen-Coding Logo

Zen-Coding is an abbreviation engine that can save coders a lot of time and effort. While it is officially only used for HTML, XML, XSL, it is also commonly used for other types of structured code formatting like CSS. It is can be used on a variety of different platforms and additional 3rd party support is continually added. If you are a web designer, then Zen-Coding may be the perfect tool to help you speed up your work.

Dreamweaver Logo

Adobe Dreamweaver is a web development tool originally created by Macromedia to assist developers with making websites quickly in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface. It is available for Mac and Windows, and has support for CSS, ASP, PHP, JavaScript, and more. In addition to the WYSIWYG interface, it also has a text editor so more experienced developers can get into the actual code and make alterations to it. The latest version is Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 v10.0.

FrontPage Logo

Microsoft FrontPage 2003 is an older What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) HTML editor which was originally developed by Vermeer Technologies Incorporated (which was bought by Microsoft in 1996). It is designed to allow novice web designers to create their own web pages in a graphical environment without having to hand-edit code.