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7 Essential Web Development Tools for Beginners

Web development tools have allowed us to improve our workflow and create responsive websites. Here are 7 Essential Web Development Tools for Beginners.

Published

5 years ago

October 15, 2019

TwinzTech

Essential Web Development Tools for Beginners

As technology evolves, there is no denying that today’s web development tools have allowed us to improve our workflow and create responsive websites. Not to mention that it also allows us to collaborate, regardless of our location.

However, the increasing number of available web development tools in the market can be daunting. Which tool would best serve your purpose?

In this post, we have listed down seven essential web development tools that beginners need to know:

Table of Contents

1. Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a popular web dev tool. It is a first-rate code editor that features an efficient, robust, and a well-designed interface. In fact, it can help you build websites using languages that you could name.

Its user-friendly interface is less distracting compared with other editors, allowing you to focus on your project more. It also has an automatic phrase completion feature that lets you complete any operation that you want.

Sublime Text also boasts a cross-platform editor, that you can use whether you are on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Add to that its custom GUI toolkit.

But what makes Sublime Text popular is its wide array of keyboard shortcuts. It allows you to perform simultaneous editing, which then lets you make interactive changes to multiple selected areas.

It also comes with quick navigation to files, symbols, and lines. After all, those small actions can add up if you are working for more than 8 hours per day on your editor.

Web Development Tools for Beginners

2. Adobe Dreamweaver

If you do not have a vast knowledge of coding but would like to dabble in web development, then Adobe Dreamweaver is your friend.

This website authoring program for Windows and Mac allows you to easily create a working website using the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Platform. All you need to do is just drag and drop website modules or elements.

Adobe Dreamweaver also features Code validation, accessibility checks, and file manager. However, having knowledge in HTML and CSS can give you an edge in developing websites using Adobe Dreamweaver.

Nonetheless, it is a novice-friendly web development tool that can let you bypass hard coding to build a basic website.

3. FileOptimizer / ImageOptim

FileOptimizer for Windows or ImageOptim for Mac is designed to help you optimize images for your web dev project.

At Sytian Productions Web Design Philippines, we always believe that too many images and animations are the culprits of a slow loading website. If left unattended, it can negatively affect your website’s user experience, search engine ranking, and business revenue.

Thus, it is important to have web dev tools that can help you compress and optimize images on your website.

Both web dev tools are simple and easy to use, and it allows you to compress your images. That way, you can save space on your device. The only difference is that ImageOptim puts your files into a compressed folder, while FileOptimizer compresses the original file itself.

4. XAMPP / WAMP

XAMPP and WAMP perform the same function. They store and maintain website databases.

It is an efficient tool in editing your database from a local server. However, you will need either of the two in order to run the majority of known Content Management Systems. That’s because you cannot run any PHP, JavaScript, or JQuery code without XAMPP or WAMP.

Another caveat is that installing either XAMPP or WAMP can get tricky, especially if you made a mistake. Therefore, you might need to exhaust your resources to solve some errors you might encounter.

5. Chrome Developer Tools

Google Chrome comes with a built-in developer tool that lets you do the following:

Edit your HTML and CSS in real-time
Debug your JavaScript
View a thorough performance analysis of your website

Simply put, you can access the inner workings of your web application.

The Chrome Developer Tools also comes with a bevy of network tools that helps you optimize your web page’s loading times. It also lets you understand how your browser interacts with your web app at any given moment.

What’s cool about Chrome Developer Tools is that it is also available for Safari!

Chrome Developer Tools

6. GitHub

Every web developer had screwed up their project one way or another. You can prevent those nightmares from happening to you when you have GitHub.

It is a version control system (VCS) that allows you to view the changes you made on your project. It also lets you revert your project’s previous version, making your web dev mistake a thing of the past.

Created by Linus Torvald, GitHub also features a community of rich open-source environment, which makes it easy for you to collaborate. You can write codes and work with other developers, as well as track the changes you made on your website without losing everything.

It also boasts bug tracking, feature requests, task management, and a wiki resource for your every project.

7. Sass

As a beginner, you need to know that CSS usually requires a repetition of hard codes. However, a code needs to be DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) so as not to be time-consuming.

That said, you need web dev tools, such as Sass, that allows you to save time when working on a project.

First appeared in 2016, Sass is a CSS pre-processor that can help you write and future-proof easy-to-maintain codes. It also allows you to reduce the number of times that you need to write code, making it DRY.

It features a combination of variables, nesting, and mixins that can render simple CSS when compiled. Thus, it produces a DRY and readable stylesheet.

The only catch is that it takes a while for a beginner to learn the ropes of Sass.

The web development tools mentioned above can help you get started with your project. Did we miss any novice-friendly tools? Let us know in the comments!

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Top JavaScript Libraries for Speeding Up Web Development

In this article, we can try to help coders with this tricky issue by highlighting the most popular open-source frameworks and commercial JavaScript libraries.

Published

4 years ago

November 4, 2020

TwinzTech

Top JavaScript Libraries for Speeding Up Web Development

Developing a modern web application that covers the needs of a specific business can be time-consuming, and doing it from scratch makes the whole endeavor even more challenging. JavaScript remains one of the most widely used programming languages, geared to serve both the server and client sides.

Its rich ecosystem offers a vast number of open-source frameworks and libraries that facilitate coding acceleration and help avoid unnecessary bugs.

Free JavaScript tools often have to be complemented with paid UI libraries to tackle specific development tasks with the utmost efficiency. Generally, the use of ready-made UI components in the development flow provides the following advantages:

Reducing time and monetary development costs
Making the final product more affordable for end-users (replacing expensive tools like MS Project)
Ensuring software consistency (unified design and API)

But with the abundance of available JavaScript tools, web developers frequently find it challenging to choose the right ones for their projects. This article can help coders with this tricky issue by highlighting the most popular open-source frameworks and commercial JavaScript libraries.

Open-Source JavaScript Frameworks

According to the State of Frontend 2020 survey, web developers still prefer choosing React, Vue.js, and Angular from the realm of JavaScript frameworks as their development helpers. Therefore, we’ve decided to include these well-known technologies in our review and complement this trio with the most popular CSS framework – Bootstrap.

Table of Contents

1. React

React js framework

Created and supported by the Facebook development team, React is the most requested front-end framework dedicated to building versatile and SEO-friendly web UIs. This component-based framework supports unidirectional data flow, providing enhanced control over the whole project. It makes use of the Virtual DOM to boost the UI rendering.

It is helpful for apps requiring regular updates, such as Instagram. Migrating between React versions is very simple, as the process is automated in many ways with “code mods” provided by Facebook.

2. Angular

Angular js framework

Angular JS is the most powerful and mature but, at the same time, complex JS framework. Backed by Google resources, Angular serves to building large-scale and feature-rich enterprise SPAs using HTML and TypeScript. It has a component-based architecture that increases the quality of written code and introduces two-way data binding to display info to end-users.

Utilizing a developer-friendly Angular CLI and intuitive template syntax helps to make the whole development process faster and more productive. Angular ensures the enhanced performance of apps due to a new rendering engine named Ivy being added this year in v9.0.

3. Vue.js

Vue js framework

Vue.js is the fastest-growing JavaScript framework utilized by developers to create more maintainable and testable code bases for UIs and SPAs. This lightweight (just 20KB) tool benefits from adopting the strengths of competitive technologies, namely two-way data binding (Angular) and virtual DOM (React).

When programming with Vue.js, it is possible to use JS and TypeScript equally well and take advantage of reusable components. framework’s pre-coding structure allows developers to promptly deploy the app without any negative impact on its performance. Web developers won’t have to spend much time properly learning Vue.js, thanks to its approachable nature.

4. Bootstrap

Bootstrap js framework

Bootstrap is probably the first thing that comes to mind when styling and designing responsive mobile and web apps. In simple terms, Boostrap is a mix of CSS, HTML, and JS code. This CSS framework comes with a vast array of design templates for common UI elements (buttons, forms, dropdowns, etc.) and other pre-built components that can be implemented in web projects and fully customized to match any design requirements.

Also, Boostrap provides functional themes, examples, and JS plugins to help web developers make their apps more visually compelling. There are also special Bootstrap libraries that enable developers to incorporate UI elements in applications based on Angular, React, or Vue without additional coding efforts.

Commercial JavaScript Libraries

Suppose you need ready-made tools for quickly adding complex functionalities such as Gantt charts, Schedulers, or diagrams with editing and customization capabilities to your project. In that case, it is better to consider using commercial JavaScript libraries.

Web developers who invest in commercial JS components receive a rich feature set out of the box, regular updates as well as bug fixes and emergency bug fixes, and timely outsourced technical support. Now let us review several paid JavaScript libraries and how they can help in web projects.

5. DHTMLX

DHTMLX framework

DHTMLX provides a JavaScript UI framework comprising plenty of powerful and fully customizable UI components such as Gantt chart, schedulers, Kanbans, Diagrams, spreadsheets, and many others. In terms of functionality, DHTMLX Gantt and Scheduler can be a great alternative to MS Project, Primavera, and Excel in project management apps.

All DHTMLX UI widgets are notable for modern Material design, advanced performance with a large amount of data, and extensive and straightforward API that can be quickly mastered and put to use. DHTMLX is compatible with React, Angular, and Vue.js and supports TypeScript.

6. Kendo UI

Kendo UI framework

Kendo UI is an HTML5 user interface framework intended for creating enterprise-level applications that run well in various production environments. It contains a large package (70+) of out-of-the-box UI widgets with multi-framework support that looks native on any device.

The popular MVVM feature of this UI framework ensures robust two-way data binding capabilities. Using a variety of built-in customizable themes, it is possible to adjust the look and feel of Kendo-based apps to your liking.

7. Syncfusion Essential JS 2

Syncfusion Essential JS 2

Syncfusion Essential JS 2 is a JavaScript toolkit of diverse controls (grids, charts, calendars, etc.), helping to minimize the number of third-party components required to complete an enterprise application.

Entirely written in TypeScript, all these components are modular and can be independently incorporated into any project, regardless of your JS framework choice.

Thanks to a responsive design and support for touch devices, apps developed with the Syncfusion package are rendered nicely across different platforms, thereby reaching more end-users.

8. Sencha Ext.JS

Sencha Ext JS

Ext JS is Sencha’s JavaScript framework that provides a rich set of configurable, ready-to-use components for building enterprise-grade web applications. The Sencha community also supplies many additional user extensions.

When coding with Ext JS, it is possible to use different scripting techniques, MVC/MVVM architectural patterns, and OOP concepts. The framework is complemented with various special tools that enhance your capabilities without extra manipulations in the main areas of the programming process: design, development, and testing.

Summarizing the above, we can say that all reviewed JavaScript frameworks and libraries have something helpful to offer to any web development project, and it’s up to development teams to choose the right option depending on their needs.

The commercial JS components are compatible with most of the open-source frameworks, allowing web developers to put them together in powerful toolkits for completing resource-demanding enterprise apps.