Web development toolbelt
January 8th, 2008
I’ve recently started getting into web development. Some javascript here… some ASP.NET there… It’s all pretty interesting and definitely different from desktop development. One thing that I’ve found helpful is all the great (and free) tools out there. Here are some of my favorites so far:
- Reflector - Of course there’s Reflector. Everyone knows about Reflector. Not necessarily web-centric, but definitely web-useful.
- Aptana - This is a great Javascript, CSS, HTML tool that has intellisense and keyword coloring built-in. It also supports Ruby on Rails and PHP as well as Javascript debugging in the browser.
- Firebug - Speaking of Javascript debugging, there is Firebug. This is a Firefox extension that lets you set breakpoints in Javascript, shows you errors in Javascript line by line, and also lets you view and modify the HTML, CSS, Javascript, and DOM of any page in realtime and view the results. Really slick.
- Web Developer - This is Firefox toolbar that allows you to mess with cookies, Javascript, CSS, images, and just about everything else. It can overlay layout information right on the page and I’m sure lots of the other things that I haven’t even found yet.
- IE Tab - Here is another Firefox extension, but this allows you to see your page rendered by IE from within Firefox with only one click.
- Builtwith.com - You put a URL into this site and it gives a report of all the technologies used to build the site. Satisfies your curiosity when you’re foaming at the mouth to know how they built that uber cool site you found today.
- Fiddler - This is an HTTP debugging tool. It acts a proxy and logs all your HTTP traffic and lets you set breakpoints, modify data, and all that. It automatically works with IE, but have to configure Firefox if you want to use it as a proxy.
- ViewState Decoder - A nifty little tool that allows you to put in the encrypted ViewState text blurb and it will show you the cleartext all formatted pretty.
- NoScript - Who can forget about NoScript? I’ve blogged about NoScript from a security prospective, but it can also be used to disable Javascript for your current page or selectively disable Javascript based on domain.
I’m sure there are many, many more. Like I said, I’m still fairly new at this. So what are your favorite tools for web development?
Fiddler 2 is a great utillity for seeing raw http traffic, very useful for Ajax stuff using XMLHttpRequest
The Web Development Toolbar firefox add in is a great tool to use in addition to Firebug
Colorzilla is a firefox addin that is very nice for working with colors
Web Development Helper is similar to Firebug, just for IE though.
JSONView is a JSONViewer that you can use in three ways, a plug in for Visual Studio, a plugin to Fiddler 2, or a standalone exe.
January 9, 2008 @ 9:57 am
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January 11, 2008 @ 3:14 am
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January 11, 2008 @ 8:11 am
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January 11, 2008 @ 9:15 am
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April 28, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
[…] but you need to restart the browser to enable and disable emulation. With the IE Tab trick, you can develop web apps and have all five browsers up at the same […]
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