There are different styles and types of websites available on the market today. Gone are the days when you used to have a simple webpage with a simple template. People today come up with websites which are both rich in information as well as being perfect specimens of creativity. Websites are grouped according to their function and the type of user. Will it be used to build a network, or is it with the aim of selling? Is the main goal to share information or create a directory? Customers looking to buy want easy to use and understand interfaces, with plenty of choice, yet within an uncluttered interface. Readers of blogs look also for imagery and maybe even interactivity.
And with all the competition, a developer wants to create search engine friendly sites because ‘a non-optimized site is like having a store no one can find‘.
There are many things that are responsible for the development of an interactive website, such as a professional web developer and much more. However what people ignore is how web developers achieve their goals? The answer is in “Web Development Tools”. Over the years, several different web development tools have been introduced onto the market. Here we will discuss the latest ones:
CSS Pre-Processors
CSS is very simple to write and understand; however, the issue arises once your project starts expanding. In the case of a large project, you need to manage many style sheets which actually means that you need to take care of thousands of CSS lines. Any CSS operator knows how gigantic this task can become.
Under such a situation the CSS Pre-processors becomes a very handy and useful tool. Without going into any technical details of this application, CSS Pre-processors allow you to write CSS in programming style with functions and variables. Once this is done, it is amassed into a CSS format which is browser-compliant in nature.
Names of CSS tools: Myth, Sass and Stylus
Development Tool Kit
The beauty of the Development Toolkit lies in the fact that it can put together a lot of tools in a single application. In case you are not in favor of text-based setting (in Grunt), do not worry as a GUI application will do the job for you.
Popular Names: LESS, Jade, Bower and Siml
Template Engine
It is very easy to develop a static HTML. However, things become difficult when you have multiple HTML pages to manage as far as your project is concerned. The majority of these pages have the same components like Footer, Header and Sidebar.
Through a template engine you can make your life very easy, and a good example of this lies in any kind of change that you make in the sidebar. Here, the template relieves you from the headache of making changes in each individual page.
Popular names: Handlebars, Kit and Jade
Testing Tool (Synchronized)
When it comes to a mobile optimized website then the tool which tops the list is a Synchronized Testing Tool. If you have too many devices to test your webpage on, you certainly need the services of Synchronized Testing. The tool makes it possible for you to test your website on different devices simultaneously.
Popular tools: Ghostlab and BrowserSync
Task Runner
The development of a website can be a hectic process. The majority of tasks involved in the development of websites such as browser refreshing, unit testing and compilation are repetitive. All these mentioned tasks can be automated through the utilization of a Task Runner.
Conclusion
These are the 5 tools which can really make your web development easy and trouble free. We wrote more about web development tools, or applications which you can easily access through different online forums available today. The majority of these tools are affordable and can be purchased with ease. However, ensure that you purchase from credible platforms to avoid any kind of mishap. You can also know more about web development applications here at Careerfoundry.
