Web Design and Development Resources

This article contains an extensive list of resources that are useful to both web design novices as well as web development experts as all the resources, tools and software listed are both easy to use and highly effective.  The first thing to note is that if you are a total web design novice you should begin by reading our HTML and CSS tutorials. After that you can revisit this article or read through the other web design tutorials from OnlineDesignTeacher HERE.



Online Photo Editor: www.pixlr.com

In order to design a good, visually appealing website you need to use images and graphics and to edit,manipulate and resize these files you will need a Photo Editor. PhotoShop is the best and most renowned but is also very expensive. Pixlr offers a free solution with most of the same tools available in Photoshop.



Copyright free images for free: www.sxc.hu


To find the best, non-copyright images for your website use www.sxc.hu - The online image stock exchange! You do need to create a free user account but it takes mere seconds and you don't get plagued with junk e-mail after, All they offer is a ridiculously large collection of quality, copyright free images.

RSS Feeds: www.rssinclude.com

Integrate information from other websites, your own blog, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube directly into your website in an easily customisable widget.


Slideshows/Galleries: www.dynamicdrive.com

Dynmaic Drive offers a wide variety of free to use scripts but the most useful are their easy to use slideshows and image galleries. Some samples may not look the best but that is just the small uninteresting images being used. All the scripts are well explained, have no glitches or bugs in them and offer a variety of image transitions and layouts.

Create Online Forms: www.jotform.com

Jotform offers hundreds of form templates which can all be modified to suit your needs in terms of both content and style. From basic contact us forms to payment collections forms they have it all covered. you can also create a free user account to track all the form details and usage stats.

Easily Create Favicon Icons: www.favicon.cc

Ever wonder what the little image icons in the tab of your browser are called? or how they get there? Well they're called favicons and you can make your own with ease at www.favicon.cc by using their favicon draing editor or uploading an existing photo or graphic for conversion.


Visitor Comments: http://www.htmlcommentbox.com/


The HTML comment box is the simplest way to allows viewers to post comments about your web content on the website itself. Its a useful tools to get immediate feedback on an article and create a discussion place which keeps visitors returning to your website with the hassle of a full blown forum. But if you do need a forum for larger discussions....


Web Forums:


Newsletters: http://mailchimp.com

Create automated newsletters for your business/website and allow visitors to signup online using Mail Chimps customisable signup widget. Users who sign up get added to your online database and once you create and send an e-mail or online newsletter it automatically gets sent to them all.



Check your code for errors:  http://validator.w3.org/

Once you think you are finished the website or if you are just having trouble with an aspect of your web code you can use this validator. You can submit code as a file, as text or from a url and each time the code is checked and all errors are noted. Better still however - you can set an option to repair all code errors fro you too! Cool or what.


FTP Solution: http://filezilla-project.org/


Tip: Always create a Google account with your website to allow you to use YouTube, Google places, Google maps, Blogger, webmaster tools, Google analytics and more! SEO and tracking the SEO success of your website is only properly possible using the Google webmaster and analytics tools.

Sharing: www.addthis.com

Allow users to share your website info/articles with friends through social sites.