10 Utile tools and resources for design community

In this post I am going to share some useful tools and resources for web design and development communities. This includes Typography, Color tools, Background image maker, Free style menus and CSS Menu generator etc.

I hope these tools and resources would be very helpful to all my readers.

1. TYPETESTER

The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

Typetester’s code structure is XHTML, styled with the finest CSS and driven by the JavaScript for manipulating DOM structures. Typetester will not work without JavaScript enabled.

2. Type Select

Beautifully rendered & selectable typefaces controlled by CSS. You shouldn’t have to compromise the design or the user's experience to have selectable text. By leveraging typeface.js, jQuery, the canvas, toDataURL, CSS background properties and real overlayed text, Type Select is able to combine custom fonts with your browser's native text selection funcationality. You can now interact with beautifully rendered typefaces just like you do with normal text.

3. Colorotate

ColoRotate is an interesting new site that picks a novel approach to the traditional color picker design. Instead of 2D circles or sliders, ColoRotate features a 3D cone. At the core of the cone is the spectrum of colors. Intersecting that is the tint which lies on the z-axis. You can manipulate each one separately to help you arrive at your color. You can also blend two colors together.

4. Logospire

Logospire is a logo inspiration gallery. You can browse logos, upload your own logos, rate logos and leave comments and feedback. Logospire is different in that there is no moderation queue. You can upload your logo and it will go live straight away. By default, the front page sorts logos by highest rating, so even if there are low quality submissions, these won’t make it to the front pages.

5. Web Genome Project

The Web Genome Project add-on delivers personalized search results with total privacy; unlike other search-enhancing technology, it does not track click streams or retain browsing history. The Web Genome Project is built on the mathematics of human intention.

The Web Genome Project works by creating a numerical profile, or ‘genome’, for people and pages on the internet. Personal profiles are generated by survey results and refined by surfing behaviour.

6. XHTML Character Entity Reference

This page contains the 252 allowed entities in HTML 4 and XHTML 1.0, as outlined in section 24 of the official HTML 4 specifications, published by the W3C. If you're new to this site, you can find help on how to use this reference.

7. Background Image Maker

An easy to use online tool to make horizontal and verticle background strips. In this tool you can adjust Background color, Line color, Margin, Size, and Alpha etc. I am sure that web developers who are not that much expert in design definately will enjoy this tool.

8. CSS Menu Generator

CSS Menu Generator will generate both the CSS and the HTML code required to produce a text-based yet appealing set of navigation buttons. As text links are fast becoming preferred over images where search engine optimization is needed, a CSS menu can give the affectiveness of text links with a better look than standard text links. For an example of a CSS menu, look at our navigation on the left.

9. FreeStyle Menus

This is an XHTML compliant, CSS-formatted menu script, designed to work with the current generation of standards-based websites. The menu data is stored in the HTML document itself (unlike other JavaScript menus) as either nested lists or disparate DIV tags, and the script manages the showing and hiding of these elements with customisable timer delays.

10. Cross-Browser.com

A collection of loosely-bound, cross-browser, Javascript functions and objects. It is intended to be a resource from which you pick and choose - you do not have to include the entire library in your application. It contains core DOM/Style functions, unobtrusive enhancements, utility functions, objects such as menus and tab panels, and also has some experimental stuff.

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.