Recently in Tools/Utilities Category

The turnout at today’s Web Developer’s meeting was overwhelming. Make no mistake, I hold no delusions that the packed house showed up just to see my lovely face (and it is lovely). No, I know that the vast majority of them showed up for the Google Enterprise Search presentation given ably by Nathan Rader and Corey Bradford of Google.

So what did I take from the presentation? It’s pretty obvious that the Search appliance would be an enormous step up in terms of usability for our users; and that’s what it’s all about right? Being able to weight results, key in on specific results, point specifically to what resources (internally and externally) we want to index, etc. Not to mention the other opportunities that arise with analytics, maps and other Google apps in the future.

But even more so, I can tell from the influx of e-mails that this morning’s meeting is going to create a storm of discussion over whether this is a solution for us, and that is EXACTLY what the Web Developer’s Group is all about. Call it synergy, cooperation, collaboration or whatever, but it’s basically working together. If we all get involved here on campus there’s no end to what we can accomplish together. Working in a vacuum gets you nowhere and I can only hope that the meeting this morning is a harbinger of larger meetings in the future. So, thanks to all who made it out today. I expect to see you all out in a month!

It appears that the announcement of Google’s new Web browser, Chrome, was sent out bit early in comic book form. What got my attention, being a comic geek, was that the comic was drawn by none other than the awesome Scott McCloud, creator of Understanding Comics.

You can read the official word about it on Google’s blog. You can also read the comic and get a more detailed rundown at Google Blogoscoped. I recommend reading the comic. McCloud does such a good job at explaining complex concepts and breaks down everything into easily understood pieces.

At first glance, it appears to be open source using the Webkit rendering engine with a brand-spanking-new JavaScript engine called V8. There’s also the standard stuff other browsers have like plug-in support, tabs and phishing protection. The focus on the project seems to be on making the browser faster, more efficient with memory and more secure.

I know what everyone is thinking: “Great. Now we’ve got another browser to test in.” Don’t fret yet. Since it’s based on the Webkit rendering engine, your sites should look just fine. (You test in Safari, right?) If you have a Web application, it remains to be seen how it will handle existing JavaScript code. Chrome is in beta and currently only available for Windows, with Mac and Linux versions on the way, so you have some time to see how things sort out.

Yes, I know that there are already a million posts around the web on the best Firefox extensions. However, I had a colleague ask me for some resources specific to making a site more Accessible. So I sent her a list of Firefox extensions specific to testing a site for Accessibility, and thought I would share them here as well.

First, here is the list of IT Accessibility Standards for the state of Missouri: http://www.oa.mo.gov/itsd/cio/standards/ITGS0003.pdf. This is the standard that we try to meet with the websites/web apps we develop.

Accessibility related

Accessibility Toolbar

This Mozilla/Firefox Accessibility Extension makes it easier for people with disabilities to view and navigate web content. Developers can use the extension to check their use of structural and styling markup that support functional web accessibility. In addition, it provides link to submit a page to the Functional Accessibility Evaluator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Fangs Screen Reader Emulator

Creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by a modern screen reader.

Yellowpipe Lynx Viewer Tool 1.2.1

Enables you to see what a page will look like when viewed with Lynx, a text-mode web browser. It is also presumably, how search engines see your site. In addition, it can help determine if web pages are accessible to the vision impaired. Also gives a pretty good idea of how your site will work when javascript is unavailable.

General Web Development

Web Developer Toolbar

Absolutely invaluable collection of tools/utilities for web developers. Way too many features to try and list. If you do web development, you need this extension.

HTML Validator

Performs an inline evaluation/validation of the html code of any page you look at. Essentially, this is the same thing as running your code through the W3C.org’s code Validator, except that it is done locally on your computer. It also allows you to see, at a glance via a status bar icon, if the page you are viewing passes the validator, and if not, how many errors/warnings there are. Having standardized code doesn’t make your site Accessible, but having standardized code makes it easier to make it Accessible.

Firebug

Another invaluable web developer tool. Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. I could not live without Firebug and the Web Developer toolbars installed. Well, I could live, but I certainly couldn’t develop nearly as efficiently.

Yslow

YSlow analyzes any web page and generates a grade for each rule (based on Yahoo’s “Rules for High Performance Web Sites”) and an overall grade. If a page can be improved, YSlow lists the specific changes to be made.

It is a great time to be a web developer! We recently mentioned how Opera had released version 9.5 of the Opera browser. Today, the mozilla foundation will release version 3 of Firefox.

To celebrate the release of Firefox version 3, I thought I would provide you with a list of interesting articles and a download of FireFox 3 - Revealed courtesy of Sitepoint.com.

First up, get the most out of Firefox 3 — with this FREE eBook from sitepoint.com!

Next up, webmonkey (yes, they are back!) has a great article on Why You Should Download Firefox 3 Right Now

Last, LifeHacker speed tested the 4 major browsers (Opera 9.5, Safari for windows 3.1.1, Firefox v3 RC3, IE 7) to see which was the fastest in 3 major categories: startup time, Javascript & CSS, and memory use. Speed Testing the Latest Web Browsers

Regardless of which browser you find to be your favorite, the fact that all the major browser vendors are updating their browsers to better support CSS, HTML standards and Javascript will surely make our lives as developers easier and more efficient!

If you can’t wait for Firefox 3 to arrive, then maybe it’s time you tried out Opera. This new version sports some cool features like:

• A new browser engine
• Opera Link — bookmark syncing
• Opera Dragonfly — a new set of developer tools
• Fraud Protection
• Download Manager with BitTorrent
• Content blocking

We talked about Opera Dragonfly earlier and feel it has some good potential, so go download it and give it a try.

Jason posted a couple of weeks ago about the release candidate for Firefox 3. We now have an official launch date for the final version of Firefox version 3. The Mozilla developers announced last night that it is their “… expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th.”

Testing your web pages/sites in multiple versions of IE has always been a pain. Mostly because you can only have one version of IE installed on your computer at a time (yes, I know there are some hacks you can use to have more than one installed, but they are buggy, prone to crashing and dont give you accurate results). And, if you upgrade your XP installation to SP3, it comes with IE7 with no ability to downgrade back to version 6.

I have long been a proponent of using Microsoft’s Virtual PC and their free Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images. These allow you to run virtual machines with XP and a specific version of IE (6, 7 or 8; no version of 5.5 available). While this works and is certainly handy, it means that if you want to see how your site looks on all the versions simultaneously, you will have to load up at least two VM’s. Depending on how much system memory your computer has, this can bog things down quite a bit. There’s also the annoying fact that these VM’s expire every 3 months.

So the method works, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. Looks like someone felt the same way, but actually had the know-how and motivation to do something about it!

Released earlier this year, IETester allows you to view your site in IE version 5.5, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 beta1 all within a single “window” in different tabs. You can now quickly tab through all 4 versions of IE to see how they compare!

Note that this is alpha software, so don’t be surprised if you experience some bugginess. For example, when I switched from tabs to a side-by-side comparison (similar to the image above) and tried to scroll horizontally, the screen for that IE version went blank and took about 10 seconds to come back. But once they can get these minor annoyances worked out, I can see IETester easily becoming a top-10 indispensable WebDev tool.