Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

Despite of the fact that there are increasing number of spam on the internet, we need some tools to defend it. Psyrens has created an Ajax CAPTCHA which allow us to validate the CAPTCHA field in real time. It is very simple but extremely useful.

Requirements: Any Modern Browsers with Javascript Enabled
Demo: http://psyrens.com/captcha/
License: License Free

As we know, the input with the type=”submit” is either too ugly (Firefox), a little buggy (Internet Explorer) or completely inflexible (Safari). The solution for most is to use image inputs and create the damn things ourselves. And it’s unfortunate, because then we’re reduced to the tedious tasks of opening up Photoshop every time we’re in need of a new button. What we need is something better—something more flexible and meant for designers. Lucky for us, the solution already exists. ParticleTree introduced us a better way to do it, also with mouseover and mouseout effect.

Requirements: No Requirements
Demo: http://particletree.com/features/rediscovering-the-button-element
License: License Free

HTML text editor brings to the web much of the power of desktop editors like MS Word. FCKeditor is a lightweight and doesn’t require any kind of installation on the client computer. Web Developers can customize the toolbar, change the skin and install new plugins easily. Users can font formatting and create html text without any difficulties.

Requirements: Internet Explorer 5.5+, Firefox 1.0+, Mozilla 1.3+ and Netscape 7+
Demo: http://www.fckeditor.net/demo
License: GPL, LGPL and MPL License

BrandSpankingNew made a re-usable Ajax auto-suggest and auto-complete text field. The AutoSuggest class adds a pulldown menu of suggested values to a text field. The user can either click directly on a suggestion to enter it into the field, or navigate the list using the up and down arrow keys, selecting a value using the enter key.

Requirements: Safari 2.0.4, Firefox 1.5+, Internet Explorer 6.0+
Demo: http://www.brandspankingnew.net/specials/ajax_autosuggest/…
License: Creative Commons License

WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, users can edit and format what they typed from the textarea and view something very similar to the end result. TinyMCE is a platform independent web based Javascript HTML WYSIWYG editor control released by Moxiecode Systems AB. It has the ability to convert HTML TEXTAREA fields or other HTML elements to editor instances. TinyMCE is very easy to integrate into other Content Management Systems.

Requirements: Mozilla, MSIE, FireFox, Opera and Safari
Demo: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/example_full.php?example=true
License: LGPL License

Would you like to have a set of customised checkbox and radio buttons? CRIR is a combination of JavaScript and CSS will hide checkbox and radio inputs and allow you to style the label as you wish using CSS. If javascript is disabled no inputs will be hidden and the form is still be fully functional.

Requirements: Any Modern Browsers
Demo: http://chriserwin.com/scripts/crir/index.php
License: GUN Libray Gerenal Public License

Sometimes, designing pretty forms with high usability is really hard even with lots of tutorials about how to design forms with CSS. Now, there is a very beautiful forms for you to download and use. You can also design your own theme for it if you do not like the default theme. Niceforms is a script that will replace the most commonly used form elements with custom designed ones.

Requirements: Firefox 1.5+, Internet Explorer 6.0+, Safari and Opera
Demo: http://www.badboy.ro/assets/articles/niceforms1.0/niceforms.html
License: License Free