Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

FontStruct is a free font-building tool brought to you by FontShop. FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks. Once you’re done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.

You can keep your creations to yourself, but we encourage users to share their “FontStructions”. Explore the Gallery of fonts made by other FontStruct users and download them or even copy them and make your own variations. Some of the fonts within the Gallery looks really good and professional. Have you created your own fonts yet?

Requirements: -
Demo: http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/
License: Creative Commons License

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jQuery File Tree is a configurable, AJAX file browser plugin for jQuery. You can create a customized, fully-interactive, valid and semantic XHTML file tree with as little as one line of JavaScript code. jQuery File Tree is fully customizeable via CSS with the ability to style icons based on file extension. It also supports custom connector scripts for extended functionality. The expand and collapse event are customizable as well. jQuery File Tree works in all browsers supported by jQuery. It has been fully tested in Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox 2, Safari 3 and Opera 9.

The author has stated that the connector scripts provided with jQuery File Tree are only designed to read information from a specified root folder. Although this is typically harmless, there exists a potential for malicious individuals to be able to view your entire directory structure by spoofing the root parameter. It is highly recommended that you add some form of check to your connector script to verify the path being scanned is a path that you want to allow visitors to see.

Requirements: jQuery
Demo: http://labs.abeautifulsite.net/projects/js/jquery/fileTree/demo/
License: Creative Commons License

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Few days ago, one of our readers asked if there is any free image magnifier script available on the internet. And then I have done some research and found this nice script. TJPzoom is an open source image magnifier that is written in JavaScript / DOM. If you move your mouse over the picture, you can see a little zoom window with a magnified version of a part of the picture in it.

The zoom ratio will be increased and decreased if you click and drag upwards/downwards your mouse. The zoom window will be increased and decreased if you click and drag to the right/left your mouse as well. Have you found any open source image magnifier that you would like to share with us too?

Requirements: Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2, Opera, Safari 2, Konqueror 3.5.6
Demo: http://valid.tjp.hu/tjpzoom/
License: Creative Commons 3.0 License

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I have written a post about First Ever Open Source Social Network Platform few days ago. And our lovely readers pointed out that LovdByLess is not actually the first ever open source social network platform. There are many nice one such as barnraiser.org, peopleaggregator.org, ning.com, Elgg, phpizabi.net which have been around for several years already. And Erik and Erbag has mentioned about Dolphin which I have found it very powerful Open Source Community Software.

YouTube, MySpace, Odeo, Flickr, Match and Facebook – all in one, customizable and under your full control. You’re limited only by your imagination – not by software. Dolphin Smart Community Builder is a universal, free, open source software that allows you to build any kind of online community. With a huge variety of features & options, you can quickly develop your very unique and successful website.

Dolphin has actively developed and frequently upgraded for over 6 years. There are many plugins, templates, custom support you can choose from. Currently, it is used by over 20,000 community sites worldwide.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/
License: Creative Commons License

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Smart Image Resizer allows us to resize and crop any image on our websites without touching the actual image or writing any code. We upload each image (JPEGs, GIFs, and PNGs) once at a high enough resolution and can then reuse it at any size we want, anywhere we want. It doesn’t matter if the images are in a post, on a page, or in a template file, it just works. All of the magic is done through the query string part of the URL in the src attribute of the img tag.

Requirements: PHP and GD
Demo: http://shiftingpixel.com/2008/03/03/smart-image-resizer/
License: Creative Commons 3.0 License

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MoreCSS is a small JavaScript library for everyday things, like creating popups, tab menus, tables and lists with “zebra”-style and etc… But the really special thing is: you can do these things in regular CSS. Just include MoreCSS.js and an external stylesheet file in your page header. And then you can use MoreCSS properties like normal CSS properties.

Example:
a {
target:popup;
target-width:640px;
target-height:640px;
}

Requirements: -
Demo: http://yellowgreen.de/morecss
License: Creative Commons License

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You might have encountered interactive demos created with screencasting and screengrabbing software (e.g. Amberjack, Demofuse or Jing) that explain an interface to users in a step-by-step manner. This is exactly what this script does for web sites. When you loaded this page and all went well you’ll have seen the examples, download and first paragraph section being highlighted and a small panel with information showing up in succession. This is done with this script.

Step by Step uses the Yahoo User Interface library, and pulls in most of its dependencies automatically. So, what you need to do is write a JSON object and either embed it in a script tag or link to it as an external file.

Requirements: Yahoo User Interface library, JSON
Demo: http://icant.co.uk/sandbox/stepbystep/
License: Creative Commons 3.0 License

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After few weeks of icons design and development. WebAppers is very happy to announce the release of “Web Application Icons Set” with 3D effect and glossy style. There are 20 icons designed specially for web applications (e.g. Charts, Profile, Search, Add, Delete, Email, Print, Warning and etc…). Icons come in 3 sizes; 48×48 px, 32×32 px, and 24×24 px. All of them are in PNG format with transparent background. Web Application Icons Set is completely Free for both personal and commercial projects in any way you like.

If you like this icons set, please do not forget to Stumble / Digg this or give some link love to this post. It will be more encouraging if you can leave a comment as well. I am more than happy to bringing you more great icons for free in the near future.

Download: Download Now
License: Creative Commons 3.0 License

You can also check out the Premium Web Application Icons designed by webiconset.com. They do offer some quality Free Icons as well.

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XHTML Chat is barely more then a single html page + CSS + javascript. The server side bit is as small as it can be and could be accomplished with almost any available technology (down to php + textfile). This looks very well revolutionise the way the web looks and feels today.
Apart from this being a chat you can use XHTML Chat as:

• An advanced comment function for blogs offering immediate communication between users.
• An advanced shoutbox.
• A live single/multi-user publishing system.
• A XHTML Broadcasting tool for live coverage of events.

All of these could degrade gracefully if javascript is not available. XHTML Chat (including XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, all images) ,is licensed under a Creative Commons License as well.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://chat.plasticshore.com/
License: Creative Commons License

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WebAppers is going to release a set of beautiful web application icons, they would be free for both personal and commercial use. These icons are currently under development, and will be released in the next 2 – 3 weeks. Please stay tuned. At the moment, you can have a look at the following three sets of glossy and modern icons available at deviantART first.

Feel free to use these Colourful Pie Chart Icons. They are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. The sizes of the icons are included: 512, 256, 128, 64, 32. Please do not use these icons on illegal and unpleasant activity (example; porn, warez, hacking, anti-religion, racism, etc).

The name says HP Dock Icon Set but it’s really not HP themed. I just used the colours and such from the monitor icon. They are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0. The sizes of the icons are included: 1024, 512, 256.

You are free to use Pandora Icons for personal use. However, if you intend to use these icons for a more corporate use (skins, etc) then please PM the author with the request, letting him know what you want to use them for. Also, author would appreciate a credit for the work, and a link back.

Demo: Colourful Pie Chart Icons
Demo: HP Dock Icons
Demo: Project Pandora Icons

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