Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

$fx() is a compact lightweight JavaScript library which extends DOM element by adding animation methods. It lets you to alter any CSS property allong time line by passing just simple configuration. Moreover you can combine effects, group them to the chains and run parallel, also you have ability to set different callbacks what gives you even more flexibility.

$fx() is not the attempt to compete with existing existing frameworks, but just the library for some different purposes. Most of animation libraries are based on different JavaScript frameworks like jQuery or prototype or have pretty big size theirself. So if you want to keep you scripts extremely lightweight and and do not load and run a bunch of extra JavaScript then $fx() fit the best.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://fx.inetcat.com/
License: License Free

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Accessible News Slider is a JavaScript plugin built for the jQuery library. The plugin does not use color as a primary indicator of a change in state for the slider. Instead, the “back” and “next” navigation is either visible or hidden. There is also an indicator that communicates the total number of news items.

If the user chooses to resize the text via the browser file menu, the slider will flex vertically to accommodate the larger text, and still function. Although the core functionality of the news slider is partially accessible with a keyboard, the “View All” link was added as a catch-all mechanism. Hitting the “Enter” key while focused on the hidden “Skip to News” anchor will mimic the same behavior, since it is assumed the user is tabbing through content.

The JavaScript is only 2 KB packed. The CSS, XHTML and JavaScript were developed specifically to meet the WCAG 1.0, and this will always be the number one priority of the plugin. The ZIP download contains all of the necessary files, including a packed version of jQuery v.1.2.6.

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://www.reindel.com/accessible_news_slider/
License: License Free

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Jonatan Castro Fernández is a spanish freelance graphic and interface designer who lives in Ourense, Spain. He has been designing for a few years and now he has started his own design studio called Midtone. He has released a set of 32px mania iconset which is absolutely free. You can use them on your website, web application or whatever. You can download the iconset directly here.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.midtonedesign.com/portfolio/category/goodies/
License: License Free

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FreebiesDock is simply a collection of completely free design resources. All the products you’ll see there were created exclusively for FreebiesDock and you won’t see them anywhere else. There are hundreds of “free downloads” websites, but most of them provide poor quality services.

Paul Kadysz is the proud founder of FreebiesDock who wants it to be different. It provides some quality free downloads includes WordPress themes, Website templates, Royalty free icon sets, Royalty free stock photos and Design related articles.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://freebiesdock.com/
License: License Free

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Andrew Paglinawan is a self-employed graphic designer, working in the fields of logo design, print design, web design and branding. He has released a free sans serif typeface called Quicksand with 7 weights including a dashed version. The font looks really nice and professional. You can download the font here for free.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://typophile.com/node/50437/
License: License Free

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Your time is your product. Every minute you spend working that goes unaccounted for is like giving away your product for free. Tracking your time accurately is essential to staying profitable. In addition, knowing how much time you spend on past projects, can allow you to better estimate future projects.

It is really important for freelancers like us. Do you know how much time you spend in meetings? On the phone? Designing websites? Coding web applications? Keep track of anything with Klok’s simple work timer and visual display of how your days “fill up”. Klok is a personal time tracking Adobe’s AIR application which is free to download. It has since been downloaded over 90,000 times.

Requirements: AIR 1.0
Demo: http://klok.mcgraphix.com/klok/index.htm
License: License Free

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Would you like to put snowing effect on your site? Snowstorm is a Javascript-driven snow effect that can be easily implemented into web pages. It is free for use. It has been designed to be easy to use.

A single Javascript file provides the functionality required; the only other files needed are the images of snowflakes themselves. You can adjust the snow speed, the amount of snow, the “wind”, if and where it should collect (and if it should build up over time, or quickly “melt”), and finally, whether the snow can react to the mouse moving (ie., “wind changes.”).

Snowstorm works under most of the current major browsers (IE 5.x+, Netscape 6+). Testing has been limited to those browsers on PC/Mac. You can check out the demo here.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/snowstorm/
License: License Free

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Mac Giving Tree has come back again! It’s the Holiday Season. The season of giving. MacHeist is going to treat us some insanely-great Mac Apps in celebration. Simply sign-up to MacHeist and come back Christmas morning to unwrap them.

And also, the Giving Tree now has iPhone application icons sprouting up around it, what does it all mean? When the icons grow and start wiggling you are able to click them and join a drawing for the application.

Source: Mac Giving Tree

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Fire Eagle is a new service designed to make it safe and easy to build and use location-aware applications and services. It’s a place where users can store and manage information about their current location that trusted apps and sites can update or access.

Want to make your website or mobile application more relevant or responsive to a user’s location? Or maybe you’ve found a way to capture user location and want to find cool uses for this info? By doing the heavy lifting for you and connecting you to a community of geo-developers, Fire Eagle makes it easier to build location-aware services. And Fire Eagle is completely free to use.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/
License: License Free

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As a web designer, you are going to need browser templates. When presenting your work to a client, adding a browser frame around your design will help you or your client get an idea of what the site will really look like.

Here are the free photoshop browser templates for your professional screendesign come in 1024×768 pixels and 800×600 pixels size , all kinds of different browser (Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari, Camino and etc…) flavours. For both sizes, the safe viewing area is marked in a separate layer.

Browser components are also separated onto individual layers so you can adjust them or switch them off them as you like: Page title, Address field, Favicon, Scrollbar and Dropshadow. You can download this amazing package for free.

Update: Our reader has just pointed out that the browser templates are not updated which we have not realized. We have now found a source of Photoshop Browser Templates for IE 7 and Firefox 3.0 instead. Please feel free to download them.

Requirements: Photoshop
Demo: http://www.webdesignerstoolkit.com/
Demo: http://piksels.com/photoshop-browser-templates/
License: License Free

• 8 Comments