Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

SundayMorning is a jQuery plugin which allow site-owners to offer their visitors some easy and fancy ways to translate their content in more than 30 languages. It uses the Google translate API. You can have Inline translation with menu, Word translation or Translation with remote trigger. It is available as a Bookmarklet as well. SundayMorning has been tested on Internet Explorer 6/7, Firefox 3, Safari 3.

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://sundaymorning.jaysalvat.com/
License: MIT and GPL License

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In several web servers (most commonly Apache) .htaccess is the default name of directory-level configuration files. It provides the ability to customize configuration for requests to the particular directory. However, creating a .htaccess files can be tedious.

Now you can create .htaccess files easily online with .htaccess Editor. Simply fill in the form provided, you can then copy and paste the texts from the textarea box to your .htaccess files quickly. Please feel free to suggest your other favourite .htaccess online generators as well~

Source: http://www.htaccesseditor.com/en.shtml

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Appcelerator is an open source platform for building rich web applications. Appcelerator’s flagship product is called the Appcelerator Platform. The Appcelerator Platform consists of an SDK for building rich web applications and is completely open source. Recently, they have released Appcelerator Titanium, an open source platform for building desktop and mobile applications using a common set of Web technologies.

Appcelerator Titanium allows developers to use standard Web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript to quickly and easily develop applications that can be deployed to multiple platforms, including the desktop, the browser or the mobile device.

Unlike traditional Web applications, which are limited to operating within the browser, Titanium desktop applications are able to read and write local data on the desktop and interact with the operating system. In particular, Titanium enables developers to build desktop Web applications that can operate both online and offline. You can also run your apps on Windows, Mac and Linux. Titanium is licensed under the Apache Public License.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://appcelerator.org/
License: Apache Public License

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YAML Debug is an assistive tool for web developers, that allows you to quickly review code quality and semantic structure of any website (particularly based on YAML) as well as testing it against common oversights.

YAML Debug detects the content encoding and counts all external style sheets, script elements and images on your webpage. In the style sheet tab, all external and embedded style sheets are listed in source order. By clicking on a style sheet, it can be disabled or enabled. YAML Debug lets you easily visualize the semantic code structure of any webpage, giving you a quick overview whether it has meaningful semantics or not.

Requirements: Firefox 3.x, Opera 9.x
Demo: http://debug.yaml.de/
License: License Free

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Customer support is very important to a successful web application. No matter what web application you have developed, you need a easy to use customer support system for your users. So that they can contact you easily when they have encountered any problems. And then you can provide them quick responses.

HelpDesk Pilot is a web based Help Desk and Trouble Ticket System. With a robust email parser Helpdesk Pilot enables you to turn customer emails into tickets. You can reply to many tickets at once using the Mass Reply feature. Ideally you can send mass reply to all tickets that have raised the question, bug or issue. Every action on a ticket by any member of the application is tracked. This activity log is available below every ticket, ordered chronologically.

I found Installing Helpdesk Pilot is very easy and takes only a few minutes. It runs on any server supports PHP and MySQL. The user interface looks very clean and intuitive on both the admin and customer area. I am sure you are able to provide better customer service and turn requests around much quicker with Helpdesk Pilot. Overall, it is one of the best web based help desk systems you can find.

There are over 11,000 active customers in over 60 countries using Helpdesk Pilot. You can see some big names, e.g. at&t, verizon, IBM and etc… It is free to get started with  Helpdesk Pilot by taking a 15-day trial hosted on their servers. Why not give it a try?

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.helpdeskpilot.com/helpdesk/demo.php
License: 15-day Trial

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The Web Development Project Estimator is a simple tool that allows web designers and site developers to quickly and thoroughly estimate the time and materials required for a proposed web project.

To use, simply enter the title of the project and your default hourly rate. Then adjust your anticipated hours accordingly to generate your total project estimate. When finished, you can view your finalized estimate in a print-ready format in case you’d like to save a PDF or print a copy for your records.

Source: Web Development Project Estimator

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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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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

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Compfight is a home brewed flickr search tool specifically for the advertising / design community. The rails based ajax search bar pulls in a flickr feed at speed so that you can quickly scour the site.

You can restrict your search to the Creative Commons with “only”, and use the “commercial” setting for commercially usable assets. Blue bars indicate flickr is holding an original. Linger your cursor over the image to display dimensions. For nothing but originals switch Seek Original to “only.”

Source: http://www.compfight.com/

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Tour de Flex is a desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities and resources, including the core Flex components, Adobe AIR and data integration, as well as a variety of third-party components, effects, skins, and more. Tour de Flex has three primary purposes:

• Provide non-Flex developers with a good overview of what is possible in Flex in a “look and see” environment
• Provide Flex developers with an illustrated reference tool
• Provide commercial and non-commercial Flex developers a place to showcase their work

One of the objectives of Tour de Flex is to provide a place for developers to showcase their work. They are always looking for new samples to add. You can follow the instruction and complete the sample submission form in order to submit your own Flex work.

Requirements: Flex
Demo: http://flex.org/tour
License: License Free

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