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Handy Links for Web Designers & Developers
 
The following are links that I have come across over the years, and links submitted by other forum members. All of the products, services or tutorials featured on these websites are FREE!
 
Note: This list is by no means exhaustive, and will be updated periodically.
 
Accessibility Validation
 

Accessibility Color Wheel

HiSoftware Cynthia Says

Luminosity Colour Contrast Ratio Analyser

WebAim WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool)
 
FTP Clients And Servers
 

Cyberduck FTP Client (Mac OS X)

FileZilla FTP Client (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows)

FileZilla FTP Server (Windows)


PureFTPd FTP Server (Linux, Mac OS X)
 
Graphics Editors
 

GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Package (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Inkscape - SVG Vector Graphics Editor (Linux, Mac, Windows)
 
HTML Editors
 

Bluefish Editor (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Notepad++ (Windows)

TextWrangler (Mac)
 
Javascript Frameworks
 

jQuery

MooTools

Scriptaculous
 
Local AMP (Apache/MySQL/PHP) Web Servers
 

LAMP - Linux AMP Web Server (CentOS - Debian - SUSE - Ubunutu)

MAMP - Mac AMP Web Server (Mac OS X)

WAMP - Windows AMP Web Server (Windows)

XAMP - ApacheFriends.org Web Server (Linux - Mac OS X - Solaris - Windows)
 
Reference
 

MySQL Official Documentation

PHP Official Documentation
 
Tutorial Sites
 
CSS Tricks (CSS) gotoandlearn.com (Adobe Flash) kirupa.com (Adobe Flash) Learning jQuery (jQuery) Nettuts+ (web development) Photoshop Lady (Adobe Photoshop) Psdtuts+ (Adobe Photoshop) screencasters.heathenx.org (Inkscape) Smashing Magazine (various)

The Tech Labs (Adobe Flash)

Tizag (web design and development)

Tutorialized (Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop)

tutvid.com (most Adobe applications)

Vectortuts+ (Adobe Illustrator)

W3Schools (web design and development)

WDF (various)

Web Designer Depot (various)
 
Web Design Tools
 

Animated AJAX Preloader GIF Generator

CSS Menu Generator

CSS Menu Maker

Diagonal Stripes Background Generator

EM Calculator

FavIcon Generator

Gradient Image Generator

HTML Color Codes

Javascript Email Address Encoder

"Lorem Ipsum" Text Generator

Online Image Optimizer


Readability Test Tool
Web Development Tools
 
HTML to ASP Converter HTML to PHP Converter

Javascript Code Obfuscator

Javascript Code Validator

Not just over-priced. They are the evil.
 
I spent over $100 at Magento Go and basically got nothing, cancelled my store 4 days after signing up.
 
My full story: http://www.kavoir.com/2011/09/magento-go-test-drive-review.html
 
1. They DELETE your support tickets without responding in any way.
2. They respond to your tickts every 1 or 2 days (IF they respond AT ALL) - simply unacceptable for mission critical sites such as ecommerce stores.
3. There is NO WAY you could delete / scramble your credit card information there, EVEN after you have cancelled your plan. This makes me very very uncomfortable. After submitting 2 tickets requesting my CC to be deleted, it's been over 2 days and they DIDN'T RESPOND in any way.
 
Oh, and they charge your credit card even after you have cancelled your store: http://www.shoppingcartsforwebsites.com/general/magento-go-review/#comment-469
 
Horrible story. Do yourself a favor and AVOID them at all costs....

This is the standard .htaccess file which ships with magento
 

############################################ ## uncomment these lines for CGI mode ## make sure to specify the correct cgi php binary file name ## it might be /cgi-bin/php-cgi # Action php5-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-cgi # AddHandler php5-cgi .php ############################################ ## GoDaddy specific options # Options -MultiViews ## you might also need to add this line to php.ini ## cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 ## if it still doesn't work, rename php.ini to php5.ini ############################################ ## this line is specific for 1and1 hosting #AddType x-mapp-php5 .php #AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php ############################################ ## default index file DirectoryIndex index.php <IfModule mod_php5.c> ############################################ ## adjust memory limit # php_value memory_limit 64M php_value memory_limit 128M php_value max_execution_time 18000 ############################################ ## disable magic quotes for php request vars php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off ############################################ ## disable automatic session start ## before autoload was initialized php_flag session.auto_start off ############################################ ## enable resulting html compression php_flag zlib.output_compression on ########################################### # disable user agent verification to not break multiple image upload php_flag suhosin.session.cryptua off ########################################### # turn off compatibility with PHP4 when dealing with objects php_flag zend.ze1_compatibility_mode Off </IfModule> <IfModule mod_security.c> ########################################### # disable POST processing to not break multiple image upload SecFilterEngine Off SecFilterScanPOST Off </IfModule> <IfModule mod_deflate.c> ############################################ ## enable apache served files compression ## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip # Insert filter on all content ###SetOutputFilter DEFLATE # Insert filter on selected content types only AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript # Netscape 4.x has some problems... BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html # Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip # MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html # Don't compress images SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary # Make sure proxies don't deliver the wrong content Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary </IfModule> <IfModule mod_ssl.c> ############################################ ## make HTTPS env vars available for CGI mode SSLOptions StdEnvVars </IfModule> <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> ############################################ ## enable rewrites Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on ############################################ ## you can put here your magento root folder ## path relative to web root RewriteBase /catalog/ ############################################ ## workaround for HTTP authorization ## in CGI environment RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}] ############################################ ## always send 404 on missing files in these folders RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(media|skin|js)/ ############################################ ## never rewrite for existing files, directories and links RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l ############################################ ## rewrite everything else to index.php RewriteRule .* index.php [L] </IfModule> ############################################ ## Prevent character encoding issues from server overrides ## If you still have problems, use the second line instead AddDefaultCharset Off #AddDefaultCharset UTF-8 <IfModule mod_expires.c> ############################################ ## Add default Expires header ## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year" </IfModule> ############################################ ## By default allow all access Order allow,deny Allow from all ############################################ ## If running in cluster environment, uncomment this ## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags #FileETag none

just a quick follow up.. magento supplies a .httaccess.sample or similar.. there are quite a few magento extras that you should use as well as above snip

You should never replace the default themes with your customised theme.. they will get wiped out the next time you do a minor upgrade.
 
All you need to do is to create a new template folder alongside default in /design and /skins
 
It is no fun recreating themes every time an upgrade happens and if you continually over write you could lose our on important bug fixes from the Magento team.
 
cheers
 
Andy
dx3webs.com

Have you cleared your cache and disabled/refreshing Magento's in built caching options (always do this for development).
 
EDIT: To flush the cache
 
System > Cache Management
 
Refresh the Catalogue rewrites, Go to All Cache, Change the drop down to refresh & Click Save
 
[end edit]
 
Make sure you have a .htaccess file in the root directory of your Magento installation. If not, create one and try this (or redownload the magento files, find the .htaccess in their, and then overwrite the one in the root directory),
 
I've not tested this .htaccess - it's written under the assumption php is being running as CGI/SuExec and not as a module - it uses the HTTP authentication fix found here: http://www.besthostr...th-php-cgi.html.
 

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> ## enable rewrites Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on ## Magento root folder goes here, path relative to website root #RewriteBase / ## workaround for HTTP authorization in a CGI environment RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}] ## always send 404 on missing files in these folders RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(media|skin|js)/ ## never rewrite for existing files, directories and links RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l ## rewrite everything else to index.php RewriteRule .* index.php [L] </IfModule>
 
 
Alternatively, if you're running it locally, this could be the problem. Some versions of xampp has issues with Magento, i think other localhost software could well be similar.
 
Otherwise, your best bet is probably to post over in the Magento forums.

The line isn't drawn very well. Use this:
 
http://www.stripegenerator.com/

Well if you need any help with anything please let me know

Hello Chap,
 
Wordpress has some fantastic plugins for contact forms and recaptcha is a great captcha form. Not only does it stop spam it helps OCR of books.
 
Contact 7 for wordpress used to work great for me but no longer works. I currently use cformII whic is amazing.

I use CoreFTP, it's free and seems very stable.

I could build a form for you and then you can sign up for recaptcha and use that its prob the best captcha.

Hehe, I second what ErisDS said. You've got to get your hands dirty in Wordpress, it's really fun!

yep, the best thing you can do is just get stuck in. More importantly make mistakes and learn to solve them - only then will you really start to learn

As I said to you in a PM, it's very hard to explain how it all works to you when you have absolutely no CMS starting point to explain from.
 
Get stuck in, have a go with a basic theme and once you have Wordpress setup and doing something like what you want it to you will begin to understand what Wordpress is capable of and how.
 
Whether you start by building a theme, or start by playing with someone else's it doesn't really matter, the first thing you need to do really is actually install Wordpress and take a look at the software itself!
 
At the moment you're kinda asking how to make spaghetti bolognaise before you've figured out what a saucepan is!

I like to use jQuery Cycle. You can check it out on my site!
 
I think you can get a basic wp theme going in about 5-10 hours, depending on how complicated you'd like it to be.

Javascript slideshows such as jquery based ones and a flash slideshow called cu3er definitely work in wordpress

I find it time saving to download this theme, which is the bare bone minimum of wordpress, and then build it from there up, adding HTML, images and CSS.
 
I think this way is much easier for newbies since instead of building the HTML and then putting in the unfamiliar wordpress content, you get the hard part out of the way, and then build the HTML/CSS that you already know.
 
And to answer your question, you can do any floating, sprites and other techniques as you would normally use in any other website.
 
Cheers!

Hey there thanks for the niceties, i have used all but Drupal in the past but belive it's similar to Joomla.CMS' are not the toughest thing to figure out once you have used a few of them. If there is decent documentation it's a case of picking what's best for the site in question.
 
As far as state of the art software, yeh some real smarties make DW etc but at the end of the day they are just human and well i have no idea why it fails. It seems to be very slow, inconsistent and periodically will not let you connect to servers.

I use Dreamweaver for uploading files on a one to one basis only. For large bulk uploads a stand alone client is a must. DW fails horribly at that. Although you can flip into passive FTP mode which seems to help slightly.

Well you usually just pull your html/css/image files from your directory straight into CyberDuck - it pretty straightforward, you just drag and drop

I have confidence in myself that I can fix anything Magento throws at me. But I also know there are plenty of people out there that know it better than me and will happily take my money if I were to get stuck.
 
I don't imagine it would ever happen, and I certainly am not going to spend hundreds or thousands on an insurance policy! I'm a dev, I solve problems, it's what I do!

Unless your clients earn mega-money I'd take the risk and if something goes that wrong you can always find and pay some Magento-specialists to sort it out!

If you want to use the standard theme it's very easy to implement. It takes no more than an hour. The problems start to appear when your client wants something a little bit more special. Things that may seem very simple to do will give you the biggest headaches. Trust me, you will curse the Magento developers a lot at the beginning. You will probably get paranoid and think that they made it so hard to customize just to make more money by charging for support (200 per hour or something like this). And maybe you wouldn't be so paranoid after all...

Welcome to WDF!
 
Avactis is a decent cart system so if it fits your needs why hot host it on your own site? It's not without it's niggles (what cart doesn't have niggles!) but it performs well. The big issue for me was that the cart generates some HTML TABLE code from scripts and not via templates, and you can't generate all LABEL values properly. That aside developer support is good and that's is cruicial for any online ecommerce venture.
 
Magento, as ErisDS said, is powerful. It's really aimed at the "enterprise" level site, hosting requirements are quite strict as well so VPS or Dedicated hosting is recommended.
 
There are plenty of shopping cart systems around that can be customised to match any design or other requirement. Some are easier than others to modify than others.
 
I'd suggest looking through all the carts you see at Hotscripts to see which ones match your needs, or if you have a spec list and budget I'm sure people will recommened a few to look at.

Magento is, in my opinion, by far the best e-commerce platform out there. Hotscripts is in no way a good measure of whether an application is any good.
 
Magento comes in two versions. The free community version, or the fully supported enterprise version which costs something like £12,000 a year.
 
I use the free version. It is quite tough to setup, but very, very, VERY powerful.