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Recommendations

This guide is part of the Code Style Anchor Points section, a collection of external links from across this site, split by subject.

Please bookmark the Code Style home page before you go.

This Web site is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to the subject matter but the following books will give readers the necessary background. Links are provided to preview and buy online at Amazon UK or access the primary distributor for these applications.

Site management software

Web Page Analyser

By Andy King, Web Site Optimization

A free online service that downloads specified URLs and reports the full byte size of the HTML, CSS and Javascript attached to the document and comments on potential optimizations.

1-4a Rename

By Janik

A Windows GUI application for systematically renaming batches of files at high speed. Rename will operate on the name part, extension or both and can insert numeric sequences in the output file name. Beyond this, its "Expert mode" gets horribly complex, but its dynamic preview pane shows both the original and new file name under the current renaming scheme before you commit the changes.

Analog

By Stephen Turner

Analog is a Web server log analysis tool that can be run from the command line or via an HTML form and CGI on the host server. Analog has extensive configuration options, steams through large log files very quickly (without DNS look-up on) and generates reports in HTML with GIF format pie charts and bar graphs.

Cute FTP Pro

GlobalSCAPE Inc.

The standard version is very good and very popular, but the professional version is recommended, mainly for its Secure FTP facilities, but also for advanced synchronization and scheduling features. The simple drag and drop interface with transfer queuing is the great strength of both products.

P3P Policy Editor

IBM alphaWorks

A Java application for editing W3C Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) records in machine readable XML, human readable HTML and compact format for HTTP headers. The application validates records on the fly to flag omissions and likely problems and has useful guidance on how to apply the P3P scheme.

PuTTY

By Simon Tatham

PuTTY is a free Telnet and Secure Shell (SSH) client for Windows. PuTTY is formally a beta release but is robust and perfectly serviceable.

Search And Replace

Funduc Software

An incredibly fast multiple file text replacement tool that will churn through directory trees changing word for word or by regular expression using file name masks. Case sensitive replacements, whole word matches and replacement expressions can also be applied sequentially with scripts.

Tidy

By Dave Raggett

A Windows command line application for batch checking and optionally correcting or "tidying" a range of common HTML, XHTML and XML markup problems. Perhaps best learned and operated with an external configuration file, Tidy will flag Web accessibility issues, can be set to indent markup elements to a standard spacing, strip font elements, change i and b elements for em and strong and clean up Microsoft Word HTML output.

Xenu's Link Sleuth

By Tilman Hausherr

The Link Sleuth Web site looks quirky at first glance, but this free link checking application is robust and extremely fast. You can switch off external link checking and exclude specific URLs as required and save reports in proprietary format, for re-testing only broken links, or as HTML with a simple hyperlinked site map.

Image editing software

Photoshop 7.0

Package illustration for Photoshop 7.0 Adobe Systems

The latest version of Adobe's top of the range image editing package comes with a price tag to match, but if you can afford Photoshop you won't want for much more. The huge extent and precision of the features will take time to grasp, but the palette based user interface hides the complexity until you are ready to use it.

Photoshop incorporates ImageReady for Web optimisation with integral support for GIF and Javascript image animation that preserves original layers, masks and effects. Another valuable feature is the facility to record macros that can be re-played manually or used to run automated conversions on batches of images.

Photoshop Elements

Package illustration for Photoshop Elements Adobe Systems

If the full deal isn't in your price range, Adobe's cut-down version of Photoshop is a practical fall-back that retains compatibility with native .psd files. Photoshop Elements comes with a large share of the full product's key feature set.

Paint Shop Pro 7 10th Anniversary Edition

Package illustration for Paint Shop Pro 7 Jasc Software

Long regarded as Photoshop's poor relation, Paint Shop Pro has evolved into strong competition in recent editions, with independent layer control and vector based type and drawing tools featured. The user interface retains many of its long-standing idiosyncrasies, but is practically much improved over previous versions.

Paint Shop Pro supports a broad range of output file formats, and is gradually outgrowing its amateur status.

QuickTime VR Authoring Studio

Package illustration for QuickTime VR Authoring Studio 1.0 Apple

The original and best package for creating wrap-around "virtual reality" panoramas from a series of digital stills with a remarkably obvious user interface. Extensive pre-configured support for common lens combinations is complemented with fine manual adjustment and blending between each tile in the panorama. The internal hyperlinking scheme allows the creation of continuous VR scenes from multiple panoramas.

Markup editors

TextPad

Helios Software Solutions

A text editor that is optimised for HTML editing and Java coding, with configurable javac and java commands and a view "In Web Browser" option that works with static files or a local HTTP host. TextPad has pre-configured syntax highlighting for many languages, multi-file search and replace facilities with regular expressions, macros and many other convenience features.

  • TextPad (evaluation version available)
UltraEdit

IDM Computer Solutions, Inc.

A text editor with a similar feature set to TextPad, including syntax highlighting, external command configuration, macros and templates. It also features disc-based editing and fast search and replace operations with regular expressions and minimal RAM requirements.

Dreamweaver 4.0

Package illustration for Dreamweaver 4.0 Macromedia

The visual editor of choice for the majority of the world's Web developers is sufficiently versatile to be a very powerful tool for building modular, component based sites in responsible hands. However, this application will create a nested table layout at the drop of a hat and insert cargo cult markup "tricks" without hesitation, so it pays to have clear design parameters and check the source code.

Dreamweaver integrates closely with sister products, Macromedia Fireworks and Flash and is supported by many third party plug-ins for accessibility checking and short-hand coding.

Homesite 5.0

Package illustration for Homesite 5.0 Macromedia (formerly Allaire)

Similar in many ways to Dreamweaver, with re-usable code libraries, Homesite is the preferred tool for those who like to work directly with the source code and has a built-in markup validation tool. Homesite has colour coded syntax highlighting for all common markup languages, CSS and server side scripting including JSP and ASP, and will spider hyperlinks.

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