Imperial Software Systems is proud to provide five simple
solutions for the front-end coder. This April we take a look at the
Web’s best (and free) online development resources.

Color Scheme Generator 2 (Well-Styled)

Perhaps one of the most useful tools for any Web
developer. Create balanced color schemes and then test them against
simulated end-user visual impairments. Color Scheme Generator 2 won’t
have you regretting those Art History classes you skipped out on as an
undergraduate. This free online resource transforms even the worst
art-minded techie into a design guru. A preferred method of working
with this tool is to take a primary color of your Web page and enter
its hex value into the rough conversion input. From here, you can
select to view that color’s contrasting colors, or it’s triad, tetrad
and analogic colors. Go even further by filtering the colors to their
various pastel and muted forms. In a mere matter of minutes you will
have more than a full complimentary color schema to work with.

♣

Stripe Generator 2.0 beta

Never again will you painstakingly have to create
perfect, flush background tiles for your CSS Web sites. The Stripe
Generator handles all possible input values to give you maximum output
permutations. Select from a slew of attributes, including stripe size,
stripe spacing, colors, background, shadow, gradient and stripe
orientation. Each input value functions with user friendly sliders
and/or buttons. Refresh after each input to preview your optimized
background tile. When you are happy with your design pattern, download
the file as a .png for optimized page load times.

♣

Web Development Toolbar for FireFox

Chris Pederick’s
saving grace for FireFox users and front-end coders. The Web Developer
Toolbar not only helps during the design process by offering colored
outlines of document elements, to bind keys to validate pages, and to
turn off style and scripting elements – it functions as a brainstorming
and study guide for Web developers as well. With a few simple clicks
one can see how pages use scripting and advanced styling to function.
This is a must have for any serious Web developer.

♣

Validators (HTML, CSS, XML)

Check for standards compliancy for all of your mark-up and front-end
languages. A great tool for burgeoning SEO experts and Web standards
advocates. Simply enter a URL or upload a file from your local machine.
Detailed descriptions of errors and potential
“why-this-went-wrong-scenarios” make messy code maintenance a breeze.

♣

Lorem Ipsum Generator

Need dummy text? The Lorem Ipsum generator turns
first level layouts and mockups into professional design templates in
seconds. Simply select the number of paragraphs you would like to
generate, and within seconds a scalable slice of Cicero’s famous
oratorio is delivered right to your screen.