The Best Free Software – Webmaster Edition
Being a webmaster for over two years, I have found a wealth of free software such as editors, scripts, etc. to make your coding life easier! I have used all these scripts and programs when designing and maintaining my own websites.
Editors
Netbeans – All Platforms
All the tools software developers need to create cross-platform Java desktop, enterprise and web applications. Runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, as well as Solaris. It is easy to install and use, works right out of the box — and it is open-source and free!
Bluefish – GNU/Linux Only
Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.
PSPad – Windows Only
This is one of the nest editors available on the Windows platform.
Notepad2 – Windows Only
Another great text editor for code, etc.
Scintilla – Windows Only
Yet another text editor for Windows and other platforms.
Notepad++ – Windows Only
Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
MySQL Tools
phpMyAdmin – All Platforms (PHP & MySQL Required)
phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage keys on fields, manage privileges,export data into various formats and is available in 52 languages.
MySQL Query Browser – All Platforms
MySQL Query Browser is the easiest visual tool for creating, executing, and optimizing SQL queries for your MySQL Database Server. The MySQL Query Browser gives you a complete set of drag-and-drop tools to visually build, analyze and manage your queries.
MySQL Administrator – All Platforms
MySQL Administrator is a powerful visual administration console that enables you to easily administer your MySQL environment and gain significantly better visibility into how your databases are operating. MySQL Administrator now integrates database management and maintenance into a single, seamless environment, with a clear and intuitive graphical user interface.
File Transfer
gFTP – GNU/Linux
Typical FTP transfer program; comparable to FileZilla. gFTP supports FTP, HTTP, SSH2, and FSP.
Filezilla – All Platforms
This is a powerful FTP client that is way more stable than using IE.
Server Software
Web Developer Server Suite – Windows
I haven’t used this suite itself, but I have used all the included packages on my Linux servers every day. Although this is Windows only, you don’t need something like this to set it up on a *NIX server because of all the package managers available.
Apache – All Platforms
With a market share of over 59%, Apache is the most popular software for serving web pages on the HTTP. Plus, it’s free software!
MySQL – All Platforms
The database system I use every day.
PHP – All Platforms
Web scripting language no server should be without.
PHP Backend Scripts
These scripts do not function on their own. They are to be used in your programming to make it easier and help you to avoid reinventing the wheel.
TinyButStrong
TinyButStrong is a library that enables you to create HTML pages dynamically. It’s a Template Engine for the PHP language. It enables you to easily display information from your database, but also to seriously harmonize and simplify your PHP programming.
htmlMimeMail
This is a PHP class which allows you to easily send email from your PHP scripts with attachments, HTML and embedded images.
lastRSS
This is a simple yet powerful PHP class to parse RSS.
Snoopy
Snoopy is a PHP class that simulates a web browser. It automates the task of retrieving web page content and posting forms, for example.
TextilePHP
TextilePHP is a PHP implementation of the Textile shorthand syntax. Textile is used to create valid (X)HTML output without using HTML markup. It was originally developed by Dean Allen of textism.com, and several different versions (in several different programming languages) have been created.
GeSHi
GeSHi started as an idea to create a generic syntax highlighter for the phpBB forum system, but has been generalised to this project. GeSHi aims to be a simple but powerful highlighting class.
PHP & MySQL Front-end Scripts
phpBB
Since its creation in 2000, phpBB has become the most widely used Open Source forum solution. Like its predecessors, phpBB 3.0 “Olympus” has an easy to use administration panel and a user friendly installation process, which allows you to have a forum set up in minutes.
WordPress
WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.
Pivot
Pivot is a web-based tool to help you maintain dynamic sites, like weblogs or online journals. Pivot is released under the GPL so it is completely free to use. It is written in PHP, and does not require additional libraries or databases to function.
activeCollab
activeCollab is an easy to use, web based, open source collaboration and project management tool. Set up an environment where you, your team and your clients can collaborate on active projects using a set of simple, functional tools. 100% free!
Gallery
Gallery gives you an intuitive way to blend photo management seamlessly into your own website whether you’re running a small personal site or a large community site.
MyBackup
Enhance the power of phpMyAdmin’s export feature, and backup your database(s) and web files automatically using scheduled cronjobs. This script is great if you need to regularly backup your database and/or website files to a remote location, too, since you can FTP your backups to another server, or email them.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
