Make the Best of Open Source: Web Designers and Everyone else- Part 1

January 20th, 2009 | 3 Comments

First thing I should be saying is “Give Thanks.” I love open source community. Different programmers and developers all over the world lets us their products and works. There are at lest 10- 15 open source software in my computer right now. Hey wait, I am blogging on WordPress CMS and that’s free too. You see, without these open source software our lives might fall apart. First here are the must have web designer software and then Mac and PC.

Text Editor

Mac

Smultron: A text is a web designer, developer must have software. Forget BBedit, (which is paid) and Text Wrangler, Once you use Smultron, you will never like anything else. I can use use any FTP Software and edit the CSS, PHP, HTML, Javscript file form the server with Smultron. Also, if you are editing HTML files, Smultron Generates a little thumbnails on the sidebar making it easy to see how the pages looks like. I love it so much.

Consider donating Peter Borg the developer at here.

Notepad ++: I think everyone knows about Notepadd ++. If you do not download it now !

Notepad++ is a free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.”

Basically it is a replacement of windows notepad (crappy). Notepad ++ is a WYSIWYG full featured text editor.

FTP

Mac

Fugu VS Cyberduck: These are two favorite mac FTP client both supports FTP, SFTP, WebDAV and many other features. But I would go with Fugu on any given day only for one reason. Here is it

: FUGU Source: iusethis

Cyberduck Source: Cyberduck.ch

Cyberduck only has the tree view, which shows me only whats on the server but not on my computer. But Fugu shows files on both sides which is easy for editing, drag and drop. Cyberduck also does drag and drop and Fugu is my preference here. I do not know about you guys.

Winscp: Winscp is one of the best open source FTP for windows computer so far. It is really easy to use. I used it myself and liked it. SmartFTP: Another good Free software PC, but it is not open source, but, hey it is free.

Cross Platform

FileZilla: Although the name resemables Mozilla, its not Mozilla’s product. Neverthelss, It is a great cross platform FTP Client. I tried it on Both Mac and PC and I have no complaints. i.FTP: I have no idea about this one. I have not tried it but it looks good. If you are interested in comparison between all the FTP clients there is here is link.

Image Editor

Mac

iPhoto: Comes it all the Mac. I barely use it. Now that Apple has added new Features Maybe I will give it a go. LiveQuartz:”LiveQuartz 1.8 is the latest update to the free graphics retouching application designed by Romain Piveteau for Mac OS X Leopard users. Multi-touch support for the trackpads found on Apple’s MacBook Pro and MacBook Air includes ‘Swipe’ for tools and layer control, ‘Pinch & Expand’ for magnification and layer zoom transformation and ‘Rotation’ for (what else) layer rotation.” Image Tricks: “Image Tricks is a free application for editing and generating images.It uses Mac OS X Core Image filters that transform pictures to unimaginable extent and apply advanced visual effects.” This one is actually quite good. It has lots of effects and filters. Give it a try. Free but not open source. Honorable mention to Pixelmator.

Paint.net: Graphics editor with a very nice interface.

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PC Image Editor: Free for non- commercial use. It does the basic editing jobs.

Cross Platform

Gimp: Do I have to say anything about this? I do not think so. I do have cofession to make. I am not a big fan of GIMP. Most web designer prefer Adobe Photoshop but it is Always good to have on the side.

Picasa: It is the google’s free image editing software. I really like it. I used is a lot on my PC and hoped they would release Mac and they did. If I want to a quick editing such as blur, I pull up Picasa and It does the job. Inkscape: Open source Vector graphics application.

Resources:

Free Graphics

Dry Icons Free Graphic Section: In here, you have lots of free Banner, logo, header, vectors to download. They also have a really high quality icon section too. Want more icons? Freegraphicsworld: They have free buttons, banners, backgrounds and lots more. Websiteicons: They have very little collections but it is free. Downloadpedia icons Section: This is Jackpot of free icons. They have Collections of free great icons from all over the web. picture-3 Free Templates