Free tools to speed up web development [closed]

Answer 1

I'd recommend finding a CMS package, since you're using Django, look into django-cms. It has TinyMCE and Markdown Support so updating your pages should be easy. Also django-cms integrates well with the Django admin interface.

Answer 2

• A piece of paper to sketch your design
• A text editor (preferably set up to save directly to a development server local or otherwise) to write up the initial HTML/CSS
• FireBug/IEDeveloperToolbar to inspect each element that looks wrong and edit its CSS directly in the browser until it looks fine, followed by commits with the text editor

Answer 3

No idea what the site is going to be, but have you thought of using a pre-build CMS like Drupal, Joomla etc etc.? You can then tweak templates etc, rather than worrying about making it from scratch.

Answer 4

- http://patterntap.com/
- http://www.dotemplate.com/ (interesting concept of customizing template)
- http://www.templatemonster.com/
- http://www.freelayouts.com/websites/html-templates
- http://www.templateyes.com/

Answer 5

I've always found Open Source Web Design to be a good resource when looking to get started trying to design something.

Answer 6

I second Brandon's suggestion to use a CSS framework. It won't give you 100% freedom to design anything you like, but it can speed up your design process greatly and free up your hands to do the coding you really want.

Suggestions Updated July 2013:

• Twitter Bootstrap http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/ - complete grid, typo, UI widget prototyping framework
• ZURB Foundation http://foundation.zurb.com/ - responsive grid, type, UI widget prototyping framework (similar in scope to Twitter Bootstrap, but feels 'cleaner' in some ways)
• 960 http://960.gs/ - grid layout system
• Tripoli http://devkick.com/lab/tripoli/ - really good typography, but no grid system
• YUI Grids http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/ - very customizable (to the point of overkill) grid system
• Blueprint http://www.blueprintcss.org/ - grid system and basic typography
• BlueTrip http://www.bluetrip.org - a hybrid system, mixing the best of the Blueprint grid with the best of the Tripoli typography