Top Useful Tools for Frontend Developers

With the increasing functionality of web applications and the demands of end-users, there is a need for more advanced development tools. Fortunately, many open source companies and communities are continually working to create powerful libraries, applications, and platforms designed to dramatically improve productivity and efficiency. Here’s a selection of the best frontend web development tools, including code editors, CSS generators, and JS libraries.

Code Editors

Frontend developers at https://sumatosoft.com/ spend most of their time writing code, so editors are their best helpers. Having mastered a particular code editor, a developer can significantly increase one’s performance. So here are some of the solutions that may come in handy.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) from Microsoft is a complete open-source IDE available under a free license. Its functionality allows you to create, test, and deploy complete projects. Key features of the VS Code development environment are as follows:

• Highlighting and code completion when specifying a data type, creating language constructs (classes, methods);
• Code debugging functionality;
• Built-in Git commands;
• Expansion of functionality by adding new language modules and themes;
• Ease of deployment of projects.

Atom

It is a powerful cross-platform open-source code editor that offers the following functionality:

• Communication with developers via Teletype from Atom;
• Git support, interaction with GitHub;
• Work with code on various platforms;
• Intelligent code completion;
• Tools to search, install, and create your own packages;
• Viewing project files;
• The function of dividing the interface into several panels;
• Searching and editing of files of various projects;
• Adding new styles, customizing the appearance and functionality of the editor by making changes to its source code.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text developers describe their product as an improved text, code, and markup editor. It is a paid cross-platform coding application with many different functions and features, including the following ones:

• “Goto Anything” functionality (shortcuts that provide the ability to search for code fragments in files to quickly find them in projects);
• Work with several files and projects at the same time;
• Powerful API and support for packages that extend the standard functionality;
• Split-screen function for working with multiple files;
• The ability to quickly configure any pieces of code;
• Ease of switching between projects.

Package Managers

Package managers are packs of tools for automating various processes: installing, configuring, updating, and removing applications. Using particular commands is an essential part of the day-to-day work of programmers, and the below instruments will become your real helpers.

NPM

NPM offers advanced functionality for package management, including the following:

• Node.js package manager, which allows JavaScript developers to share package modules;
• NPM registry, which is an open-source library for Node.js, front-end web applications, and more;
• NPM for installing and publishing packages.

Yarn

You can use Yarn only to install various modules and packages but also to share code. The instrument is also used as a project manager. Yarn is a stable, plugin-extensible, free, and open-source software with detailed documentation.

Bundlers

Module builders (bundlers) are designed to combine multiple modules into one or more projects for a web browser. And here are the tools that you can consider using for this purpose.

Webpack

At its core, Webpack is a package of static modules for modern JavaScript applications. In the process of analyzing a specific project, Webpack builds a dependency map, on the basis of which it determines the modules required for this project and generates them. Starting with version 4.0.0, Webpack no longer requires a config file in the project. In addition, Webpack is highly configurable to suit your specific needs.

Parcel

Parcel is the ultimate configuration-free web application bundler. It is able to bind project properties and contains a code separator and many other features.

Final Say

The above tools will significantly facilitate software development and make this process more effective. In case you do not want to do deal with front-end development, then you can always hire a professional company to write a code for you. To get a quality result, you need to provide an external software development agency with project specs, design files, and mockups if you have any.