Front End Development Tools

In a matter of a couple of years, front end development tools have come a long way. Thanks to these progressive tools, developers can build the layout and interface of the website hassle-free and efficiently.

As a front end developer, you will be developing web designs using programming languages like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It gets more difficult to choose the right set of front end development tools as the number of tools in the market increases.

Top Frontend Development Tools

To make things easier for you we have compiled a list of the top 15 front end development tools in 2022, including:

• Atom
• Sublime Text
• Visual Code Studio
• Sass
• LESS
• Git
• Chrome DevTools
• HTML5 Boilerplate
• CSS Reset
• Bootstrap
• Codepen
• ESLint
• Jasmine
• Jira
• BaseCamp

In the next section, we will divide these tools into seven different categories so that you know which tool is best for what kind of use cases.

Our All-Time Favorite Front End Development Tools

There is a wide range of front-end development tools for different requirements for HTML, CSS and JavaScript including code editors, version control systems, preprocessors, testing, project manager, and front end boilerplates.

Here is a curated list of top front end development tools that can be beneficial for your next project.

Code Editors

As a developer, you spend most of your time writing codes, so, one tool that you need the most is the code editor. There are numerous code editors in the market but the best ones of them are Atom, Sublime Text and Visual Code Studio.

Atom

It is a free and open-source text and source code editor, written in JavaScript and embedded in Git Control. Atom is a feature-rich text editor that supports many programming languages like JavaScript, Python, C/C++, Haskel, and Go. It comes with adaptable plugins, themes, functions for APIs and languages you use.

Key Benefits of Atom:

• Git and GitHub version control
• Built-in package manager
• Smart auto-completion
• Multiple panes
• Cross-platform editing
• Free of cost

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a sophisticated, versatile, commercial, and fast text and source code editor. It supports several programming and markup languages. Sublime texts help with the automation of repetitive tasks so a developer can focus on the important stuff. Its interface is user-friendly and fully customizable and is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Key Benefits of Sublime Text:

• Multiple encoding support
• Smart auto-completion
• Easy change of syntax, indentation, and sort setting with Command Palette
• Multiple selection support
• Unlimited operation canceling
• Fully customizable display
• Python API allows plugins to augment built-in functionality

Visual Code Studio

VS Code is an open-source and free code editor developed by Microsoft that is suitable for cross-platform development. It has been redefined and optimized for building and debugging web and cloud applications. VS Code has a unique solution - IntelliSense, enabling smart completion according to the function definition, variable types, and imported modules.

Key Benefits of VS Code:

• Easy debugging
• Syntax highlighting
• Embedded GIT commands
• Code refactoring
• Snippets

Version Control Systems

Version control systems help developers to manage and keep track of all the changes in the source code over time. It enables developers to check and revert to the earlier versions of code if required.

GIT

Git is undoubtedly the preferred version control system for most developers. It is a version control system, capable of handling small to large projects efficiently and quickly. It allows the development team to work with the same code file of a project simultaneously without worrying about overwriting others' work. Git enables developers to create multiple autonomous code parts and make the creation, integration, and deletion of code smooth and easy.

Key benefits of Git:

• Easy testing and debugging
• High-speed work on large projects
• Cryptographic user data protection
• Branching model to easily create, link and delete independent code lines

CSS Preprocessors

CSS is a style sheet language for styling web pages, and CSS preprocessors make the creation of attractive sites easier. Due to this, CSS Preprocessors have become the mainstream of front end development workflow. These preprocessors extend the CSS functionality by adding a wide range of logical syntax. CSS preprocessors also help developers to generate CSS from the unique syntax of the preprocessor itself.

Sass

Sass is one of the most used CSS preprocessors. Sass compiles style sheets into CSS. With Sass, you can use nested rules, variables, functions, and mixins in a CSS compatible syntax. Sass organizes large stylesheets and makes it easy to share designs across projects. Sass has two different syntaxes, i.e., SCSS and Sass, where each one can load the other.

The SCSS syntax is a superset of CSS, which means that all the valid CSS is a valid SCSS.

The Sass or indented syntax supports all the same features as SCSS but uses indentation instead of curly braces and semicolons.

LESS

Leaner Style Sheets or LESS is a backward compatible CSS language extension. If you have learnt CSS, learning Less becomes easier as it looks similar to CSS. It has made a few additions to CSS like variables and loops to make working with CSS simple.

Key Benefits of LESS:

• Clean code structure, thanks to nesting
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Faster updates
• Fast and easy coding

Developer Tools

While building a website or web application, you might want to make modifications and test these changes' looks in your browser before committing those changes. Developer tools help you with that.

Dev tools are the functions in-built on modern web browsers that enable developers to see code behind every section of the website with just a few clicks.

Chrome DevTools

We recommend Chrome DevTools for this purpose because, in most scenarios, developers use Google Chrome as the browser to check the view of the site. Chrome DevTools is a set of web developer tools directly built into the Google Chrome browser. Chrome DevTools help in editing the page on the fly and diagnose errors quickly to help developers in swiftly building a more efficient website.

Key Benefits of Chrome DevTools:

• Advanced breakpoint support for debugging Graphics
• Easily explore local HTML5 databases
• Functions execution time analysis to improve the site speed
• While reloading the application, the trace is redrawn and relinked
• Dynamic CSS and DOM to control web page appearance

Front end Boilerplate

Boilerplate or boilerplate code refers to the code section that needs to be included in different places with little to no changes. Boilerplates save developers from repetitive tasks and speed up the development process. HTML5 Boilerplate and Reset CSS are the top picks when it comes to front end boilerplate.

HTML5 Boilerplate

HTML5 boilerplate is a professional template for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that helps in developing fast, adaptable and robust web apps or sites.

Key Benefits of HTML5 Boilerplate:

• Mobile browser optimized
• Javascript libraries
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Caching static content with .htaccess

Reset CSS

Every browser has its cascading style sheets that are used to display non-styled sites that create difficulties for CSS coding. So, Reset CSS aims to minimize the inconsistencies in the browser like margins, font sizes, line heights, etc. To reduce the risk of cross-browser compatibility issues, developers can reset the browser's CSS settings to zero with Reset CSS.

Online Coding Environment

Online coding environments are the sites that allow you to write code and view the results next to the code immediately. These coding environments are the fastest way for developers to learn and experiment with different coding techniques from developers in the same environment.

CodePen

CodePen is an online development environment for front end developers that enables them to test and showcase HTML, CSS and JavaScript code snippets (pens). A developer can build a website, deploy it, show off their work, build test cases to learn and debug. With the large and active community of developers, one can also find inspiration from their work and support when they need it.

Key Benefits of Codepen:

• Customizable interface
• Private pens
• Allows you to customize your site's code demos
• Easy assets (images) holding
• Online IDE
• Live code collaboration

CSS Framework

CSS frameworks are a must-have for front end development. CSS frameworks are packages of multiple CSS stylesheets that are ready to use for standard web design functions, such as layouts, fonts, navigation bars, colors, and so on.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is the most used, free, and open-source CSS framework built by the Twitter development team and offers a detailed UI package. Bootstrap contains HTML, CSS and JavaScript extension templates for labels, typography, boxes, forms, navigation, and other interface components.

Key Benefits of Bootstrap:

• Flexible and easy to use
• Remarkable advancement speed
• Lightweight and customizable
• Fewer cross-browser bugs
• Responsive structure
• Strong community support

Testing

Testing and reviewing your code for a potential bug or error in the web app or site is a critical part of the application development. It is the only way through which one can ensure the proper functionality and performance of the web application or website.

ESLint

ESLint is a pluggable and configurable static code analysis tool for detecting and reporting on problems and errors in ECMAScript/JavaScript code. Some of the problems identified by ESLint are automatically fixed. It helps in minimizing bugs and making code more consistent.

Key Benefits of ESLint:

• Strong documentation
• Easy migration
• Autofixation of errors
• Allows developers to create linting rules
• Pluggable rules

Jasmine

Jasmine is a behaviour-driven open-source testing tool for JavaScript that aims to run on any JavaScript platform. It doesn’t depend on the frameworks of JavaScript and doesn’t require DOM. Jasmine comes with a clean syntax that allows developers to easily write tests.

Key Benefits of Jasmine:

• No external dependencies
• No DOM requirement
• Easy code testing

Project Management Tools

Project management tools help managers to control the workflow of the team that is collaborating on the same project and deliver the project on time they have committed to. Put simply, project management tools facilitate project planning, task management, bug and error management, resource allocations and time tracking.

Jira

Jira is part of the agile network management solutions suite that empowers team collaboration. Jira helps development teams to plan, assign, manage, track, and report work while bringing teams together for agile application development.

Key Benefits of Jira:

• Improve agility of the organization
• Align teams at a large scale
• Improve operational efficiency
• Deliver better results

Basecamp

Basecamp is an online collaboration tool that helps in managing teams and their work together while communicating with each other. Basecamp allows a manager to divide teams into separate projects where each project includes people involved, discussions, documents, files, tasks, important dates, and everything else related to the work at hand.

Key Benefits of Basecamp:

• Intuitive and easy to use
• Collaborative Project Management
• Hassle-free third-party tools integration for synchronization and backup
• Built-in communication features
• Cross-device compatibility
• Excellent customer support

Ending Note

So these were the leading front end development tools that are essential for modern applications’ front end development. These tools will improve your workflow when it comes to complex technical aspects of the front end development of an application or website. As a developer, you must choose the tools based on the requirements of your project.

Source: Front End Development Tools