I Got Tired of Refreshing the Browser, So I Built WebMold

David Manuel Tchatchouang Nguena — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 16:48:06 +0000

Hey DEV 👋

I’m new to the DEV Community, and I’m really happy to finally be here.

I’ve been reading and discovering a lot of what developers share here — projects, experiments, lessons learned, and even the problems they run into while building. I really like that spirit, so I thought my first post should be about a project I’ve been working on for quite a while.

Why I started WebMold

I started building WebMold in January 2025, mainly because I was frustrated with my own frontend workflow.

It often looked like this:

VS Code → browser → refresh → inspect → VS Code → refresh again.

And when there was a UI glitch, things could get even more annoying.

Maybe something was overflowing. Maybe an element wasn't positioned correctly. Maybe one CSS property was affecting something somewhere else.

Then came the hunt through the codebase to find the exact element responsible.

At the same time, I realized something else: although I enjoy CSS, repeatedly writing the same HTML structures just to experiment with a design could be pretty boring.

So I started thinking about a visual editor.

I didn't want to build another no-code tool where your code disappears behind hundreds of styling controls.

I wanted freedom over the actual HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

That idea became WebMold.

What is WebMold?

WebMold is a visual HTML/CSS/JavaScript editor that lets you work with the DOM, modify your code and styles, and see the changes applied live — without constantly refreshing the page.

It also includes project import/export, because I wanted the projects to remain portable and under the developer's control.

Another goal is making it useful for beginners.

Instead of only reading about DOM nodes, CSS properties and JavaScript, they can interact with them and immediately see what happens.

Break something.

Change it.

Fix it.

Learn from it.

I also teach web development on Preply, so I’m especially interested in exploring how a tool like this can make learning web development more interactive.

WebMold v1.0.0 🚀

The first MVP currently focuses on:

HTML + CSS + JavaScript

But this is only the beginning. I’d eventually like to expand WebMold to support framework-based workflows too.

After many months of building, rebuilding, debugging and learning, WebMold v1.0.0 is finally live on Vercel.

🌐 WebMold: https://webmold.servicesllc.us/
👨‍🏫 Preply: https://preply.in/DAVID7EN41807260102?ts=17908717

Since I’m new here, I’d also really love to hear from other developers:

Have you ever wished you could experiment with a webpage visually while still keeping full control over the actual code?

I’m looking forward to being part of the DEV community and sharing more of the WebMold journey here. ❤️

DEV Community: David Manuel Tchatchouang Nguena

I Got Tired of Refreshing the Browser, So I Built WebMold

Why I started WebMold

What is WebMold?

WebMold v1.0.0 🚀