Here is a very brief rundown of some of the new tools/tricks I’ve been using.
Komodo Edit. An open source code editor.
Wow, this thing rocks! So far I’ve only used it for HTML, CSS and Javascript editing, but I’m impressed. It’s free, cross-platform, has an impressive feature set, and is easy to use. FTP/SFTP is built right in, and it even highlights closing tags in HTML!
Superfish: a cross-browser drop-down menu builder.
After hating drop-down menus for nearly a decade, I’ve suddenly had a change of heart. When they work well, they’re great, they save space for the designer and time for the users, but when they don’t work well users and designers alike curse the internet gods. Superfish has played a key role in changing my mind. Of course, the process of getting a Superfish menu to work in every browser (ahem, IE6) is still a little bit finicky, but it’s nothing like what I’ve experienced in the past.
Jquery Cycle Plugin: a Jquery (javascript) slide show script with lots of features.
This is a pretty amazing little script, it takes a div tag full of images and instantly transforms them into a cool looking slideshow. There are an impressive number of features, and options, but I appreciate just how quickly I can create a fancy javascript only slideshow which degrades gracefully.
CSS – Clearing floats without extra markup: a trick I wished I had learned years ago.
This is an amazing trick, every web developer who has ever wanted his containing div to wrap fully below two nested and floated divs needs to read this now!