Mozilla has launched a Open Web Tools Directory aimed at web developers. There are plenty of tools available free for web developers but it’s hard to find all you need for a project. The Open Web Tools collection aims to solve this problem by including the tools links in one place.
The interface of the directory is designed well with nice effects, but it may be confusing to users. Unless you know the logo of the tool it’s difficult to make out what the tool does. Clicking on the logo will give a short description of the tool, but in a sea of 70 or so applications finding the right one is a difficult task. There are six categories of tools currently, classified as Design, Code, Debug, Test, Deploy and Docs. (A modern browser like Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome 2, or Opera 9 is require to view this page). Open Web Tools is also available in Plain html version if you are confused with the interface. There is a search box for searching the web tools.
Currently there are not many tools listed there, but they will update the site with more tools in future. If your favorite tool is missing you can suggest it to be added to the directory with this Google Spreadsheet Form.
From Mozilla Labs weblog
There are an immense number of tools that have been created to help web developers. Unfortunately, you might never know this; there’s no central index of these tools. It turns out that keeping up with all the development in this space is really difficult–even for folks like us who have been tracking it every day for years.
As we’ve explored different tools we could create here as part of the Developer Tools Lab, we’ve come to the opinion that in addition to creating new tools, one of the best things we could do is help developers understand the broad universe of tools that already exist and expose some of the fantastic and amazing work that’s being done.
