The move towards developing responsive websites has introduced a set of new tools that help can developers learn the ropes fast and start producing cross-browser and non-device specific websites quickly and more efficiently. Let us see some of these tools and resources that you can leverage as we get deeper into responsive web design:
Adaptive Images
Your website is increasingly being viewed on smaller screens that consume low bandwidth. In addition to other challenges associated with developing for small screens, image resizing is one of the things to take into consideration. Fortunately, Adapative Images, a PHP script that works on any website, can help in this regard. Adaptive Images detects screen sizes abd re-scales versions of your HTML images, ultimately helping you deliver small images to small screens.
FitText
Have you ever desired to have scalable headlines that fill the width of parent elements when developing fluid layouts? The JQuery plugin will allow you to resize your fonts and ensure that they fit where they are supposed to regardless of the device or browser.
PhotoSwipe
Did you know that you can deliver fancy image galleries common on desktops to mobile devices? This free HTML/CSS/JavaScript library enables developers and designers looking to add the look and feel of native apps on their websites the ability to provide visitors with an intuitive interface to interact with images on your mobile website. It is compatible with all popular Javascript libraries and frameworks.
Less Framework
When building websites with multiple layouts, it is important to maintain consistency. By having a layout based on the same grid, it is possible to reuse elements by simply adjusting widths, font sizes or other small detail. This is the whole idea behind Less Framework. Having a common baseline grid allows everyone the freedom to keep writing code their own way while ensuring consistency.
Check out our series on Learning Less from Alex Ball.
Skeleton
By use of CSS files, it is possible to design responsive sites rapidly. Skeleton makes this possible by use of a lightweight 960-grid as its base that allows elegant scaling down from laptop browser windows to mobile window screens in both landscape and portrait format. It comes with lightly styled forms, tabs, buttons and other elements that form the basic foundation of any mobile website.
Responsive Testing Tool
Now that you have your responsive site under development, how do you test during development? It turns out that browser security will not allow you to navigate through frames. Matt Kersley, a designer and developer, has designed a testing tool to help you with that. The tool can be downloaded from Github and installed on your website hosting to allow testing during development.
Inuit CSS Framework
With HTML5 support, inuit.css comes with a custom grid builder for developing fluid grids. The framework is progressive and flexible; it sets sensible boundaries to what you can do while giving you total controltfo what you can do.
Please feel free to share some of your favorite tools for developing responsive web sites as well.
