Welcome again to the world of coding! Web development is a fast-growing field, and it is sometimes very difficult to stay up-to-date with its latest news, developments, and inventions. This is why front-end developers must make full use of all the tools at their disposal in order to stay afloat.
In this article, I will share top Chrome extensions that can help you streamline your web development workflow and be useful in your future career.
What are Google Chrome extensions for?
Extensions are small software applications that bring new capabilities to your browser. They can perform completely different functions. For example, from spell checking while you type, to the password manager that securely stores your data.
There are literally thousands of extensions available for Chrome, and all of them can be downloaded for free from the Chrome Web Store. You can check which extensions are installed in your browser doing the following: enter “chrome: // extensions /” into the address bar.
Why Chrome?
In this article I am keeping my focus on Google Chrome, as it occupies a large share of the Internet browser market (over 65%). There are some other Chrome-based browsers that support extensions. However, we must remember that many of the extensions mentioned here have counterparts in other browsers such as Firefox or Opera.
Google Chrome is without a doubt the most popular browser in the world. In terms of user share, Google Chrome is well ahead of other major browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft Edge, and more. As I have written above, in just 10 years, Google Chrome has managed to gain over 65% of the market share. One of the key factors behind its explosive growth is the huge library of extensions that truly sets it apart from the rest, especially for web designers and developers. However, with such a vast library of extensions, it becomes a bit of a hassle to choose extensions for your day-to-day needs.
So, I have gathered about 30 Chrome extensions for front-end developers. Let’s start!
WriteWell
WriteWell is a very useful extension to help with any writing project – articles, e-books, novels, and blogs. This extension offers a large library of templates, tips, sample texts and catchphrases to guide you through the writing process.
DomFlags
This extension will help you to drastically speed up the process of creating elements with DomFlags. It will allow you to create hotkeys for DOM elements. This is very similar to bookmarks in DOM objects, such bookmarks will greatly simplify your work with DevTools.
Highly Highlighter
It’s a fun way to get people involved in discussion: Highly lets you share highlighted text from interesting articles on the web.
Booom
This app makes Dribbble better by showing larger thumbnails; adding Like and Add to Bucket buttons to the directory; allows you to do GIF autoplay.
CSS-Shack
Powerful tool for Chrome, allows you to create a design and then export it to a CSS file for use on the site. It supports layers and contains many tools that you can use in a standard photo editor.
Marmoset
This extension will help you to insert your code into screenshots of your demos and mockups. You can also add effects and create a promo for your portfolio.
iMacros for Chrome
As a front-end developer, you will need to test your site. Repeating the same process is quite tedious. iMacros lets you record actions, so you can call them just once. Then you run this action according to the given parameters and save a lot of time for yourself.
Font Playground
Every designer and developer will appreciate this app. Font Playground helps you experiment with fonts and Google Fonts on an online web page without making any changes. The beauty of this extension is that you can change the size of the font and apply various effects to it before adding it to the site.
Window Resizer
If you are doing a responsive website layout, then this Chrome extension is for you. You can easily see how the site performs on all popular devices.
Project Naptha
If you ever have to work with texts in mockups, then don’t despair, this Chrome extension will help you to select, copy and paste text from any image and translate it.
What Font
The name of this app speaks for itself. Do you want to know which font a brand has used? You can do it with one mouse click.
Yslow
This Chrome extension not only checks the loading speed of the site, but also shows what exactly is slowing down the site.
Web Developer
If you are a web developer and haven’t used this application until now, then we do not know how you lived. It adds a bunch of useful tools to the toolbar.
Page Ruler
This Chrome extension will easily help you measure any place on the screen.
Web Developer checklist
This tool will help you check your work in terms of SEO, usability and performance. Let’s say you have lost an H1 tag on your page, or there is no meta title or meta description. This Chrome extension can easily identify where the error is and help you fix it.
DevTools Autosave
This is a true treasure for web developers! This program allows you to automatically save any changes in CSS or JS using the tools of the Chrome Dev environment to its original file. It’s easy to set up and use, and it will save you a lot of time.
Instant Wireframe
This app allows you to overlay a modular grid on any website or offline screenshot with one click.
ColorZilla
This application is not just an eyedropper, it also helps you transfer color to any program and create gradients.
Ripple Emulator
Ripple Emulator is a multi-platform application that will help you test your web application using a wide variety of screen sizes and resolutions. You can also use it to find bugs and automated testing.
Streak CRM
Streak CRM for Gmail is the ultimate CRM management and email support tool.
Search Stackoverflow
This app adds a search button to the Stack Overflow site. The site itself is an analogue of Quora for web developers and will help you quickly solve your problem.
PHP Ninja Manual
It’s very difficult to memorize each function, and if you’ve spent hours searching on Google before, then this extension will make your life easier. It contains all PHP 5.5 documentation in 8 languages, all without leaving your browser.
PerfectPixel
Designers just hate it when they create cool designs, but in the process of coding it loses some of its ideas. This application is very easy to use, with one click of a button, you can overlay semi-transparent images on a site mockup and check pixel by pixel so that everything matches.
Code Cola
This cool tool allows you not only to view the source code you are working on, it also acts as a CSS editor.
User-Agent Switcher
Another application to see how the site will look on different devices.
IE tab
An application for the lazy or those who immediately demolish the hated Internet Explorer, and then remember that they also need to test the site on it. Converts your chrome to IE.
PicMonkey
An easy-to-use online photo editor that lets you work with screenshots, images and web pages.
Chrome Daltonize!
Among the people who use the Internet, there are those who suffer from color blindness. It is this application that will help you improve the design of the site so that it is comfortable to use.
Appspector
An Chrome extension that finds and shows which web utilities and JS libraries were used.
Check My Links
Already finished website development? But you forgot to check the links? It doesn’t matter, this Chrome extension will do everything for you.
Flickr Tab
Are you tired of how the new tab window looks in chrome? This app allows you to customize it with the best Flickr photos in the background.
Google Art Project
The principle of operation is similar to the previous application, only instead of a photo it shows the works of Monet and Van Gogh.
Conclusion
Hope this list of extensions will be useful for you. So hire front end developer and go on your programming path, be patient, and do not be afraid to accept challenges!
