Success of a CMS web development project is invariably and intrinsically associated with the efficiency of your chosen HTML editor. Choosing wrong or inefficient HTML editor can have disastrous impacts on your ongoing CMS web development project and that means you have to be a bit more cautious to ensure smooth completion of a project next time.

You may be comfortable with an HTML editor but as an expert CMS web developer, you need to have a viable alternative so that you stay above the fray even in a critical situation. Here in this article, we are going compile a long list of HTML Editors that may prove highly effective:

CKEditor: – CKEditor is highly sophisticated WYSIWYG editor that offer almost unlimited compatibility. It is basically a JavaScript application and it works with almost all types of server technologies. This HTML Editor is compatible with almost all modern web browsers for example: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Mozilla Firefox etc. What is all the more interesting about CKEditor is that it is even compatible with the old Internet Explorer 6.

CKEditor is available under flexible Open Source and commercial licenses and it can be integrated in any application easily and effortlessly.

TinyMCE: – It is another powerful HTML WYSIWYG editor that is based on JavaScript. It is good at converting HTML TEXTAREA fields to editor instances. Despite its innumerable advantages, it is extremely easy to manage and you can integrate it into any content management systems without facing any trouble.

WYMeditor: – It is primarily a web-based WYSIWYM editor that is crafted carefully to create well structured XHTML code. The codes that are generated by this HTML editor conforms to the W3C XHTML specifications. Some other features of WYMeditor are:

• • It is highly customizable. You can change plugins, force attributes and themes if you wish.
  • It is easy to integrate with any CMS.
  • It is compatible with almost all modern browsers.
  • For saving and loading content, AJAX can be used seamlessly with this HTML editor.
  • It is available for free.

jWYSIWYG: – It is an inline content editor that allows users to edit HTML content. It is more or less a viable alternative of WYMeditor but this is not half as feature rich as the WYMeditor. However, it is still good at creating tables and some other basic tasks.

NicEdit: – It is another popular HTML editor that is extremely lightweight and at the same time, it is compatible with almost all major web browsers. It can be easily integrated into any CMS within few second. What’s more, it can be employed for converting standard text areas to rich editing.

YUI Rich Text Editor: – This HTML editor works fine with YUI library and it is highly customizable. A high level of customization is possible with YUI Rich Text Editor, as there are options for advanced implementations.

Tryst with JavaScript has got a whole new dimension as rumor is doing the round that Google is doing something to overcome the intricacies of JavaScript. However, till now most of the designers loathe JavaScript intensely as it makes the embedded section of a website virtually invisible to majority of search engines. However, JavaScript is immensely powerful that can give dramatic twist to a website as far as website design is concerned. Now, there is a solution. You can make your website SEO friendly even if it is developed in JavaScript. What you have to do is to create a separate external JS file and put all the script there. By employing this trick, you will be able to make your visible as well as impressive. Now, if you are confident about using JavaScript in your website, you need to try out these below mentioned jQuery Tools and Resources that will help you spice up your website a little bit:

jPhotoGrid: – It is by no means an ordinary jQuery Tool. By using this jQuery Tool, you will be able to convert simple list of images successfully into a grid of photos that can be zoomed in and out. The styling effects are mainly done in the CSS file. The trick is mainly done by converting images to absolute position and this is what allows users to zoom in and out images by using their mouse.

Reel: – This is a great jQuery plugin that enables viewers to get a 360° view of something. If you can master the art of utilizing the advantages of this jQuery plugin, you will be able to a create a live projection. It is a viable alternative of Flash that is still being employed for the same purpose. Here are some of unique aspects of Reel: -

• It works finely with an existing CSS
• No need to use any browser extensions.
• Offers support for stitched images.

Coin Slider: – Coin Slider is a highly popular image slider plugin that can create beautiful transition effects. This plugin is compatible with most of the browsers and that means you would not have to face any trouble regarding compatibility issue any longer. Here are some other aspects of Coin Slider: -

• It comes with navigation box.
• You can customize it by making changes in CSS file.
• It is extremely light in weight and that means, it would not have major impacts on the site speed.
• Auto Slide option is there.
• Valid markup

Nivo Slider: – It is another powerful jQuery image slider that comes with 9 amazing transition effects. It is extremely light weight and easy to use. It comes with both control and directional navigation and it can perform seamlessly in different web browsers that include Safari v4, Google Chrome v4, Firefox v3+, Internet Explorer v7 etc. Some other features of Nivo Slider are:

• Keyboard Navigation
• It is absolutely free
• It offers support for linking images
• It comes with valid and clean markup
• 9 jaw-dropping transition effects

Presentation Cycle: – Though Presentation Cycle closely resembles Cycle, there are some differences as far as its functionality is concerned. Presentation Cycle generates a progress bar whereas Cycle only generates a list of clickable numbers. What is all the more interesting about Presentation Cycle is that it automatically generates a progress bar instead of adding HTML manually. Some other features of Presentation Cycle are enumerated thus:

• It is compatible with all modern web browsers.
• Generate progress bar almost automatically.
• Animation times can be adjusted.

Designing a website is simply the best way to showcase your creative impulse and passion since it allows you to get connected to a much larger section of audience which is still unthinkable in any other traditional methods such as exhibiting your works in an Art Museum or something similar to that kind. Moreover, there are options to make changes in a design even after the completion of the project and this is what has given it an edge. This might sound good for the website design industry but the same does not hold true for the website designers since, it ruffles their feathers a lot to make major changes in the structure of the design to make it look all the more interesting and impressive. You know how irksome it is to make changes in the design of a website but iterations have almost become an inseparable part of website design. If this is not enough, they have to deal with some algorithms, not mathematical of course, and that do not give them enough room for  making experiments.

Iterations: Do They Impossible To Avoid?
Well, it seems, there is no way to escape iterations. No matter how efficient or talented you are as a designer, you might find it overwhelmingly difficult to come to term with your clients. Usually, it is the communication gap that leads to umpteen number of modifications and if you fail to put a tap on it, it will sooner or later snowballed into a major crisis that can have detrimental impacts on the creative process. Though it is not that easy to translate the requirements of your clients properly, you need to try your best as far as possible. But the number of iterations can be kept to a minimum by if you can manage to master the art of some simple design algorithms that can prove highly effective in the long run.

Here are some of the common elements of web design algorithms that you need to give utmost attention before proceeding further:

Theme: – Choosing the theme of is certainly one of the few crucial steps that you should give utmost attention. You should take different approaches while designing different websites.

Style: – The style of a design can be bracketed into a specific category. Depending on the style and pattern of a website, you need to bracket a website in any of these categories:

• Artistic
• Photo Manipulation
• Professional
• Cartoonish

Now if you have to deal with a design project that does not fit in any of these categories, it should be categorized as – “Other”. But first of all, you need to scan the proposed requirements of clients thoroughly before putting it in any of these categories.

Elements: – A wide variety of elements are used in the website design process. As these elements directly correspondence to the theme of a website, you need to be a little bit particular. For example, if you are to design a Tech website, you should not use any element that is not related to it. Make sure that the elements are going to play constructive role and not the other way round.

Take Criticisms In Your Stride: – Be open to constructive criticisms because it will help you to hone your skills. Asks other designers and give attention to their feedbacks.

Let’s suppose that you are going to start your career in the field website design. But it is not that easy as it may sound. Now, if you are determined, there are good reasons to be, to pursue your career in this field, you need to have a collection of tools otherwise; your hope to excel in this sphere might dash to the ground. Almost all website designers rely on a certain set of tools without which they might find themselves in a tight situation. There are certain apps and tools that have almost become indispensable in this field and here in this post, we have tried to include some of the most popular tools that can make your life a bit comfortable:

Code Editor: – Failing to find out a Code Editor can make your life literary pathetic. As an aspiring designer, you should never allow problems getting the better of you. Though there are a number of code editors available online, you should be a little particular while making the selection. We would like to suggest you to use Espresso or CSSEdit, as they are simple in structure and easy to use. And do not forget about Dream Weaver. It is considered to be the best Code Editor as of now.

FTP Client: – If you have to upload files on recurrent basis, Transmit would be your perfect choice. It is extremely simple in its form and it offers a different level of functionality that will make your feel great about it. Filezilla is certainly another viable alternative of Transmit that is widely used by a large section of website designers.

Task Organizer: – Managing and synchronizing all your tasks is certainly one of those few issues that have direct impacts on the creative process. Though there is no scarcity of online task manager tools, almost all of them come with cumbersome structure and complex features. TaskPaper is one of those few tools that can prove extremely helpful as it will let you manage your tasks simply.

Photo Editor: – Photoshop is simply unrivaled in this field. It is simply the best as well as the most reliable program that you can have. It comes with a number of amazing features that will let you do almost anything with an image. In fact, if you do not know how to use Photoshop, I fear you need to think twice before being considering yourself as a website designer.

Vector Program: – Illustrator will certainly have a powerful say in this sphere. However, it is lagging behind other programs and the reason is still shrouded in mystery. It is like PhotoShop a powerful tool but it is not half as popular as it is.

Mail Client: – Problem of plenty can be felt in this sphere as the number of mail clients have surged beyond our imagination. But it would be better if you use Google Apps for managing your mails, you will definitely have a peace of mind. In fact, there is no better way to streamline your emails than taking resort to Google Apps.

A number of rules and regulations have stringently been imposed in the field of website design to maintain a certain level of consistency and usability as far as web standard is concerned. These rules are minutely monitored and often restructured by website designers to maintain a standard in web industry. But you would not have to keep your creative impulse in check all the time just for the sake of maintaining these standards. Here in this article, we have tried to break this myth by adding some web design rules that you can break without caring a fig for anything else on earth:

Minimal Use of Font Faces: – Web standard has it that a designer should not use too many fonts in a website since it can distract the attention of the viewers. But you can easily go against this rule if you have that level of creative impulse or if you want to do something different this time around. However, while using different fonts in a design, you need to make sure that the design is text oriented otherwise; you will not have enough scope to showcase your strength.

No Horizontal Scroll Bar: – The very sight of horizontal bar is certainly a big no for majority of website designers. But sometimes, you have to struggle with the structure of a design if it contains too many elements and if there are restrictions on height on the website. At that point of time, you will have no other options than than increasing the width of the website. You can make a dramatic difference in the structure of the design by introducing a horizontal scroll bar. You can make it look really impressive or can make it look slightly different from the rest of the others.

Use Different Colors for the Background and The Text: – It is a common practice among website designers to use different colors for the background and the texts so that the text can be read easily. But unless you have a certain level of authority on website design, you are sure to mess up the entire thing miserably. By applying the same colors in the text and the background, you can generate a desired outcome.

Too Many Colors is A Big Turn Off: – Designers are repeatedly told not to use too many colors in their design as visitors do not like to see a rainbow in a website. But this is not true all the time. You should try different combination of colors as long as they look good and impressive. By applying different varieties of colors, you can make your website look good and really impressive.

Navigation Has To Be Simple: – Navigation of a website has to be simple as far as possible since visitors are not comfortable with complex navigation systems. As online visitors do not have the patience to wade through your complex navigation systems, designers are forced to make their navigation simple. However, if your clients give you permission, you can go ahead with your plan to create a navigation structure that will be primarily aimed at experienced web surfers.

If you are to start your career in the field of website design, you will have to shell out anywhere between 199$ to 699$ to have an original version of Photoshop. But this is not the end. Sooner or later you will start feeling a pinch in your pocket as you have to purchase a series of software packages such as DreamWeaver, Corel Draw and so on and so forth. Simply, it is not feasible for most of us to dish out money all the time. So, you need to have a list of free portable programs that will make you life a little bit easy:

GIMP: – This is a perfect program for carrying out some crucial tasks for example, image authoring, image composition, photo retouching etc. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and it comes with a number of amazing features that can prove highly effective for both the website designers and developers. Besides being utilized us a simple paint program, you can try it as image format converter, online batch processing system, image format converter etc.

X-Inkscape: – Inkscape comes with a number of advance SVG features that include alpha blending, clones, markers etc. It is best for streamlining interface. Inkscape is also good at tracing bitmaps, performing complex path operations, editing nodes and many more. You can be a part of its thriving community for exploring more about it.

IcoFX: – With this program, you will be able to master as many as 40 amazing features and that even at amazing speed. Virtually there is no limit on the number of icons that you can create by using this amazing app. What is all the more amazing about IcoFX is that you can convert your favorite images into the icons or the other way round. You can even create or edit icon libraries by making changes inside he exe files.

Font Matcher: – This can come in handy while choosing the best font for your web design project. Start with selecting your fonts directory and therefore, you will easily be able to compare different fonts with the given bitmap. To get this application working, you need to runVB 6.0 in your machine.

Active Pixels: – It is a full-fledge photo editor which is enriched with a number of amazing features that will let you do almost anything with images. It comes with auto enhance options that includes highlight recovery, shadow recovery, denoise settings, correction and many more.

X-Blender: – Blender is one of those few 3D creation software suites that are available for free. By using X-Blender, you will be able to create interactive 3D content, movies, high quality 3D graphics and many more.

Font Viewer: – With Font Viewer, you will be able to get a quick view of both non-installed and installed fonts. By using Font Viewer, you will be able to organize fonts categorically or can even install and uninstall fonts efficaciously.

Riot: – RIOT stands for Radical Image Optimization Tool. It is a free image optimizer and with it, you will be able to make adjustment in the compression parameters without making major changes in the file size.

Posting great articles cannot alone make your website design blog as popular as Smashing Magazine. Even Smashing Magazine has not done it in a day. They toiled hard days after days incessantly and emphasized on creativity and this is what has helped them to emerge as the most preferred destination for majority of website designers. Now, do not kill time by following the footsteps of others because imitation cannot bring permanent success. You need to do something drastically different to make your visitors glued to your website. Though there is no hard and fast rule to success, you can try out these below mentioned tips to ensure a better outcome at the end of the day: -

Increase Interaction: – Allow your visitors to speak whatever they like after reaching your website. You can encourage interaction in your website by integrating Facebook Connect or alternatively, you can add a community section in your website. However, you need to make sure that members are discussing issues related to website design and not about world cup soccer. You need to post something that gives value to the members. You should debar yourself from posting just for the sake of filling out a page.

Make It An Enjoyable Experience: – Do not overboard your web design blog with information and images. Try to add it a twist by adding something different that will act as fresh breath. Encourage participation in your website by making the entire thing an enjoyable experience. You can post something interesting in your blog even if it is not directly related to the theme of your blog. In short, you have to add a certain level of flexibility in your website to make it great.

Use a Good Footer: – Footer is the fag end of a blog or a website and therefore, you need to make it as interesting as possible if you want to retain your visitors. If you add some interesting elements at the end of your website i.e. footer, visitors might find it worthy enough to spend few seconds more. Here is a list of things that you can add at the bottom of your blog:

• Recent blogs posts
• Tag clouds
• Twitter Updates
• Facebook Update
• Popular blog posts

Search bar: Visitors do not have time to wade through your long list of articles to find something about their favorite topic. Therefore, you need to add a search button in your website and try to place it at a prominent place so that visitors can locate it easily.

Social media icons: By adding information about your presence in different social media websites, you can bring a dramatic difference in the perception of your visitors. However, you need to make sure that you have an impressive presence in all these social media sites. You can encourage your visitors to follow you as well.

Collating information about the behavior of the visitors of a website is one of those crucial tasks that you can only ignore at your own peril. Unless and until you are aware of the behavior of your visitors, success will always play truant with you. You can take pride in having a great website or having a great website design but that does not ensure success at the end of the day. Now, there is no scarcity of free web analytics tools online. But not all web analytics tools are alike and not all of them offer similar features and therefore, you need to be a bit choosy while making a final decision:

Google Analytics: It is probably the best, free and the most versatile web analytics tool that you can have in the virtual world. You are likely to get whatever you want from it. It comes with a number of amazing features that will let users get a clear and insightful analysis of their website. You can check location of visitors or you can sort them out according to IP location, country etc. Even you track the source of the visitors, search engine traffic and many more things and that even at amazing speed. By using this tool, you will be able to make modifications in your existing marketing mix or you can determine whether you are in the right track or not. What is all the more interesting about Google Analytics is that it is extremely users-friendly and that means you would not have to be a geek for utilizing the utilities of Google Analytics.

Yahoo! Web Analytics: – If you nourish a grudge against Google, here is the best alternative of Google Analytics. Yahoo! Web analytics comes with almost similar kind of features that you wish to have to access all the information to make a thorough analysis your website. Real time data tracking, printable reports, custom-designed and graphical presentations are some of its unique features that you will definitely want to explore to add a competitive edge to your ongoing Adword Marketing campaign.

MochiBot: – This web analytics tool is more or less an asset for flash websites. You can track who is doing what with your flash content or how many times or how many people have seen your content. You can even prevent content theft by monitoring your flash website meticulously in MochiBot. You just need add a few lines of codes in the .FLA file, which you would like to track and nothing else for this purpose.

FireStats: – This web analytics tool is developed in PHP/MySQL and it is extremely simple in form and structure. Its main advantage is that it offers support to a wide variety of platforms that include WordPress, Joomla, Django sites, Drupal, C# sites and many more. FireStats is offering developer a chance to develop custom apps based on the data featured on FireStats.

4Q: – This web analytics tool is distinctly different from the rest of its clan. 4Q not only pinpoints the drawbacks of your website by featuring data but it also offers suggestions what you should do to increase traffic to your website. You would not have to face any major trouble while setting up 4Q.

Woopra: – This web analytics tool is written in Java. With intuitive management system and robust user interface, Woopra is really making its presence felt in this domain. You can even run this web analytics tool on multiple websites. Live chat option is there and that means you can interact with your website’s visitors whenever you want or wherever you want.