Chip's Web Tools Page

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A List of Tools and Resources for Web Development by Chip Chapin

Chip's Home > WebTools

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This is my general list of links to resources for web development technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, PHP, CGI scripting, Perl etc. It also features a few of my own tools.

Contents
	Client-Side	Server-Side	Other
	HTML	Apache	Tools
	CSS	HTTP	Miscellaneous (mySQL, XML, ...)
	JavaScript Chip's JavaScript Resource List Chip's JavaScript Tutorial	PHP Menu Generation Tools Other PHP Tools
		CGI/Perl

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Netscape HTML Tag Reference: This Netscape Developers' document is easy to use, and one of the first places I look.
W3C HTML 4.01 Specification (December 24, 1999): Straight from the source. Must-read for any picky points, and a gold mine of info regarding the transition to CSS.
Microsoft MSDN Library: Use the Table of Contents to go the Web Development Section. In June 2001 Microsoft merged their old Web Workshop into their MSDN Library The original workship index is still available here.
Index DOT HTML: An HTML reference site maintained by Brian Wilson. Features include an alphabetic index of HTML elements with descriptions of their attributes, along with a key which indicates which browsers support each element and attribute. Also includes a handy list of character entities, an element tree, and historical notes.
Builder.com HTML Tag Reference: This feature at the Builder.com Web Design Library has replaced the old ZDNet Developer HTML Tag Library. It's brief and useless. I'm leaving the entry here as a reminder to me to check the other Builder.com features.
NCSA (at UIUC) Beginner's Guide to HTML: Dated, but still a useful guide to all sorts of basic HTML.
Univ of Kansas HTML Quick Reference: Just what it says, a very terse quick reference. Can be hard to find what you want.
The comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html FAQ: There is good info on some arcane stuff here, including "how to preset the Subject in a 'mailto:'".
W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (May 5, 1999): Useful advice for making pages more accessible to people with visual impairments.

Dave Raggett's HTML/CSS Tutorials

Getting Started With HTML
Adding a Touch of Style (using CSS)
Advanced HTML: These three docs fit together nicely and would make a nice tutorial presentation at a conference (that's my bet for where they came from). The first is very basic, and the "Advanced" doc is spotty in its coverage, but I found the CSS doc quite helpful.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

W3C CSS 2 Specification (May 12, 1998): This is the reference where all CSS attributes are actually defined.
Dynamic HTML in Netscape Communicator: Part 1 of this document is devoted to CSS. Part 2 is about positioning HTML content using style sheets and Layers.
Microsoft's MSDN Library: Use the Table of Contents to go the Web Development Section. In June 2001 Microsoft merged their old Web Workshop into their MSDN Library The original workship index is still available here.
Style Sheet Reference Guide from WebReview.com: The biggest problem in using CSS is keeping track of what works and what does not work on a given platform & browswer. The article by Eric Meyer includes a Master Compatibility Chart, a matrix showing which CSS features are not supported or are buggy in various browser/platform versions. Other features here include a brief CSS FAQ and my favorite, the Overview of the CSS Specification, a handy reference summary.

JavaScript

I maintain a separate page of JavaScript references, as well as a series of tutorials:

Chip's JavaScript Resources & References: My own set of links for JavaScript.
Chip's JavaScript Tutorial Examples: My own collection of tutorials and examples. It really needs updating.

PHP Hypertext Preprocessor

I highly recommend the use of PHP for server-side preprocessing of your HTML files. It is widely supported and very easy to use. PHP is free software, distributed under the GPL.

Chip's Survey of PHP Dynamic Menu Tools: This is my survey of a number of menu generation tools, with a particular eye toward PHP tools for generating DHTML menus.
Chip's HTML_TreeMenuXL Package: My own adaptation of the Pear package HTML_TreeMenu.
Chip's Survey of Other PHP Tools: A survey of various PHP tools including authorization, templates, and more.
Chip's ccBrowserInfo Package: ccBrowserInfo is my PHP tool for server-side browser analysis.
PHP.net: The primary PHP community site, including the essential annotated on-line reference manual, and an important set of PHP links.
PHP Annotated Reference Manual: The annotated on-line reference at PHP.net is a vital tool and deserves it's own link.
Zend Home Page: Zend is "Where PHP meets ebusiness", it is the commercial effort of some key PHP developers. The site includes a large number of PHP resources, including the Code Gallery.
Zend Intro to PHP: This introduction is one of many PHP articles and resources on the Zend site. It's a good starting point.
PHP Classes Repository: A good-sized repository of various user-built PHP source components. This collection of useful stuff should be consulted before one starts to code on their own.
Pear Package Library: Pear is affiliated with PHP.net and is an effort to produced a standardized library of classes. Some of these are quite useful.
SourceForge: The SourceForge site includes a vast number of PHP projects.
phpWizard.net: Community site by the authors of the book Web Application Development with PHP 4.0. phpWizard.net offers a variety of PHP tutorials and tools. However, there do not appear to have been any updates since August 2000, and some articles are inaccessible.
TheWebMasters.net: TheWebMasters.net is the home for PHPFast Templates and other tools.
PHPFast Templates Tutorial: Tutorial by Joshua Curtis on how to use PHPFast Templates.

Apache Web Server

Apache is the most widely used web server, available for just about any platform you want. Even if you don't manage your site's web server, most of us eventually find it essential to learn certain things about server configuration. I run a private Apache server just for testing and it has been a huge help. Apache is Free Software, distributed under the GPL.

Some of the links cited here (e.g. on user authentication) would apply to other web servers as well.

Apache Software Foundation: http://www.apache.org/: Umbrella site for the Apache Software Foundation. Includes news and links to various projects (including Apache, of course).
Apache HTTP Server: http://httpd.apache.org/: Home for Apache server. Includes links for downloading the source code, making contributions and bug reports, FAQ and general documentation on all current versions.
Apache Server Docs: Reference manual, tutorials, and release notes for the current released version.
Apache Server-Side Includes (SSI) Tutorial: If you don't use server-side scripting, then SSI can be one of the most important Apache features from the standpoint of a web page developer. This is what all those ".shtml" pages are using...

User Authentication

Apache Week Article: Using User Authentication: Standard reference for Apache users, covering use of the htpasswd program, the content of .htaccess files, and server configuration.
Apache Week Article: DBM User Authentication: An advanced sequel to Using User Authentication, this article describes how to use a DBM database instead of plain text file for userid/passwd storage.
Tutorial on User Authentication by Justin Miller: This easy-to-read tutorial covers the basics of password protection and allow/deny using .htaccess.

Apache Today's "Apache Guide" Series on Authentication: A four-part series by Rich Bowen. Unless you're interested in the specific topics of Parts 2-4, you won't find much new here. Part1 introduces .htaccess, discusses password protection and using allow and deny. Part2 is about making Apache use DBM databases for password authentication. Part3 is the same, only for mySQL. Part4 shows some techniques for managing password lists using Perl.
NCSA httpd Mosaic User Authentication Tutorial: Early reference in this area, equally applicable to Apache and other servers.

HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

When we do server-side processing, eventually we have to learn more details about HTTP. Want to generate a POST message using PHP? Well here you go...

Jim Marshall's HTTP Made Really Easy: I searched for a long time before I found this one. Marshall's doc is the only one I've seen so far that actually provides readable explanations of how to generate the headers of the various request types. This is probably all you'll need.
RFC2616: HTTP/1.1 Specification (at W3C): Latest official HTTP spec, but very formal and hard to read. Want to know about headers? This is the place... For lots more information see W3C's HTTP index page. Another useful source is a description of the 1992 HTTP "spec", a more readable (if less authoritative) reference.
LibWWW (at W3C): W3C's library of C code for implementing the HTTP 1.1 protocol. Even if you don't want the code itself, it makes a good reference for how things are supposed to work.
Netscape Spec: HTTP Cookies: Netscape's preliminary specification, "Persistent Client State: HTTP Cookies" provides a simple and readable introduction to the client-server protocol required by cookies. It is referenced, for example, by the PHP manual.
PHP Cookie Test: My version of a test by Sean McLean. Useful for diagnosing client problems.
RFC 2965 -- "HTTP State Management Mechanism": The October 2000 internet standard for HTTP cookies.
Microsoft's Description of Cookies: An overview document with links to various resources, including relevant Microsoft support issues and external standards.

CGI, Perl and Forms


NCSA Common Gateway Interface 1.1 Specification: The official spec for CGI/1.1. Especially useful are the reference sections on environment variables and on standard output (which discusses the header protocol).

UIUC's The Common Gateway Interface: Another standard reference for CGI. Now a bit dated.
University of Kansas: An instantaneous introduction to CGI scripts and HTML forms and
University of Kansas: Building blocks for CGI scripts in Perl: Both of these UKansas documents are very helpful, both as a reference and as a tutorial.
CGI.pm - a Perl5 CGI Library: This is the library that I've been using recently (e.g. for the Cinnimon Haze guestbook). Besides decent documentation here, you can also download it.
Official Guide to Programming with CGI.pm: Links to Wiley's website for Lincoln Stein's published CGI.pm book. Not as useful as the other link above..
www.perl.com - Documentation: Useful resource, but it's slow so you're often better off using the man pages on a Unix system.

Miscellaneous

Netscape Developer's Site: Netscape's center for all sorts of developer resources, including HTML, JavaScript, Java, and lots more.
MySQL Documentation: MySQL is the leading open source relational DBMS.
Frequently Asked Questions About XML: Microsoft has put together a really helpful reference about XML. It's sufficiently technical to be useful. There's probably more good stuff accessible off this link.
W3C Markup homepage (HTML and XHTML): W3C really owns the HTML and XML standards, and their homepage not only has useful info but also has useful links.
W3C Web Style Sheets homepage: Many handy links covering CSS, DSSSL, XSL and more.
IRT.org: The IRT (Internet Related Technologies) site has a huge amount of resource material for JavaScript and many other web technologies such as HTML and XML.
Newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html: Primary newsgroup for WWW authoring info.
Posix 1003.2 Regular Expressions: An HTML copy of the man page for Posix re's.

Tools

D.J. Delorie's Lynx Viewer: What do your web pages look like using Lynx? DJ provides this valuable public service.
Muquit's "Count" homepage: Most popular "counters" package for use in web pages. Extremely versatile.
W3C HTML Validator: Validate the HTML syntax of your web pages through this service.
W3C Link Validator: Validate all the links on your web pages through this service.
HTML Tidy Utility: A great HTML prettyprinter from Dave Raggett. I use this all the time, via the HTML-Kit plug-in.
Chami's HTML-Kit Editor: A very nice non-WYSIWYG editor with many helpful features. Includes built-in preview pane, TIDY interface, FTP interface, and much more. This is the editor that I've been using since abandoning Netscape Composer.
EVRSoft's Editor (formerly 1st Page 2000)
NoteTab Editor
TopStyle CSS Editor: A reduced version called TopStyle Lite is included with Chami's HTML-Kit editor.
HTML Reference Library: HTML Lib.

Chip's Web Development Resource List