In this article I am going to write about some useful tools which may help web developers reduce their work load while working with CSS. References of these tools have been collected from various famous tech blogs. I tried to mix up different tools for different purposes.
Related reading
You may like to read one of our previous writing on CSS – All about CSS : Useful blog post on CSS3

CSS Processor

CSS Processor gives you the option to be more productive within short time. There are so many CSS Processor out there. Every single of them gives you extensive support based on their special ability to process CSS to it’s extend.

Less CSS

LESS is an extension of CSS. You can write LESS code just like you would write CSS, except you need to compile it to CSS. LESS uses existing CSS syntax. This tool got some mindblowing option like Variables, Mixins, Nested rules, Operations and many more. See there Docs

Sass

Sass makes CSS fun again. Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more. It’s translated to well-formatted, standard CSS using the command line tool or a web-framework plugin.

Turbine

Turbine is a PHP-powered tool that introduces a new way for writing CSS. It’s syntax and features are designed to decrease css development time and web developer headache. Have a look at their Docs

CSS Porcessor

CSSP extends the CSS language to help you develop and maintain sane CSS code. Now you can do what you’ve always wanted to do in CSS:

* Define constants in CSS files, and use them throughout your codebase.
* Import constants from other files.
* Emit browser-specific CSS code.

IE Converter Tools

Still Internet Explorer holds major market segment in browsing software. Though developers try to avoid IE for their development purpose, but good developers try to keep in mind their website should be all browser’s fruit! Below you will find few tools which helps you eliminate problems that we face while writing CSS for IE.

Selectivizr

selectivizr is a JavaScript utility that emulates CSS3 pseudo-classes and attribute selectors in Internet Explorer 6-8. Simply include the script in your pages and selectivizr will do the rest.

IE6 CSS Fixer

A tool specifically designed to ease the pain of the ie6 css debugger. If you want to read up on all the specifics, I advise you to check the articles on the ideology, the specific fixes and the scope of this tool.

CSS Optimizer

Compress, optimize your CSS code to load your website faster. Most of the developers now using these tools for optimization, hence YSlow is a popular tool for testing CSS size and loading time which can be used along with Firebug for Firefox browser. It gives you and option to cmpress the whitespaces within inline codes, but for even better results I will suggest using following tools for your optimization.

Clean CSS

CleanCSS is a powerful CSS optimizer and formatter. Basically, it takes your CSS code and makes it cleaner and more concise.

CSS Optimizer

Online CSS Optimizer/Optimiser is a web tool for reducing the file size of cascading style sheets. In order to save more space optimized files would be messy even so you may output it as a file.

CSS Drive -> CSS Compressor

Use this utility to compress your CSS to increase loading speed and save on bandwidth as well. You can choose from three levels of compression, depending on how legible you want the compressed CSS to be versus degree of compression. The “Normal” mode should work well in most cases, creating a good balance between the two.

CSS Frameworks

Who like to write down same CSS-Code or any other Markup twice? It’s very common scenario web developer has to face repeated classes and ID’s used on previous projects. CSS Framework gives you the way of using reusable predefined styles for your new project. Below I am going to showcase few of them.

Blueprint CSS

The framework offers an easily customizable grid, sensible typography, a typographic baseline and a stylesheet for printing. It also uses relative font-sizes, provides a CSS reset and is supposed to be cleaned of code bloats. (Recommended by Sven Lennartz on Smashingmag)

960 GRID SYSTEM

The premise of the system is ideally suited to rapid prototyping, but it would work equally well when integrated into a production environment. There are printable sketch sheets, design layouts, and a CSS file that have identical measurements.

Elements

Elements is a down to earth CSS framework. It was built to help designers write CSS faster and more efficient. Elements goes beyond being just a framework, it’s its own project workflow.It has everything you need to complete your project, which makes you and your clients happy. Read the Overview for more information.

Few other CSS tools

Below you will find source of different tools with different functionality.

Blueprint Grid CSS Generator

This tool will help you generate more flexible versions of Blueprint’s grid.css and compressed.css and grid.png files. Whether you prefer 8, 10,16 or 24 columns in your design, this generator now enables you that flexibility with Blueprint.

Colors Palette Generator

Upload an image to generate a color palette based on the image’s primary colors. Useful for quickly grabbing a particular color within an image for inspiration.

W3C CSS validation service

W3C validation for CSS, This is the ideal place to check your CSS script’s validity. While valid you will get a W3C Valid CSS badge

You will contribute now

I tried to include most common yet useful tools that we frequently use over development purposes. It is for sure you may have already gathered even better resources for your CSS job. Please share with us your valuable experience about these tools. For those who are still thinking of using such tools you can always check with us or leave a comment so that we can refer you with better tools. Please subscribe our RSS feed and help us grow.

Yes there are conflicts. We should remember every new technology which tries making changes to its previous trend, face difficulties. In case of CSS3 I believe, will make its way very soon to all the browsers and developers will adopt it as they are already doing with CSS 2.0. Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome has already given its support to CSS3 standard, only question remains with Internet Explorer. Hmm as a website developer do you like IE? You know your answer but as a common internet user Internet Explorer is the first option because it comes up with Windows for free, moreover that’s the only browser installed and I think it is not IE8 may be IE6 or IE7. In this case all out css3 is definitely not for you. Because it will not work on IE at all, in many cases your site will be a piece of disaster to these viewers, unless you don’t define a separate CSS especially for IE. Getting the right choice for CSS version depends on your target market. Most of the users of my blog use Firefox, then chrome, Safari and finally IE. Though my number of IE visitors are very less I made a substitute CSS for them, so that it runs fine in front of their blinking eyes. So decision is up to you, remember you as a developer have lots of option, “which one is best?” you know that better than others.

“All about CSS” – with this title I am just trying to list some useful post about CSS3 I have found so far from different blog post. They helped me a lot and I believe it will help you to enhance your CSS3 skills.

Related Readings:

• CSS3 Previews
• CSS3 Roadmap

Useful blog post on CSS3

Stronger, Better, Faster Design with CSS3

33 Must Read CSS3 Tips, Tricks, Tutorial Sites and Articles

An article by Dainis Graver is in 1stwebdesigner.com. The post includes 33 different links about CSS3 tips, tricks and resources. A “All in one package”.

Styling HTML Lists with CSS: Techniques and Resources

Smashing Magazine is my first choice. They do have a huge number of resources and yes their writers know what they are writing. This article is all about stylist HTML Lists. Article is written by Louis Lazaris.

22 Advanced CSS Text Effects And Web Typography Tips

Advanced CSS text effect tools, resources and tutorials written by Dainis Graveris.The article describe how you can spice up your website by using cool text effect using css3.

Pushing Your Buttons With Practical CSS3

Design your buttons with css3. It is easy, without any technical puzzle game and reusable with different colors. The writer ZURB present some key techniques about building beautiful, efficient buttons for your website by CSS3

Only 5 for this post, but if you go through this link it is more than enough for a good start. More to come in future even I will try to share some new feature very soon. Now it is your part to share. Let me know how you liked it. Did I missed something?