Whilst there are a number of web 2.0 and online tool directories out there, committed to highlighting interesting new applications. Mozilla has today announced a directory, appropriately called the Open Web Tools Directory, specifically for those freely available tools used by web developers across the web.
You’ll immediately the notice the slightly bizarre space-like theme that although very cool, makes it very difficult to immediately recognise any form of categorization. Plus, to even use it, you’ll need to be sure that you’re using a modern browser, i.e. Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome 2, or Opera 9 (but most developers will be anyway I suppose).
According to the Mozilla Labs Blog,
“we decided on the “space” theme to ephasize the sheer size of the tool ecosystem. And, frankly, we just couldn’t do another table-based master/detail database application; we wanted a directory that would be fun to use (and perhaps a bit of fun to create as well).”
There is however a search tool available at the bottom of the screen that searches all text fields across the directory, and you can limit the searches to particular categories.
Mozilla remind us that it is early days and while there are no social features, little detailed info about each tool and organization of the tools needs to be improved. All will be attended to, with your help, in the near future.
Well aware that a number of tools are missing, you can make a start by adding any tools you immediately notice as missing via a form that can be found here.
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