Mozilla says there’s no central index for tools built to help web developers do their jobs (and/or hobby projects) better, so it set out to build one of its own. Located at tools.mozilla.com and dubbed the Open Web Tools Directory, the organization is taking a swing at building the most extensive and comprehensible index of tools that modern-day web developers can use.
The first thing you’ll notice when you visit the website is the unorthodox – and relatively confusing – design, as you can tell from the screenshot above.
Explains Ben Galbraith on behalf of the Developer Tools team on the Mozilla Labs blog:
We went with a “space” theme to emphasize the sheer size of the tool ecosystem (though at the moment we only have a small fraction of the tools available listed). 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).
Luckily, there’s a search box at the bottom that allows you to browser for applications based on its name and category (Design, Code, Debug, Test, Deploy and Docs) which seems to do a decent job at weeding out the right applications from the directory.
Note that you need the most recent browser versions (Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome 2, or Opera 9) to explore the site, but I take it our readers will probably have at least one of those installed already anyway.
According to Mozilla, this is just the first step, and for now it’s inviting developers to submit tools for inclusion in the database themselves. The Mozilla team will review incoming entries and put them up asap. On the roadmap: social features and fresh display options.
(Hat tip to MoMB)
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