In this section you will find links to useful software that will help you develop your osCMax store. Most (if not all) of these software tools are open source or free to use.

Browsers

Firefox

The best development browser available. Combine with YSlow, SmushIt! and Firebug for an all singing all dancing web development experience. Link to Download

Chrome

Google's new web broswer - lightweight and fast. Link to download

Internet Explorer

Microsoft's effort at a web browser - useful for checking your code works on their platform. Link to download

Image Software

Irfanview

Excellent free image viewer with excellent batch processing capabilities. Link to download

Smush It! & YSlow

An excellent pair of tools for analysing your site - minimise those graphics and sort out your code to improve page load speed. Link to download

SVN Software

Subversion software allows you to download/upload the program source code from the latest release (which may be under construction or in testing)

Tortoise SVN

An excellent tool which interfaces directly with Windows Explorer.

Download

SVN Workbench

An excellent tool which with multi-platform capability.

Download Or direct from Linux repositories using apt/Synaptic

HTML

HTML Validator

Another Firefox addon which will validate the HTML output of your pages. Be warned you may be in for a shock on how much work you need to do to be valid! Link to download

W3C Website

Link to validator

Javscript Shrinker

Text Editors

For those people who like coding 'old school' style or need to make specific code changes.

Notepad++

Download

Editpad Pro

Download

Server Software

Read this section on how to set up a local copy of of your online store.

WAMP

WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache, PHP and the MySQL database. It also comes with PHPMyAdmin to easily manage your databases.

WampServer installs automatically (installer), and its usage is very intuitive. You will be able to tune your server without even touching the setting files.

Screen shots

Download

Download WAMP Server

Instructions

XAMPP

Download

XAMPP

EasyPHP

Download

EasyPHP

File Comparison Tools

WinMerge

An open source file comparison tool.

Download

Link to download

Instructions

Link to instructions

Meld diff viewer

An open source file comparison tool.

Download

Home Page Or from Linux repositories using apt/Synaptic

BeyondCompare

This software has a free 30 day trial but then must be purchased. $30 for basic. $50 for pro.

Link to download

FTP Software

FileZilla

FileZilla Client is a free, open source FTP client. It supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS). The client is available under many platforms, binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are provided.