There are two main CSS properties that control text selection highlighting: user-select and -webkit-user-select. These properties are used to specify whether or not users are able to select text on the web page.
To disable text selection highlighting in CSS, you can set the value of the user-select property to none:
body {
-webkit-user-select: none; /* for Safari */
-moz-user-select: none; /* for Firefox */
-ms-user-select: none; /* for Internet Explorer */
user-select: none; /* for modern browsers */
}
In this example, the user-select property is applied to the body element, which means that text selection highlighting will be disabled for the entire page. If you want to disable text selection highlighting for a specific element, simply apply the property to that element instead of the body element.
It’s important to note that the -webkit-user-select and -moz-user-select properties are vendor-specific extensions, and are used to ensure compatibility with Safari and Firefox, respectively. The -ms-user-select property is used for compatibility with Internet Explorer. The standard user-select property should work in all modern browsers.
Yes, we know we’re a bit late to the party, what with the :has() selector making the rounds of web design and development headlines. But better late than never, right? So let’s dive into this new feature of CSS and see what it’s all about!
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The CSS :has() selector is a type of complex selector that allows you to select an element based on whether it contains a certain other element. This selector is a powerful tool that can be used in a variety of ways to create advanced styles for your website. Here are some examples of the advanced uses of the :has() selector:
Selecting Parent Elements with a Specific Child Element
One of the most common uses of the :has() selector is to select parent elements based on the presence of a specific child element. For example, if you want to select all the li elements that contain an a element, you can use the following code:
li:has(a) {
background-color: yellow;
}
Selecting Sibling Elements
Another advanced use of the :has() selector is to select sibling elements based on the presence of a specific child element. For example, if you want to select all the td elements that are siblings of a td element that contains an a element, you can use the following code:
td:has(a) + td {
background-color: yellow;
}
Selecting Grandparent Elements
You can also use the :has() selector to select grandparent elements based on the presence of a specific child element. For example, if you want to select all the ul elements that are grandparent elements of an li element that contains an a element, you can use the following code:
ul:has(li:has(a)) {
background-color: yellow;
}
Selecting Elements with Multiple Children
The :has() selector can also be used to select elements based on multiple children. For example, if you want to select all the p elements that contain both an em and a strong element, you can use the following code:
Finally, you can use the :has() selector to select elements based on the presence of specific attributes. For example, if you want to select all the input elements that have a required attribute, you can use the following code:
These are just a few examples of the more complex uses of the :has() selector. With its powerful syntax, it can be used to make complex selections that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional selectors.
It’s important to note that the :has() selector is not supported in all browsers, so it’s always a good idea to check the browser compatibility before using it in a production environment.
If you are running a web design business, your portfolio website is one of your most important tools to attract new clients. In order to actually generate leads through your website, you have to get people there, and that means you need to continually generate new content along with having it optimized for search engines. If you’re a freelancer or small business, that means you are not only a web designer or developer, but you also have to wear the hat of the content creator. How are you supposed to find enough hours in the day?
This is where Spark Writer comes in. Spark Writer is a GPT-3 writing tool that allows you to create texts such as articles, blogs, ads, and even SEO meta descriptions in an instant. In this post we are going to take a look at how Spark Writer can make your life easier and help you grow your web design business.
What Is Spark Writer?
Spark Writer is a creative tool that helps you write better, faster and more easily. It provides you with a range of templates, tips and resources that makes writing easier and more fun.
The previous paragraph was actually written by Spark Writer in a matter of seconds using the paragraph tool. That summarizes it pretty succinctly, but there is much more to this AI writing tool. There are a variety of ways to use it for your web design business blog, including generating titles and ideas, introductions, outlines, conclusions, listicles, and more – all the way to even a full article generator.
So you can see how this tool could save you a significant amount of time when creating content. Let’s take a look at several ways in more detail.
Create Catchy Titles
With the Article Title / Idea Tool, you can take your blog topic idea and generate several catchy titles easily. For example, we put the title of this post in and Spark Writer popped out the following:
How to take your web design business to the next level with Spark Writer
How Spark Writer can help you stand out from the competition
Create better content and improve your web design business with Spark Writer
The secret to success: How Spark Writer can help improve your web design business
How to improve your web design business with Spark Writer
In literally seconds we have five alternate titles we could use instead of what we started with! Coming up with ideas or refined, catchy titles no longer has to consume your time when writing new content for your blog.
Write Article Outlines
Many blog posts and articles start with an outline in order to better organize your thoughts and map out the sections and main points. With the Article Outline Tool you can type in what your article is about and in seconds have an outline of it right in front of you. If you prefer to do the actual writing of the article yourself, this would be a great way to get started and save you tons of time along the way.
Generate Listicles
One of the most popular types of blog posts is listicles, offering, for instance, “10 top web design tools of the year” or any other idea you can come up with. Spark Writer’s Listicle Tool can generate these for you in seconds.
Take a look at what we got when we typed in “Top Web Design Tools of 2022”:
Adobe XD
Figma
Sketch
Invision Studio
Protopie
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe After Effects
Cinema 4D
Blender
Just like that, the research has been done for us instantly. Then we could take this list, fill it in with descriptions of each tool, add an introduction and conclusion, and presto! Another way to come up with a quick blog post for your web design business!
Write Full Articles
If you’re really in a hurry, you can elect to use the Full Article Generator from Spark Writer to generate a complete, unique, and SEO friendly article in 30 seconds or less. While this may not be the best way to make sure your blog has your own unique “voice” in its writing, it can definitely save you hours per post. You could also take what the tool produces and edit it to your liking to make it more your own, which would still be a great way to reduce the amount of time you spend creating blog content.
How Will You Use Spark Writer To Grow Your Web Design Business?
Although we’ve touched on just a few ways this new tool can be used to greatly increase your efficiency as a content creator, there are many more options to look into beyond what we’ve described here. Best of all, Spark Writer is 100% free to use, so you can take it for a spin right away!
It’s a brave new AI-generated content world we’re stepping into. We recommend you give Spark Writer a try and see how it can be used to help you save time, inspire creativity, and grow your business.
Do you ever get frustrated using Dev Tools when working on a website project? Having to go back and forth between the web page you’re working on and the inspector to view CSS and make adjustments can often be a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, there is a browser extension that streamlines that process: CSS Scan. In this article, we are going to look at how this exciting tool could quite possibly change your life as a web developer, or at the very least, speed up your workflow.
Easy Installation & Lifetime License
It’s pretty simple to get started with CSS Scan, since it’s a browser extension/add-on. Whatever your preferred browser, CSS Scan can be installed on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Since this is a premium extension, you have to buy a license first, but it’s a lifetime license so it’s a one-time purchase that can then be used on 3 browsers or devices simultaneously.
Considering all of that and what you get with this license, the regular one-time purchase price of $120 is a steal! Even better, CSS Scan is often on sale for a discount, so you can get started for even less cost to you. You can even try it out on the website before you buy to make sure it’s as great as we say it is.
Getting Started
Once the extension is installed, all you have to do is right click on a web page and select “Inspect with CSS Scan” from the menu. A toolbar will appear at the top right of the window (you can also move it to the bottom if you prefer).
Here you can set up your preferred options, such as what happens when you click, whether or not to copy CSS of child elements or HTML code, what to show on the screen, and more. It’s very handy to be able to customize and adjust your experience and usage.
Once you’re ready, simply hover over any element on the page to view its CSS.
As opposed to browser Dev Tools, you don’t have to scroll through countless CSS rules. Everything related to the specified element is displayed and simple to copy with just a single click. View and copy all child elements, pseudo-classes and media queries in one place!
To edit the CSS in place, you just hit the spacebar and the CSS Scan window gets pinned to the screen. Then you can edit to your heart’s content, right there on the page you’re working on. You can also view the CSS of parent elements by holding control and clicking on the element or using the up and down arrow keys.
Export to Codepen
Taking it even further, you can easily extract and export the HTML and CSS of elements and all its child elements as whole components to Codepen. Just hover over the element you want to export, hit the spacebar to pin it to the screen, and then click the “Export to Codepen” button. Voila! Your element is now in your Codepen account! Now that element is available for you to use in future projects or experiment with however you want.
Should You Get CSS Scan?
We can answer that question with a resounding “Yes!” CSS Scan has a price tag that is very reasonable for everything you get, and it will immediately change your workflow, with a quick and easy adjustment period away from Dev Tools. About the only thing missing we could find is the ability to adjust the window size for responsive testing. We had to do this in Dev Tools and then use CSS Scan from there, which still works but seems like an extra step. However, CSS Scan does show and copy all related media queries for an element at once, so this is handier than only seeing the active media query for the current window size, as done in Dev Tools. Chalk this up to getting used to doing things differently than what we’re used to doing in the past.
All in all, after trying CSS Scan out, we can confidently and highly recommend it!
Have you ever felt perplexed about how to use WYSIWYG editors in WordPress? We’ll guide you through what WYSIWYG editors are, give you tips on using them, and show you an alternative to the built-in WYSIWYG editor for WordPress.
What is a WYSIWYG editor?
WYSIWYG stands for “what you see is what you get”. This means that whatever content is entered into the editor is shown exactly the way it will be displayed when it is published. It is similar to desktop publishing tools such as Microsoft Word, having similar formatting tools displayed on the toolbar at the top. WYSIWYG editors are usually integrated into various apps and websites. They can be used for content management, website building, messaging, and other different features. However they’re used, these special editors significantly save development time, reduce maintenance and manpower costs, and provide the ideal user interface and experience.
When should you use a WYSIWYG editor on WordPress?
In WordPress, the WYSIWYG editor is the primary input field for post and page content. Thus, whenever you create and edit content on WordPress, you use a WYSIWYG editor.
What are the benefits of using a WYSIWYG editor?
By using WYSIWYG editors, users won’t have to know much about HTML to manage and format their content. They’ll be able to write, insert images and other files, and perform rich text editing (and more) just by using the several buttons on the toolbar.
A modified version of TinyMCE, an open-source WYSIWYG editor, is built into WordPress. Its extensibility allows WordPress plugin and theme developers to add custom buttons to the visual editor’s toolbar . However, using a built-in editor often won’t be enough. There will be times when you will need faster and more sophisticated editors. As we will explain below, you can greatly improve upon the built-in editor by setting up an alternative. You can read more about how easy it is to do here.
How to extend the built-in WYSIWYG editor in WordPress
To display the full TinyMCE text editor so you have access to all of the advanced features available, add the following code to your functions.php file, enabling the hidden buttons:
If the default editor is too limited for your project, it is possible to integrate an alternative WYSIWYG editor to allow for more complex editing for your users. One of the top alternatives is this beautiful JavaScript web editor from Froala that has a lot to offer for developers and users alike. Its easy integration, rich features, customizability, and informative yet organized documentation let developers have an easier production time. Moreover, it gives users a better editing experience because of its cleanliness, speed, and intuitiveness. With a flat interface, SVG icons, buttons, dropdowns, and popups, every detail of its design is amazing. It has full mobile support, with popup formatting controls that appear the same on both mobile devices and desktops and image and video resizing.
Froala is easy to customize, fully scalable, and fast, loading in less than 40 milliseconds. Compared to TinyMCE’s 15 integration guides, Froala provides 17 framework libraries and is the first editor to provide SDK libraries for 6 different servers. Its intuitive interface also accommodates 100+ features without overwhelming users with a complex and complicated GUI. In addition, Froala has easy-to-follow documentation and easily integrates with your products.
Migrating to Froala
It only takes a few steps to replace your standard WordPress WYSIWYG with the robust Froala:
Download or clone the wordpress-froala-wysiwyg-master plugin.
Under the plugins folder of your WordPress installation, make a new folder and paste the contents of the downloaded file there.
In your WordPress admin area, go to plugins and click “add new”. Search for “Froala WYSIWYG Editor” and follow the automated process.
On the plugins page of your admin area, activate the Froala plugin. This will now replace WordPress’ default editor.
Once you’ve completed these steps, you’re all set to use a powerful, faster, and cleaner editor. To learn more about integrating and using Froala with WordPress, check this page out.
If your project requires more extensive features than what the built-in WordPress editor offers, Froala is definitely a great option to explore. Read more about Froala here.
Will you upgrade or extend your current WordPress WYSIWYG editor?
Based on the information we’ve covered in this article, it is obvious that you can do so much more with your WordPress WYSIWYG editor than how it comes out of the box, so to speak. For instance, you may choose to extend the TinyMCE editor to give your users even more control over the formatting of their content. Better yet, you can choose to go even further and upgrade your WYSIWYG editor to a more powerful one altogether. If you follow what we’ve discussed in this article, you will definitely take WordPress content entry and editing to a better place for your users.
Looking for typography inspiration for your next or future web design projects? We’ve rounded up some of the most creative and award-winning examples of typography usage in these websites that follow. Take a look and see what ideas they bring!
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Nobody likes to wait for your web page to load, so of course we want to make the time go by easier with animation. In this post we have provided you with some examples and code for ways to do this via SVG loading animations. Have a look and start using them in your projects today!
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If you’re a frequent visitor to 1WD, you know we’ve been following the progress of Tailwind CSS, and you also know we love us some WordPress! In this article, we’re going to give you a list of starter themes and resources that will help you dive into combining the two. Tailwind can make it easier to build modern websites in less time with its utility-first framework, so why not integrate it with our favorite CMS, WordPress? What follows will help you get started.
_tw provides a theme generator that creates a WordPress starter theme “optimized for modern development with Tailwind, Tailwind Typography, and the WordPress editor.” You can input advanced options such as the theme slug, function prefix, author, description, and more. Then download and unzip the zip file and get everything up and running in just a few simple steps. Created by Greg Sullivan, and based on the popular _s theme and generator, the theme includes Greg’s preferred directory structure, which may provide a small learning curve for those of us used to the traditional theme structure. Styles are visible for preview within your editor of choice, whether that may be the block editor, the classic editor, or Advanced Custom Fields’ WYSIWYG fields. It is also updated with Tailwind 3’s just-in-time (JIT) compiler.
TailPress claims to be “your go-to starting point for developing WordPress themes with Tailwind CSS”. In just a few steps, using Composer, you can set up the theme name along with a new Git repository. TailPress supports the block editor and Tailwind’s JIT engine. You can watch the video below to learn more.
Gust is extremely flexible and can be configured to suit any design system. Every component and every piece of HTML is editable either through the page builder or a WP filter. And weighing in at only 3.8kb of CSS in an out of the box build, Gust focuses on speed and high performance. Gust comes with a bunch of essential components and templates you can use to get started building a website, and they’re adding to it all the time! Watch Gust in action in the video below.
Sage is a WordPress starter theme that is far more complex than the previous examples, but it does come with out of the box support for Tailwind. It uses Laravel, so if you’re not familiar, the learning curve may be a bit much. But Sage is a very robust starter theme solution.
Additional Articles and Resources for Tailwind + WordPress
Get Started With Tailwind and WordPress – Together At Last!
As you can see, there are a significant number of ways you can start using Tailwind CSS with WordPress in your projects. Bookmark this page so that when you do you have all the references you need!
Looking for the best free WordPress themes that are so new very few, if any, other sites are using them yet? In this collection we’ve curated 10 of the best free WordPress themes that have come out in the month of May. Several of these free WordPress themes have pro/paid versions available, so be sure to check out what they have to offer and what paying for the premium version gets you. Without further ado, let’s take a look!
Adore Blog is a dark minimal designed, very light weight and easy to use clean and blog theme. This Theme is suitable for any lifestyle, fashion, photography, food, beauty, cosmetic, or any blog in a specific niche. It is designed with beautiful layouts and practical features to give that modern look to the site without compromising the content. The theme allows you to customize your website as per your desire via the WordPress Customizer. It is a fully responsive theme that will display your content accurately on every device. DEMO
Engineering Manufacturing is a great theme created with engineering, construction, heavy industries, manufacturing units, factories, refineries, oil plants, and relevant businesses in mind. It is an elegant free theme with a multipurpose use and impresses everyone with its minimal design. It is amazingly sophisticated to put forward the best face of your business. Besides being user-friendly and a fully responsive theme, it has a retina-ready design that can make your content, as well as the images, look incredible on every screen. DEMO
Rasam is a Creative, Modern, and Professional Restaurant WordPress Theme. The theme is perfect for Restaurants, Fast Food, Seafood restaurants, Recipes, bakeries, burgers, Coffee Shops, Pizza Shops Websites, who need an easy, attractive and effective way to promote your food related services. DEMO
VW Dark is a fantastic WP theme that will be suitable for multiple business types and professions such as media agencies, fashion stores, designers, marketing experts, consultancies, creative designers, entrepreneurs, etc. Basically, you can use this theme as a multipurpose theme. It is minimal in style and crafted by expert developers for bringing a professional design that wonderfully works for your business. DEMO
Digital Marketing Expert is a modern and clean WP theme for marketing agencies, digital marketing professionals, online marketing agencies, social media agencies, SEO companies, SEO marketing, SEO optimization service providers, creative and digital experts, branding agencies, and similar services. It is a multipurpose theme with a minimal approach and comes with a sophisticated layout that makes your website look more professional. Retina-ready design is going to impress through a stunning display of images as well as the content. DEMO
Moina Blog Theme is wordpress blog theme for personal use. Fully responsive design displays beautifully across desktop, mobile, and all devices. Easy installation allows you to start post blogs immediately after the activation. DEMO
Refined Blocks is a free Magazine WordPress theme. It is a child theme of Refined Magazine with added features and options. It is easy to use, customize and lightweight WordPress theme. In addition to that, this theme comes with one click demo import option, 9 added custom widgets and unlimited color possibilities. DEMO
Jatra is an interactive, modern, multi-purpose WordPress magazine theme. Suitable for newspapers, magazines, publishers, blogs, editors, online and gaming magazines, news portals, personal blogs, newspapers, and any other creative website. Jatra is SEO friendly, WPML, Gutenberg, translation, and RTL ready. DEMO
Dancing Star Lite is the ideal choice when it comes to picking up a free dance school WordPress theme for your dance school or studio. This minimalistic and professional-looking multipurpose theme is highly functional and efficient. This Free dance school WordPress theme perfectly suits any ballet class, dance school, dance academy, dancing studio, dance instructor, fitness, dance club, jazz, salsa, Zumba, choreography and related websites. This theme can also be used for martial art training classes, aerobics classes, yoga centres, fitness trainer, musical projects, bands, radio, orchestra, studios, and more. DEMO
Gardener Lite comes with an excellent design for suitable elements and content spaces along with imagery complementing your gardening services perfectly. Flower gardens, landscapers, landscaping experts, and gardening service providers will love the minimal design it brings. It is sophisticated enough to catch the attention and gives a professional appeal. DEMO
Do you need a modal popup on your website when a user clicks a link or button? We typically see these in use for logins, newsletter signups, advertising, and more. Most often they are created using a bit of JavaScript trickery, but these days they can relatively easily be coded with only CSS. In this post we’ll show you 15 examples of various ways this can be accomplished. Let’s have a look!
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Scrolling text on a website is almost as old as the internet. You may remember the days when marquees with horizontal scrolling text were all the rage, and we (some of us) thought it was one of the coolest things we’d seen on a website. Many years later we have left that, along with a collection of other relatively silly “web tricks”, behind, as technology and web development evolved into what we have to work with today. Now we no longer need Flash or some other bulky, clunky tools or code to make this happen.
In this post, we’ll show you a collection of scrolling text animations that are coded with only CSS – no JavaScript or anything else needed! Let’s take a look at some of the different ways this fun effect can be accomplished.
If you’re a web developer/designer and haven’t already heard about or tried Tailwind CSS, it’s likely you have been living under a rock! First released as an alpha in 2017 and now in version 3, the utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom designs is all the rage these days. It seems we don’t see a day go by without at least one new article published about this unique offering in the world of web design (see some examples in our weekly roundups of articles).
One of the best parts of the Talwind CSS ecosystem is the components that can greatly speed up your development process by dropping them into your project and modifying as needed. You can find and use headings, navigation, data display, lists, forms, buttons, and even full page layouts, plus much more – all great starting points for various needs you will have in your projects.
In this post, we’re going to show you all of the free Tailwind CSS component resources we could find, to save you time next time you’re looking to include components in your projects.
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Responsive HTML & React components for your next web application. Make your Tailwind CSS apps even sleeker and faster to develop with our ever growing library of components, elements, and example pages.
Interactive and different components with React and beautiful design using Tailwind CSS + pure CSS. Every component is fully responsive and carefully implemented to look great at any screen size. Beautifully designed, expertly crafted components that allow you to build a great UI/UX and are easy to customize.
Tail-kit gives you access to over 250 free components and free templates, based on Tailwind CSS 2.0, all compatible with React, VueJS and Angular applications.
Tailwind Awesome is a curated list of the best Tailwind templates & UI kits in the internet. They say they are actively searching, and curating the coolest resources out there. They have all kinds of resources, along with a large section of free components.
Open source starter templates and components, a directory of handy building kits, generators, plugins and useful tools to kick start your Tailwind CSS project.
Mamba UI is a free, open-source collection of 100+ UI components and templates based on Tailwind CSS. Everything is modular and customizable to fit your brand. From blogs to portfolios to online stores, you can quickly create a variety of layouts that look great on any screen.
HyperUI is a collection of free Tailwind CSS components that can be used in your next project. With a range of components, you can build your next marketing website, admin dashboard, ecommerce store and much more.
daisyUI adds classes to Tailwind CSS for all common UI components, with low CSS specificity so you can customize everything using Tailwind CSS utility classes. Highly customizable.
Flowbite is an open-source library of UI components based on the utility-first Tailwind CSS framework featuring dark mode support, a Figma design system, and more. It includes all of the commonly used components that a website requires, such as buttons, dropdowns, navigation bars, modals, but also some more advanced interactive elements such as datepickers.
Tailwind Starter Kit is a free and open source extension. It does not change or add any CSS to the already one from Tailwind CSS. It features multiple HTML elements and it comes with dynamic components for ReactJS, Vue and Angular.
Lofi ui is a library of low fidelity web app components. The components are built to be as efficient as possible in their HTML structure and rely on only just enough CSS, via Tailwind CSS, to render them functional. Think of these components as head-start on building and styling a component exactly as you need.
If you are a solo freelancer, running your own business with a team of one, you may not think you need a professional project management system. After all, you don’t have a team to keep track of, communicate with, and make sure you’re all working together on the same page – it all comes down to you and only you! However, that is exactly why you need a place to keep your projects organized. As a freelancer, you wear so many hats – salesperson, project manager, client communicator, accountant, bill collector – and on and on. Every freelancer can use all the help they can find to simplify and consolidate all of these tasks as much as possible, which is where a good project management tool can be lifesaving.
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Once you’ve agreed that you need one, finding the right project management tool can be a daunting task. That’s why we’ve gathered some of the best options available right now to save you some of your valuable time. What follows are some of the best project management tools for freelancers we’ve found that you can start using right now, with either free or very affordable pricing.
Kosmo purports to be the best tool to manage clients, projects, invoicing, proposals, contracts, payments, and more, all in one place! It really sounds to good to be true, but based on our research, it actually is.
Features:
Unlimited clients with contact information, related invoices, and projects
Unlimited projects with goals, files, notes, and more
Unlimited branded invoices
Unlimited proposals and contracts that can be digitally signed
Accept online payments via credit card, ACH transfer, Stripe, and PayPal, with payment tracking and reminders
Time and task tracking that can be added to invoices easily
Trackable income goals
Recurring tasks
Branded emails
Reminders
For an overview of how it all works you can watch their excellent video.
Pricing
Here’s the best (and almost unbelievable) part: all of these features are absolutely free! We don’t know how they can offer this robust of a project management system for no cost to the user, but they do! The only way you will pay anything is if you want to remove the Kosmo branding and get priority support, which is also very affordable at a cost of $9 per month, and that plan is not even available yet. Still, you can utilize all of their features with your own branding and without limitations 100% free.
Conclusion
Honestly, we’ve never seen a free or even paid project management tool that incorporates all of these elements into a single system, much less do it so well. It’s seamless, intuitive, beautifully designed, and a huge time saver. To be clear, this is not a sponsored post, nor are we receiving any affiliate commissions or any other incentives to rave about Kosmo as much as we are – it’s simply too good to not share! The only caveat we can come up with is that it is a very new tool, so there will be more to come as it gets discovered and grows, but we can’t attest to its longevity at this point. That said, we’re already moving our projects into Kosmo as of this writing, so we can move away from using a variety of separate tools and apps that don’t necessarily integrate well together. In our opinion, Kosmo is the best project management tool for freelancers that is available right now.
ClickUp says it is “one app to replace them all”, and it doesn’t look like they are kidding! Projects and tasks, chat with clients and team members (if you have a team), goals, and customizable views are just a few of the features they offer yet another well-designed package. ClickUp is a much more complex system than Kosmo, which may or may not be suited to your needs, but if you want a vast amount of features and granular organization and control of every aspect of your work, then ClickUp may be a great tool for you.
Features and Pricing
Honestly, there are way too many features to list here, but you can check out their features page to view them all. here are some of the top level items available in the Free plan to give you an idea.
100MB Storage
Unlimited Tasks
Unlimited Members
Two-Factor Authentication
Collaborative Docs
Whiteboards
Real-Time Chat
Email in ClickUp
Kanban Boards
Sprint Management
Native Time Tracking
In-App Video Recording
24/7 Support
From there, you can upgrade to the Unlimited plan for only $5 per month, which includes everything in the Free plan, plus the following:
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited Integrations
Unlimited Dashboards
Guests with Permissions
Unlimited Gantt Charts
Unlimited Custom Fields
Teams (User Groups)
Goals & Portfolios
Form View
Resource Management
Agile Reporting
Conclusion
ClickUp is a massive, robust project management tool that rivals those used by large businesses, and, in fact, it has plans available to accommodate such use cases. For solo freelancers this may be too much, but if you are someone who really likes to dig deep into your project management, planning, and organization down to the finest details, then ClickUp could be your solution. We couldn’t find any invoicing or payment options, however, so if you’re looking to include invoicing in your project management tool, then ClickUp may not be right for you. Otherwise, for the highly detail-oriented freelancer, ClickUp offers just about everything you could possibly need at a very affordable (or even free) price!
Hectic is another app that is similar to Kosmo, designed specifically for freelancers with a feature list to manage and grow your business in one place. Client management, proposals and contracts, accounting, invoicing, time tracking, a client portal, a mobile app, and more make Hectic an appealing project management solution.
Features and Pricing
The “Free forever” plan offers pretty much everything you need to get started, without any limits and the ability to upgrade as your business grows.
Unlimited clients
Client relationship management
Project management
Invoices & Subscriptions
Accept online payments
Proposals & Contracts
Expenses & Accounting
Forms
Time tracking
Calendar
iOS & Android apps
If you want or need even more features, the next tier costs only $11.99 per month and includes everything in the free plan plus:
Client portals
Custom domain & emails
Meeting scheduler
Sales pipeline
Collaborators
Automated expense tracking
Conclusion
Hectic looks to be a freelancer’s project management dream. It is similar to Kosmo in what it has to offer, with additional features that may be more appealing to freelancers who need them. With all of this available for free or a low monthly price, it is easy to see why Hectic made our list.
Which project management tool is the best fit for you?
It’s pretty obvious in which direction we lean as our top pick, but each of these three offerings are great choices. It really depends on what your personal preference and use case is, and determining which one of these tools will best fit. Regardless of which one you choose, we know that utilizing one of these project management tools will help grow and significantly improve your freelance business, so be sure to try and pick one to start wrangling your projects, clients, and entire business under control.
Do you need to give your users the ability to upload files in your application? Are you looking for a simple and quick way to dramatically improve the user experience for file uploading, allowing users to not only upload directly from their hard drive but also integrated with the most popular social networks like Facebook or Instagram, commonly used storage solutions like Dropbox or Google Drive, and stock image providers like Unsplash? If so, Filestack is the ultimate solution for you!
In this post, we will take a look at what Filestack can do to make file uploading work for your users in the best possible ways and how easy it is for you to set up in less than an hour.
Why is file upload important?
File uploads are essential for user productivity and many business services and applications, such as content management systems, healthcare portals, insurance websites, and messaging applications. Especially in this day and age of remote and distanced working, it is increasingly critical to ensure the security and ease of file uploads in order to provide the best user experience as well as protect against malicious actors.
For example, consider community-driven platforms such as social media websites and apps, where content is primarily user-generated. In these applications it is crucial to be able to manage the large numbers of uploads that users will be producing.
Another example would be for businesses that use internal collaboration systems for their employees. In this case, employees often need to support the uploading, sharing, and downloading of files. The easier the upload system is to use, the less training and help the employees will need to accomplish their work throughout the day, saving time and resources.
In all instances, files that are uploaded need to be analyzed for potential viruses or other malicious programs. So the method through which files are uploaded is extremely important!
What makes Filestack special?
Filestack provides users an “all-in-one” experience for uploading files anywhere and easily with a 99.99% success rate. Utilizing their powerful yet simple-to-use API, uploads, URL ingestion, and device integration are all made fast and easy. With as little as two lines of code, you can dramatically improve the look and performance of your file uploader, using the same upload technology that the internet giants use without the struggle of having to maintain it.
In a nutshell, here are some of the standout features of Filestack:
Filestack provides a beautiful and customizable file uploader UI that make a file upload from any source painless and intuitive.
The UI allows your users to upload files using drag and drop, copy and paste, or searching the computer’s hard drive.
Users can connect to a multitude of popular services such as Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Dropbox, and more, to upload files directly.
Users can also connect to their device cameras to instantly upload photos, videos, and audio files.
Custom connections and integrations can also be created to broaden your users’ options even more.
Once the file is selected, Filestack automatically generates a preview for the user to review.
Filestack’s advanced infrastructure uploads files as much as almost four times faster than standard interfaces.
How to add file uploads to your app!
Filestack’s documentation is extensive yet easy to navigate, understand, and implement. Here, we will give a brief rundown of how easy it is to get started.
Sign up for an account
You can start with a free plan to try it out, which allows 500 uploads, 1GB of storage, and 1GB of bandwidth per month. From there, pricing plans range from $59 to $359 per month.
Create an application and API keys
Once your account is created, access your Developer portal and create an application. Each application is given a public and a secret API key, each of which is used to authenticate and authorize operations on your resources. Each application has configuration settings that apply only to it, allowing you to assign specific settings for each of your use cases.
Set up the File Picker
Start by including the JavaScript SDK UMD module in your code:
That’s it! It’s that simple! Of course, there are a variety of configurations you can add to your setup, but the default settings are quick and easy. For further information you can check out the documentation here.
Using the SDK with different languages
Filestack has client-side and server side SDKs, so you can use your language and application of choice. Choose from client-side apps such as JavaScript, React, Angular, Adaptive, and Swift, as well as server side languages such as Python, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Go, PHP, and Java. More information can be found here.
Try Filestack in your next project
As you can see, it’s obvious why Filestack is the #1 developer service for file uploads. Not only is it the best service available, but Filestack will upgrade your user experience, security, and more, all in a quick, affordable, and easy to set up solution. While we can not recommend it enough, only you can decide what will work best for you and your projects, so be sure to check it out here next time you are working on a project that requires file uploads.
