Track Amazon Prices with Google Sheets

The Amazon Price Tracker is easy to configure. All you have to do is add the links (URLs) of Amazon product pages inside a Google Spreadsheet. You can add monitor products across all Amazon.* websites. Here are the steps involved:

Step 1: Generate Amazon Access Keys

Open the Amazon Associates website and sign-in with your Amazon account. Next, click the Tools menu, choose Product Advertising API from the dropdown (link) and choose Manage Your Credentials under the Add Credentials section. Amazon will create an Access Key ID and a Secret Key that you’ll need in the next step.

Step 2: Copy the Google Spreadsheet

Click here to copy the Price Tracker Google Sheet in your Google Account. DO NOT change the layout of the Google Sheet as it may break the tracker.

Now all you have to do is enter Amazon product URLs in column A of the Google Sheet, one per line. For instance, here’s the Amazon URL for iPad

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07K344J3N/tajmahal020-20/

The URL contains the 10 digit ASIN code which is used by the Google Sheet to identify the specific Amazon product you are looking to monitor for price fluctuations.

In addition to prices, the Google Sheet lists several other useful attributes of Amazon Products including merchant’s name, sales rank, overall savings, Prime eligibility and whether the product qualifies for free shipping.

Step 3: Set Price Thresholds (optional)

With the Price Tracker, you can also set price thresholds for specific products and get automatic email alerts when the target price is reached. For instance, you can choose to receive alerts when the iPad price drops by 20% of the initial value. Or you can set a target price (alert when iPad drops to $399) and get automatic alerts when the price drops on Amazon.

To specify a threshold for any product, go to column B of the product row and enter the amount or percentage values as shown in the screenshot above.

Step 4: Configure Price Tracker inside Google Sheet

Inside the Google Sheets, go to the Amazon Price Tracker menu (near the Help menu) and choose Configure. You may have to authorize the Pricer Tracker script once to connect to Amazon API and send email alerts.

Next enter your access keys, your email address and the time when you wish to receive the email alerts. Click Save to initialize the Amazon Price Tracker.

That’s it. You’ll receive a daily email digest with the price fluctuations as shown below.

Monitor Amazon Products for Price Drops

Amazon Price Tracker can monitor prices of all products (including Kindle ebooks) listed on Amazon.com and the country-specific websites including amazon.fr, amazon.de, amazon.es, amazon.ca, amazon.it, amazon.in, amazon.co.jp and amazon.co.uk.

Also, you can add more Amazon URLs, or delete existing products, from the Google sheet and the script will automatically pick the changes in the next run. And if you ever wish to stop receiving those email alerts, just choose the Stop Tracking option from the Price Tracker menu in the same Google sheet.

The tracker is written in Google Scripts and uses Amazon’s Product Advertising API to fetch the latest prices at fixed intervals. The Price Tracker is completely free but if you chose to upgrade to premium, you get technical support and get to use your own Amazon Associate tags.

The post How to Use Google Sheets as an Amazon Price Tracker appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Here’s a sample Google document rendered with the Lexend Deca font.

Thomas Jockin and Bonnie Shaver-Troup, the font designers, have also uploaded the font files on Github under the Open Font License which allows you to use, modify and redistribute the fonts freely as long as they are not sold by themselves.

To enable the Lexend font in your copy of Google Docs, open a new document inside Google Docs, click the Font dropdown in the toolbar and select More Fonts. Search for Lexend and select them to add them to your default font list.

The study suggests that students were able to increase their reading speed (total number of correct words read per minute) by 19.8% when the same document was formatted in the Lexend typeface vs the Times New Roman family. The font’s development has been financed by Google.

The post Want to Read Faster? Change your Default Font In Google Docs appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

People can swipe through your slides inside the mobile app of Instagram or the Instagram website on the desktop. They can like or comment on your post. And you can also embed your Instagram slideshows inside webpages and blogs with few lines of HTML – see one below.

How to Create Instagram Slideshows

A slideshow on Instagram is, in simple English, a gallery of 10 images uploaded in a single post. You can upload slideshows on Instagram from your iPhone or Android app.

You can use apps like Photoshop, Canva to prepare images for the slideshow or if you want something more convenient, try Google Slides. Here’s how:

Go to slides.google.com and create a new Google Slide (you can even upload an existing PowerPoint presentation). Here’s a sample presentation to help you get started.

Inside the presentation, go to File > Page Setup and choose a custom size equal to 1080×1080 pixels for a square presentation. Instagram supports photo sizes with aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 4:5, so you can choose your canvas size accordingly.

You can insert up to 10 slides in your presentation. Next, go to the Addons menu and launch Creator Studio. Inside the sidebar, choose 1080 for the width and select “Image Sequence” as the export format. Click the “Go” button and it will create a new folder in your Google Drive with all the slides saved as high-resolution PNG image files.

Now open the Google Drive app on your iPhone or Android and download all the slide images to the photos folder on your phone. Launch the Instagram App, upload the images in a single post, and you’re done!

Also see: Save Google Slides as a Video File

If you were wondering why we had to go through the Google Drive route, that’s because Instagram API doesn’t allow photo uploads so they have to be uploaded manually.

The post Make Instagram Slideshows with Google Slides appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Google Slides doesn’t offer an option to save presentations as videos but there’s a new add-on in town – Creator Studio – that brings new export capabilities to your Google Slides. With Creator Studio, you’ll be able to save your decks as animated GIFs, image sequences and HD video (with audio).

Watch the video tutorial for a quick introduction.

To get started, go to creatorstudio.dev and install the Google Slides add-on. It requests certain permissions as it has to read the presentation images for converting them into movies. It also requires access to creating files in your Google Drive since the exported files are automatically uploaded to your Google Drive.

Once the add-on is installed, open any deck inside Google Slides that has at least 2 or more slides. Go to the add-ons menu, choose Creator Studio and it will open up a sidebar.

Specify the width of the output file in pixels. Creator Studio will auto-calculate the height to maintain the original aspect ratio of the presentation. Next, specify the time interval (in seconds) and this is the duration for which each slide would be visible in the video before advancing to the next slide.

Finally, you have a variety of export options to choose from that are not available natively inside Google Slides.

GIF Image

An infinite looping animated GIF image is created that is perfect for sharing inside email messages and blog posts. You can even make stop motion animations by keeping the time interval very low (say 0.2 seconds).

Image Sequence

Creator Studio will capture screenshots of each slide in your presentation and save it as a numbered PNG file in your Google Drive folder. Internally, it uses the Google Slides API to generate these thumbnail images.

MP4 Video

Like the GIF image, Creator Studio will produce an MP4 video file from your deck and you can also vary the time interval between slides.

Video with Audio 

You can upload any audio file in MP3 or WAV format and it will play alongside the presentation. You can upload background music or even voice narration that will play in the background while the video is playing.

Install Creator Studio

The post How to Download your Google Slides Presentation as a Video File appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Maybe you are sending your résumé to multiple companies. How can you do this without having to copy-paste the subject and body of the draft message multiple times?

Create Duplicate Email Messages in Gmail

When you compose a draft email in Gmail and hit the Send button, the email is automatically removed from the Drafts folder and moved to the Sent Items folder.

There are however two easy ways to create duplicate draft emails inside Gmail. You can either use Mail Merge for Gmail or, if you are looking for a more simple one-click option, use the Duplicate Drafts feature available inside Email Studio.

Here’s how to get started.

1. Open your Gmail mailbox, compose a new email message and save it as a draft. You can attach files, embed inline images and other rich content.
2. Go to Email Studio and authorize the app* to access your Gmail account. This is required since the app will read your Gmail drafts and create copies inside your Gmail account.
3. Once the app is authorized, click the Draft Copier section.

Copy Gmail Drafts

To quickly clone a message to send separately to someone else, select the source draft from the drop-down, then select the number of copies you wish to have and click the Create Drafts button. The copied drafts will include the complete contents of the original message, including file attachments and inline images.

The Gmail clone tool works on both desktop and mobile so you can copy Gmail draft messages on a mobile phone as well.

The web app is written in Google Scripts and uses the Gmail API to create drafts copies. The app only requires Gmail access to copy your drafts and does not share, store or upload your data anywhere.

Email Studio is free for basic usage. Free users can copy a maximum of 3 email drafts at a time while premium users can duplicate up to 10 Gmail drafts in a single batch. No branding is included in premium version.

[*] If you have trouble authorizing the app, please ensure that you are not logged into multiple Google accounts. You can try try Email Studio in Chrome’s incognito mode or use this link to sign-out of your Gmail accounts.

The post How to Copy Draft Emails in Gmail appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

With Email Spreadsheets, you can schedule reports and it will automatically send them by email on a recurring schedule. You can email entire workbooks, specific sheets inside a workbook or even range of cells. Watch the video tutorial to get started.

Email Google Sheets Automatically

Go to the Google add-on store and install Email Google Sheets. Next, open any Google Spreadsheet in your Google Drive, go to the Add-ons menu inside the sheet, choose Email Spreadsheets from the dropdown and then choose Rules to create your first scheduled email report.

You are presented with a 3-step wizard to help the email schedule of your spreadsheet report.

Step 1: Select Sheet Export Options

1. Expand the “Select Sheets” dropdown and select one or more sheets that you would like to include in the email. Each sheet is attached as a separate file in the email but you can choose the “Merge all sheets” option to create a single file from all sheets in the workbook.
2. Select the export format. You can choose between PDF, Excel (xlsx), OpenDocument or CSV formats. The “Email without Attachment” option can be used to embed a specific range of cells in the email body without including any sheet as an attachment.
3. If you have selected PDF as the export format in step 2, you are presented with a few more options. For instance, you can change the paper orientation (Portrait or Landscape), the paper size or alter the print margins to fit more content on a page. You can choose to show gridlines, notes, sheet names and page numbers in the exported file.
4. (optional) The Cell Range option lets you specify a range in A1 notation and only that range will be exported in the PDF file.

Tip: Use the Preview button to test how your exported files would be like with the various export options.

Step 2: Write the Email Template

Next, we create an email template that will be sent with your reports. You can specify one or email recipients in the TO, CC, or BCC fields. Multiple email addresses should be separated by a comma.

You can also specify dynamic email recipients based on cell values in the spreadsheet. For instance, if the email address of the recipient is specified in cell B2 of a sheet titled “Employee Shifts”, you can put {{Employee Shifts!B2}} in the To field, and the add-on will pull the dynamic value from the cell at the time of sending the email report.

These dynamic cell values enclosed inside double curly braces can be used inside any of the email fields including subject, email body, and the sender’s name.

The email body can include dynamic cell values as well as ranges that make it easy of you to send portions of the spreadsheet without sharing the full workbook. For instance, you can write {{Employee Wages!B2:F9}} to include only the specific range (B2:F9) from the Wages sheet. Internally, the add-on converts the range to an HTML table, retaining all the display formatting with CSS, and embed it into the email.

You can also include standard HTML tags like H1, IMG, A, B, EM and more to include images and rich formatting in your emails.

Tip: Use the Test Email button to send an email with the exported files before setting up the schedule.

C: Create the Email Schedule

The Google Sheets add-on includes a scheduler to help you set up recurring schedules visually. You can send email hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or even on a yearly recurring basis.

It is also possible to setup advanced schedules like:

• Send a recurring email on the last working day of the month.
• Send email reports every alternate day and end the reporting after 15 days.
• Set up a quarterly schedule and send email reports on the first Monday of the quarter.

That’s it. After specifying the schedule, hit the Save button and your email report will be scheduled.

If you would like to edit your current email report or schedule a new report, go the add ons menu again, choose Email Spreadsheets and Rules.

Download Email Sheets

Email Google Sheets – How it works?

The add-on is written in Google Apps Script. It uses the Google Sheets API to convert sheets to PDF files and uses the Gmail API for sending the converted files as attachments.

The post How to Email Spreadsheets Automatically on a Recurring Schedule appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

My kids are in middle/high school and I’ve been looking for a timesheet-style solution that would help me understand their studying patterns and learn how much time they spend on various subjects.

There are quite a few apps available for time tracking but I was looking for something simple and Google Forms fit the bill perfectly. The multiple-choice grid question is handy for quickly marking the time that they have spent on various subjects. I also added a Linear scale question for them to self-evaluate their daily screen time on a relative scale.

Here’s how the final study log form looks like:

The Email Form Notifications add-on is enabled for this Google Form so parents get an instant email when the boys submit the study log form. The email contains all the form answers in a neatly formatted table. An instant push notification is sent on the mobile phone as well with IFTTT.

Google Forms write all the form responses in a Google Spreadsheet and that makes it even easier to analyze the study pattern visually. You can use one of the available charts or hit the “Explore” button in Google Sheets and ask questions in natural English about the answers stored in your spreadsheet.

For instance, you can say “Sum of Subjects [Physics] by Name last week” and it will instantly tell you the amount of time that each kid has spent on that subject last week. Or say “What percentage of Subjects [Physics] is not empty where name is Aryaman” to know the percentage of days when he touched a particular subject.

And because Google Forms work just fine on mobile devices, students can quickly fill the time log anywhere as long as they know the form’s URL.

The post How to Track your Study Time with Google Forms and Sheets appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

In this video tutorial, you’ll learn how to develop Google Apps Script projects locally on your computer inside Visual Studio Code. You can write your code in modern JavaScript, neatly organized in modules, and the build environment will use Babel and Webpack to transform your code into a version of JavaScript that is compatible with Apps Script.

Modern Development with Google Apps Script

There are quite a few advantages with having a local development environment vis-a-vis writing code in the Apps Script Cloud IDE.

1. You can write code with ES6 Classes, Arrow Functions, Modules, Destructing and use all the other modern JavaScript features.
2. The development experience inside VS Code is unmatched and tools like ESLint and Prettier make it easier for you to catch errors early in the development.
3. The build and deployment process can be completely automated with npm scripts and CLASP, Google’s command line utility for Apps Script.
4. VS Code has built-in support for Git and integrates with source control providers like Github and Gitlab. It is therefore easier to track changes and restore previous versions of the code.
5. You can quickly integrate JavaScript libraries like LoDash, Moment, Underscore and any of the NPM packages into your code.
6. You can use modern frameworks like React, Vue.js and Angular to build the HTML frontend that connects to the backend with the Google Script Client API.

Getting Started with the Apps Script Starter

The Starter kit is a boilerplate for quickly getting started with local Apps Script development locally inside VS Code. Open your terminal and run the following commands:

1. Clone the Github repository to a local folder

git clone https://github.com/labnol/apps-script-start my-project

2. Switch to the project folder

cd my-project

3. Install all the project dependencies and utilities

npm install

4. Connect CLASP to your Google account

npx clasp login

5. Create a new Google Apps Script project in your Google Drive with CLASP

npx clasp create "My Project" --rootDir ./dist

This command will create a new .clasp.json file in your project folder that links the local folder with your Apps Script project. During build, Webpack will bundle all your code in a single JavaScript file and add it to the ./dist folder that Clasp will push to your Apps Script project.

Next, open the current project folder inside VS Code with the code . command. It includes some sample code but we will start with a blank folder so delete everything that’s inside the src folder.

Inside the src folder, create a new file – email.js – and write a simple arrow function that prints a list of all the email addresses connected to your Gmail account.

Next, create an index.js file (entry point) in the src folder, import the email function that you’ve created inside the email.js file and add it to the global object. This is a requirement of the Webpack plugin for Google Apps Script.

You can also add a function expression to the global object directly, like doGet in the example below.

Now that your JavaScript code is ready, open the appsscript.json file in your project folder and modify the oAuthScopes property to only include the scopes that are required by your project.

Next, jump to the command line terminal and run the deploy command to push your code to the Apps Script project.

npm run deploy

After the deployment is complete, open the associated script in the browser with the CLASP open command.

npx clasp open

Inside the Apps Script Editor, go to the Run menu and choose the getEmailAddress function from the list. Open the logs and you should see your email addresses in the window.

Then go to the Publish menu, choose Deploy as web app and open the URL in a new browser tab to check the program output. That’s how easy it is to build projects with the Google Apps Script starter kit.

Using Git with Google Apps Script

Create a new repository in Github and make a note of the URL of the new repository. Next, open the terminal and run the following commands to push your Apps Script project to Github.

Also see: Most Useful Google Apps Scripts

The same approach is used by Digital Inspiration for building popular Google add-ons including Gmail Mail Merge, Google Forms Notifications and Document Studio.

The post Google Apps Script for Developers appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

While there are quite a few e-commerce platforms that help you sell digital products – Gumroad, E-junkie, Paddle, FastSpring, Shopify, Instamojo and WooCommerce, to name a few,  here’s a do-it-yourself solution that will help you build your own digital store in under 5 minutes using PayPal and your Google account.

How the workflow works?

Before we get into the implementation, here’s a big-picture view of how the payment and digital delivery workflow works.

1. Embed the “Buy Now” buttons into your website or blog. Buyers can pay with all major credit cards using 1-step checkout.
2. Buyer clicks the button, enters the card details and completes the payment. The customer stays on your site and isn’t redirected anywhere to complete the purchase.
3. The order is delivered to the customer in a personalized email message. You can also attach a tax invoice in the confirmation emails.

You can head over to the live demo page and experience the 1-step checkout experience on your desktop or mobile phone.

Sell Digital Downloads with PayPal and Google Drive

The workflow uses Google Drive for securely hosting files, PayPal for processing payments, Google Sheets for generating professional PDF invoices and Gmail for delivering the order to the buyer as file attachments.

There are no limitations on the size of files or the number of products that you can sell. There are no bandwidth or storage restrictions. There’s no transaction fee except for the payment processing fees that are charged by PayPal and Stripe.

Get Started Selling Digital Goods

Here’s a step-by-step video tutorial that explains how you can easily sell digital products with PayPal and Google Drive.

Step 1: Create a PayPal App

Go to developer.paypal.com and sign-in with your PayPal account. If you don’t have one, sign-up here for a new Business account.

Inside your PayPal dashboard, go to My Apps & Credentials > Rest API Apps and create a new app. You can give your app any name as it is for internal use only. PayPal will now create client credentials for testing and live transactions that we’ll need in the next step.

Step 2: Create a PayPal Webhook

When a buyer completes the purchase and makes the payment, PayPal will send your app a notification by calling a specific URL and this is known as a webhook.

To create a webhook, go to digitalgoods.dev/copy and copy the Google Sheet to your Google Drive. Inside the sheet, go to Tools > Script Editor, the choose Publish > Deploy As Web App and click the Update button to create your PayPal webhook. Copy the URL to the clipboard.

You will have to authorize the script once since it has to do all the operation – send emails, attach Drive files, generate PDF invoices – on your behalf.

Step 3: Configure App inside Google Sheet

Switch to the “Configuration” sheet inside the Google Spreadsheet and paste the webhook URL inside the “webhook” field. Next, copy-paste the Client ID and Secret generated in step 1 inside the corresponding fields of the Google Sheet.

There are few other mandatory fields in the sheet. Choose your default currency, the shipping preference (whether you want to capture the address on the buyer), specify your brand name and the soft descriptor (this will show in the credit card statement of the buyer).

Go to the Digital Goods menu in the sheet (it is near the Help menu) and choose Test PayPal Configuration to verify the PayPal-Google Sheets connection.

Step 4: Add your Digital Products

Switch to the “Items” sheet and enter the default tax rate in the cell E1. Next, add one or more products in the sheet. You only need to specify the price of the item in column D, the Tax and Total Amount is automatically calculated based on the tax rate set in E1.

To attach files to your digital product, highlight the Files column, then go to the Digital Goods menu and choose Attach Drive Files. It opens the Google File picker and you can select one or more files from your Google Drive that will be sent to the buyer after they purchase the corresponding product.

Step 4: Create the Tax Invoice Template

Switch to the “Invoice” sheet and customize the invoice template. You can use formulas, add your logos, apply styles to match your brand and the template would be converted to a PDF file and sent as a file attachment in the order confirmation emails.

The invoice template can include placemarkers, similar to the ones you have used inside Document Studio. For instance, the {{Name}} variable will be replaced with the full name of the customer as found in the PayPal order. The {{Email}} variable is replaced with the buyer’s email address while the {{Invoice Id}} adds a unique invoice number to your invoice.

Step 5: Create the Order Confirmation Email

Switch to the “Email” sheet and create the HTML template that will be sent to customers after they complete the payment. The email will automatically include the files and invoice as attachments but you can customize the email message and subject.

The first row in the sheet is the subject and everything else will go in the message body. The emails, like Mail Merge, can be personalized and you can also use HTML tags to add images, links and rich content in the emails.

Step 6: Test your PayPal buttons

Now that you have added the products to the Google Sheet, it is time to test the integration in sandbox mode before you embed the buttons on your live website.

Go back to your PayPal dashboard, and choose Credit Card Generator in the right sidebar. Here you can generate random credit card numbers with expiration date and CVV for testing your buttons in sandbox mode.

Inside the Google Sheet, choose Digital Tools > Embed PayPal Buttons to generate the HTML embed code for your digital products. The screen offers embed codes in both the live mode and the sandbox mode.

Click the Try button next to the Sandbox mode and you’ll be able to test the buttons right inside the Google Sheet. Click the credit card icon, enter the mock credit card number and click “Pay Now” to complete the test transaction.

PayPal invokes the Webhook and it triggers the order workflow. Switch to the “Logs” sheet and you’ll soon find a new entry for the transaction that you just completed. Open your Gmail Sent items folder and you’ll find a copy othe f email that was sent the buyer’s email.

If your integration is working as expected, go to the Embed PayPal menu in the sheet and this time copy the embed code for the “Live” mode and paste it in your website. Your product is now live and anyone in the world can buy your product with a single-step checkout.

Here’s a sample email that will go out to customers after the purchase.

All the incoming orders can be tracked in real-time inside the “Sales” tab of the Google Sheet. The sheet includes the customer’s name, email address, the order summary and the buyer’s postal address. The address is only available if you have set the shipping preference in the configuration sheet to “GET_FROM_FILE”.

You can directly run Mail Merge with Gmail inside this sheet to easily send product updates to existing customers. If you have been using PayPal prior to switching to Digital Goods, put all the PayPal emails under a new Gmail label, extract the email addresses inside the sheet and use that list for your merge.

How to Sell Unique License Keys & Codes

In some businesses, you may want to send unique codes to the customer. These may include license numbers to unlock software apps (like we do at Digital Inspiration),  passwords to access streaming video courses, discount coupons, gift cards, event registration numbers and more.

This is easy with Digital Goods. Open the “Codes” sheet in the spreadsheet and the pregenerated list of codes in one of the columns. Give this column a title as shown in the screenshot above. Next, include the {{column title}} in your email mesage and a unique code will be added in place of the marker.

Internally, the app looks at the last row of the Sale sheet (the current order), fetches the codes from that same row in the Codes sheet and adds them to your email / invoice.

Troubleshooting Tips

The video tutorial explains the entire workflow in great detail but if you are still facing any issues, here are some tips:

1. Go to the configuration sheet and set “yes” for the debug setting. Next, do a test transaction inside sandbox mode and check the Logs sheet for any errors.
2. Go the Digital Goods menu and run Test Configuration again to ensure that your PayPal sandbox and live credentials are correct.
3. PayPal, in rare cases, may delay the delivery of webhooks. Go to the PayPal dashboard and choose Webhooks (link) to get a list of recently-processed webhook events and their status. You can open a case at paypal-techsupport.com for help.
4. Make sure that you have not renamed or deleted any of the original sheets in your copied Google Spreadsheet.
5. Open your Chrome Dev Tools, switch to the network tab and make sure that your adblockers are not blocking the PayPal script.

If you are unable to resolve the issue, write to me at amit@labnol.org or tweet @labnol.

The post How to Sell Digital Products Online with Google Drive and PayPal appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

The Web Developer’s Toolkit

1. devdocs.io — API documentation for all popular programming languages and frameworks. Includes instant search and works offline too.

2. glitch.com — create your own web apps in the browser, import GitHub repos, use any NPM package or build on any popular frameworks and directly deploy to Firebase.

3. bundlephobia.com — quickly find the import cost (download size) of any package in the NPM registry. Or upload your package.json file to scan all dependencies in your project.

4. babeljs.io/repl — Write your code in modern JavaScript and let Babel transform your code into JavaScript that is compatible with even older browsers.

5. codeply.com — quickly build frontend responsive layouts with frameworks like Bootstrap, Materialize CSS and SemanticUI.

6. httpie.org — a command-line tool that is useful for making HTTP requests to web servers and RESTful APIs. Almost as powerful as CURL and Wget but simpler.

7. regexr.com — A good tool for testing your regular expressions in the browser.

8. jex.im/regulex — Write any regular expression into the editor and get a visual representation of how the pieces work.

9. buildregex.com — Construct regular expressions visually.

Also see: The Most Useful Websites on the Internet

10. explainshell.com — Type any Unix command and get a visual explanation of each flag and argument in the command.

11. tldr.ostera.io — Unix man pages are long and complex. This site offers practical examples for all popular Unix command without you having to dive into the man pages.

12. mockaroo.com — quickly generate dummy test data in the browser in CSV, JSON, SQL and other export formats.

13. jsdelivr.com — Serve any GitHub file or WordPress plugin through a CDN. Combine multiple files in a single URL, add “.min” to any JS/CSS file to get a minified version automatically. Also see unpkg.com.

14. carbon.now.sh — create beautiful screenshots of your source code. Offers syntax highlighting for all popular languages.

15. wakatime.com — know exactly how long you spend coding with detailed metrics per file and even language. Integrates with VS Code, Sublime text, and all popular code editors.

16. astexplorer.net — paste your JavaScript code into the editor and generate the Abstract Syntax Tree that will help you understand how the JavaScript parser works.

17. hyper.is — A better alternative to the command line terminal and also iTerm. Use with the Oh My Zsh shell and add superpowers to your terminal.

18. curlbuilder.com — make your own CURL requests in the browser.

19. htaccess.madewithlove.be — easily test the redirect and rewrite rules in the .htaccess file of your Apache server. See useful .htaccess snippets.

Also see: The Best Places to Download HTML Templates

20. trackjs.com — monitor errors in your JavaScript based web projects and get instant email notifications when a new error is detected.

21. ngrok.com — Start a local web server, fire up ngrok, point to the port where the localhost is running and get a public URL of your tunnel.

22. codeshare.io — An online code editor for pair programming, live interviews with video conferences or for teaching code to students remotely.

23. webhooks.site — Easily inspect the payloads and debug HTTP webhooks in the browser. All HTTP requests are logged in real-time. Another good alternative is RequestBin.

24. surge.sh — the easiest way to deploy web pages and other static content from the command line. Supports custom domains and SSL. Also see Zeit Now.

25. visbug — A must-have add-on for web developers that brings useful web design tools right in your browser. Available for Google Chrome and Firefox.

26. puppeteersandbox.com — Puppeteer is a Node.js framework for automating Google Chrome. Use the sandbox to quickly test your scripts in the browser. Also see try-puppeteer.com.

27. prettier.io/playground — Beautify your JavaScript and TypeScript code using Prettier, the favorite code formatter of programmers.

28. json.parser.online.fr — The only JSON parser you’ll ever need to analyze and beautify your complex JSON strings.

29. scrimba.com — Create your own programming screencasts in the browser or watch other developers code.code.

30. katacoda.com — A training platform for software developers where anyone can create their own dedicated and interactive training environments.

31. codesandbox.io — A full-featured online IDE where you can create web applications in all popular languages including vanilla JavaScript, React, TypeScript, Vue and Angular. Also see StackBlitz.com and Repl.it.

32. apify.com — Write your own web scrapers using JavaScript and schedule your scrapers to run at specific intervals automatically.

33. vim-adventures.com — The Vim text editor is hugely popular among programmers. The site will help you master the various key commands through a game.

34. insomnia.rest — A desktop based REST client that lets you create HTTP requests and view response details all in a easy-to-use interface. Advanced users may consider Postman.

Also see: The Most Awesome Teachers for Learning Web Development

The post The Essential Tools for Programmers appeared first on Digital Inspiration.