There are many different types of web publishing tools, but this article focuses on three. The first is WordPress, a content management system (CMS) that allows you to easily set up and manage your own website, blog or online store. The second is Heroku, which is an application platform as a service (PaaS) that lets you build, run and operate applications entirely in the cloud. Finally we’ll look at Netlify: a hosting solution for static websites built with JAMstack technologies – JavaScript, React and Markup – which also supports continuous deployment using GitHub or Bitbucket.
Table of Contents
WordPress
WordPress is a content management system (CMS), which means it offers a platform for website owners to manage their own websites. It’s also an open source project, meaning that WordPress is free software and anyone can access the code for free.
WordPress was developed in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little and released under the GPLv2 license. The CMS allows you to create your own website from scratch or use one of its many themes and plugins in order to customize your site however you want.
In fact, there are currently over 60 million active WordPress sites around the world!
Heroku
Heroku is a cloud platform that provides a suite of tools to help developers build and operate applications. Heroku’s free plan offers hosting for up to 5 apps, each with its own custom domain name.
Heroku supports many languages and frameworks, including Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Python, Java and Go—which means you can use it to create any type of app that runs in the browser or on servers (including standalone web servers).
The setup process can be done entirely from the command line if you’re familiar with that environment; otherwise there are plenty of guides out there for setting up an app using Heroku’s GUI client toolbelt (Trellis).
Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search and YouTube.
You can use Google Cloud Platform to build, deploy and scale applications for a wide range of business needs.
Docker
Docker is a tool for managing isolated environments for applications. It allows you to containerize your applications and run them in any desired environment, whether on your laptop or in the cloud. This flexibility makes it easy to run multiple versions of the same software stack at once, as well as manage dependencies between different components of your infrastructure.
D3 library
D3 is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3 combines powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation, easing the pain of developing data visualizations.
P5.js library
P5.js is a JavaScript library that allows you to create graphics, animations and interactions. P5 has a Processing-like syntax, but it’s completely browser based, so there’s no need to install anything. It’s 100% written in JavaScript and runs in the browser without any plug-ins required, making it possible to share your sketches with anyone (and they don’t even have to have a web browser).
The code looks like this:
setup() { // sets up the canvas size = width = height = window.innerWidth * 2; // sets up the background color fill(0); rect(0, 0, width – 1 , height – 1 ); } frame() { // update all objects here } mousePressed() { if (mouseX > 0 && mouseY > 0 && mouseX 0 && mouseY < height / 2) or (mouseX < 0 + 2 * width / 3 * 4 * 5) and ((width % 8) === 0) then print(“MOUSE DRAG”); else print(“MOUSE HOVER”); }
Github Pages
GitHub Pages is a free hosting platform that allows you to create websites, landing pages and blogs. The best thing about it is that you can use any of the pre-built themes if you don’t have time to create your own design or if you don’t have any graphic design skills at all. However, if you want something unique and tailored for your business, it might be better to hire a designer or work with one of these tools:
- Adobe Photoshop: A professional image editing software from Adobe which includes templates for designing website layouts including headers and footers etc.
- Canva: A free online tool that comes with over 1 million stock images as well as fonts & graphics which help designers create beautiful designs in minutes! You can start with free plans but upgrading will give access to even more features such as creating social media graphics like banners & avatars which are great for promoting products/services through Facebook ads etc..
Bottom Line
There are many different web publishing tools, and the right choice for you may depend on your industry or your needs as a web developer. But the tools above offer something for everyone, allowing you to create a website quickly and easily, and update that website as needed. And best of all, they’re free!
