Sunrise: The Browser for Web Developers

Sunrise is a free/open-source web browser based on the famous Webkit framework. You might have heard of it; this is the same framework that powers such browsers as Safari and OmniWeb. However, what makes Sunrise unique is several of its features that you won’t find in any of the “mainstream” browsers out there. In a nutshell, Sunrise provides lots of useful features that a lot of web developers have been dreaming about.

Instead of saving your bookmarks as a mere link, Sunrise will also capture a screenshot of the page. Most users will certainly like this because it helps to quickly identify your favorite sites. But that’s not all; you can also assign a color label to categorize or sort through the entire list. This has nothing to do with web developers, but because it’s pretty unique, it gets a mention.

Right, back to developers. Sunrise is the perfect browser for you, so obviously it has some special tools as well. You can dynamically set the window width to easily test your web page at any display size. By default, you get a choice between 640, 800, 1024 and 1280. If you prefer testing at higher resolutions, you can always define your own settings under the preferences pane.

Because of the nature of the web, HTML/CSS/Javascript can be easily viewed by any modern browser. A lot of web developers copy learn by taking some existing code and studying it. Instead of having to copy the source and pasting it in your favorite text editor, Sunrise can open the source in an editor of your choice. Even though it saves you several seconds, all this little time adds up.

Finally, I have no idea why I can’t do this in any of the “mainstream” browsers, but Sunrise allows you to save sites as a PDF. This is perfect if you can’t stand those annoying header/footer texts that other browsers seem to insert, especially when printing.

Sunrise is not meant for everyone; it’s a feature-light browser that doesn’t have a fancy plug-in system like Firefox does, or a built-in RSS reader that comes with Safari. However, if you’re a web developer who builds a ton of websites all the time, this might just be the killer app you’re after. Sunrise is free and open-source, so grab it while it’s hot.