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A Convo w/ Chris Coyier

Tag:Open Tab
Published:November 21, 2023 at 10:51 PM
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Open Tab | A series of stories about the Arc members building the future of the internet where we dive deep into their work and passion projects and share the corners of the internet they love the most.
Open Tab
A Folder from
Chris Coyier
Chris Coyier's Member Card
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Open Tab
A Folder from
Chris Coyier
Chris Coyier's Member Card
Arc Member Card
Find yours in the Settings dialog

Today, we are joined by Chris Coyier - a web designer, developer, an impressively consistent blogger, and most notably, an Arc member since November 2022. One thing you’ve got to know about Chris is that he loves websites. He builds websites, writes about websites and helps others make - you guessed it - websites. In 2012, together with Alex Vazquez, he co-founded CodePen - not only a great tool for building and writing front-end code but also a massive community of word-class front-end designers and developers connecting through their work. In the free from opening new tabs and writing code time, Chris also co-hosts ShopTalk - a weekly podcast where, together with Dave Rupert, they discuss the latest tech news, interview front-end experts, and get into the nitty-gritty of web design and development.

Lucky for us over here at Browser HQ, Chris found a moment to share 10 things he can’t live without as a developer which span from certified tech classics, like Figma and Notion, to nifty little single-purpose apps:

  1. A reliable clipboard tool, like Paste, which makes anything he’s copied (no matter how long ago) reachable to paste.

  2. Surprise, surprise…a good website building framework. WordPress for content-heavy sites, Next for long-running interactivity-heavy web apps, and Astro for anything in between.

  3. Feedbin RSS reader for keeping tabs (ha!) on the latest in the tech industry. Chris’s favorite feature? An email address issued by Feedbin which he can use to subscribe to newsletters and read them in the same place as the rest of his reading, keeping his actual inbox clutter-free.

  4. A whole arsenal of note-taking apps. Things for his daily to-dos, Bear for quick notes, and Notion for longer notes and planning.

  5. Figma, since Chris often finds himself switching between design and code.

  6. Cleanshot for taking neat screenshots and quick screencasts. Lately though, he’s been also exploring Screen Studio as an alternative, and sticks to ScreenFlow for longer recordings.

  7. His favorite internet browser Arc (swear, we didn’t make him say this). Even without mentioning any Arc-specific features, he loves the fact that it’s running Chromium which is “where the best DevTools are.”

  8. “Websites that help with one tiny little thing,” like all the tools curated on fffuel, SVG backgrounds, and bigger apps, like The Noun Project and Unsplash for icons and images.

  9. A smart colorpicker, like Sip or OKLCH that lets him access the P3 color space.

  10. And of course, his own tool CodePen to make code demos - whether it’s to troubleshoot something on his own, teach others, or prototype something with his team. He is also forever scouring the site, looking at all the amazing things CodePen’s community members build.

Access all of Chris’s recommendations at once in this Arc Folder and let us know who you would like to see featured next!