Gradients are used virtually everywhere to improve the overal look and feel of most designs and applications. But up until recently these great graphical niceties on the web always had to be represented by a small or large graphic file, which depending on the skill of the designer/developer could add significant bloat to a website.

On to the scene enters CSS3 with many new features that (when properly utilized by compliant web browsers)  make the seemingly simple websites come alive. One of my favorite new features is the CSS Gradient. Now rather than adding bloat to a site with multiple graphics to improve the sites look and feel, now that can all be taken care of with just a few lines of CSS rules.

Now this new advancement in site design as powerful as it is, can be cumbersome, especially if the gradient is technically advanced with multiple stops and color changes. The raw development of the right CSS rule could take a significant amount of time, but no longer.

Thanks to Alex Sirota (iosart), web developers around the world now have free access to an amazing tool that significantly increases your CSS3 productivity. The Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator provides a easy to use (and fairly familiar interface for Photoshop Users) that not only allows you to create new gradients, but you can also save previous favorite presets, import gradient code from CSS, and import an image with a gradient on it.

I have used this tool a ton, and highly recommend it to any developers that are going to work with CSS3 Gradients in any way.

Head On Over To:

The Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator

I look forward to the enhancements that will be made available with the 1.2 release. Exciting.

In later posts I will share and discuss scripts that use/extend the base functionality of MooTools to create some very amazing, usability enhancing, tools and effects.