I like to get things done. Often to get things done you need to break the problem you're solving into many smaller subproblems, then use many tiny helper programs to solve these subproblems, and then merge results back to solve the original problem. These tiny helper programs often just do one tiny task such as extract, convert, format, and filter data. Usually they are one-liners but often you'd just google for a tool that does what you need. I used to google for tools like "url encode" and "convert json to text" all the time and I would end up on garbage websites filled with ads, popups, blinking download buttons or tools that don't work. I hated this so much that over the last two years I built Browserling's programmer tools. It's a collection of useful tools for developers. I added 300+ tools in this collection. Each tool in the collection does one thing and one thing only and all tools work the same way. You enter input, press button, and get result. There are no ads, useless configuration options or other garbage. Just tools for getting tiny tasks done. These tools are now used by hundreds of thousands of users monthly.

I want even more people using my tools and getting things done, so my team and I at Browserling are launching a network of tools websites. Each website covers one set of tools. The first site in the network is Online CSV Tools. It's all about working with Comma Separated Values (CSV) files and data. Just like Browserling's tools, online tools are also simple, free and easy to use.

The next site is going to be Online JSON Tools (edit: now live) for working just with JSON data, then Online XML Tools (edit: now live), then Online String Tools (edit: now live), then onlineRANDOMtools (edit: now live!), then Online TSV Tools (for working with Tab Separated Values), then Online YAML Tools, then Online Image Tools, then Online Browser Tools, then Online Crypto Tools, then Online PDF Tools and so on. There will be more than 25 websites total. We'll be releasing them all one by one over the next few years.

www.onlineCSVtools.com

Here's a list of all CSV tools on this website:

Here are upcoming tools that we'll be adding to this site:

  • Preview CSV
  • Convert CSV to HTML
  • Convert CSV to Base64
  • Convert CSV to Image
  • Convert CSV to PNG
  • Convert CSV to GIF
  • Convert CSV to JPG
  • Convert CSV to XLS
  • Convert CSV to XLSX
  • Convert CSV to PDF
  • Convert CSV to a Latex Table
  • Merge CSVs

Here's a screenshot of the website:

And the CSV to JSON tool in action:

From technical perspective we built this project using just javascript, html and css. We started with an empty text file and finished with a working project. All tools run inside the browser and there is no server-side component at all. All tools will work for as long as browsers can run javascript. There are no frameworks, no dependencies, no package managers, no bundlers, no unpublishable modules, no web servers, no databases, no devops, no caching, no cdn, and no other stupid modern web crap that gets in the way. Just simple, stateless code that works and loads instantly. This is the result - 15KB website that loads in less than 100ms:

We'll be launching new sites every month and I'll announce them here. If you like what I'm doing you can subscribe to my blog and/or follow me on twitter and/or follow browserling on twitter and/or do nothing.

Until next time!