Hey! Welcome to DevMade.com. This is my little corner of the internet where I can release all the doodads and gizmos that I make while building sites and applications for my clients.

In the future I may turn it into more, but as of now it is really a showcase for novella, my easy-to-use CMS application. If that is what you came to see you can cut to the chase by clicking on the little logo.

If you gotta few minutes to waste, why not take a look around?

Hi, my name is David Baxter. I am the founder and one of the principle developers of the small web development firm Visionary Online. I have built a lot of sites over the years. Some simple, some really complex. Some were well designed...others...well there are a few out there that I am embarrassed to admit I created. My passion is web development and creating sites that are easy to use. Its been my mantra for going on 8 years now.

Another passion is the user interface...designing them...refining them...and finding out what makes them tick. I love creating and admiring well-built, css driven, standards compliant websites. I write about it from time to time on my blog. Please feel free to check it out (creativeUI.com).

A few months ago I began working on a little app that eventually became novella. Once that was nearing completion, I realized that it needed a home...thus DevMade was born. Simply put, DevMade is my sandbox. Right now I only have one toy in it, but I hope to add others as time goes on.

All the tools that appear on this site will be open source and freely available. Why? Its just my way of giving back. I have used more little free tools and code snippets than I can count. I wish I could thank each and every author of all the doodads I have used because they have really helped me take my client's sites to the next level. So in the end I hope that the tools here will give someone what they need to create something great for their clients.

This is the place where I tell you about all the amazing things you can do with my tools and how you only pay four easy installments of $19.99 (not really...the tools are free). Right now there is only one, but I will add more over time.

Novella is the result of me reinventing the CMS wheel for my clients one toooo many times. I have used a number of CMS systems. Some are great, while others leave a bit to be desired. One common element is they are almost all really complex to setup, use and design for. When I tell a client that he can update his own content, then that is exactly what he should be able to do. To me, maintaining your content should be as easy as writing an email.

Furthermore, as a designer, I do not want to be constrained by my CMS application. If I want to have a bunch of fancy javascript animations and a flash movie next to my content, then I should not have some application telling me that I can't. It is my site after all isn't it?

So I built novella to combat these problems and to be extremely friendly to both the client and the developer. As with all the tools here, it is completely free to use and play with. If you are interested, feel free to check it out.

Coming soon...forums!!

Until then, if you are stuck, feel free to shoot me an email at david at visionaryonline dot com.

Since things are just getting off the ground the contribution process is REALLY informal.

If you have an idea for a new user control or feature for novella, please shoot me an email at david at visionaryonline dot com and we can chat.