How simple does Mozilla’s newly released Thimble make creating fully functional web pages in just minutes? “Ridiculously simple,” says Mozilla. The company says the tool bypasses learning HTML and CSS, struggling with servers to preview work, and other obstacles to make it “easier to create your own projects quickly and learn web skills in a way that’s easy, visual, and fun.” Beyond writing and editing HTML and CSS directly in a browser, Thimble enables sharing pages in one click. By default, Mozilla hosts the pages (which aren’t indexed by search engines), though users can host them elsewhere. Thimble also doesn’t support uploading video or images, but you can link those hosted elsewhere. The project includes hackable web pages dubbed Projects that help sharpen HTML and CSS skills. Overall, Thimble is the core of Mozilla’s Webmaker (webmaker.org) mission to transform people “from using the web to making the web.” Hundreds of Summer Code Party events are planned throughout the summer in various communities.
