Best new learning, design and music resources: 31 October

On 31 October, thirty free and freemium tools and websites joined the directory, along with ten open-source projects from GitHub. I've grouped them into learning, design, building and getting things done, remote jobs and reading, making music, and open-source tools you run yourself. Features and pricing change, so check each tool's own page before you rely on it.

Learning

BBC Bitesize covers every main school subject from early years to GCSE and Scottish Highers, with short explainer videos, revision guides, quizzes and careers advice. It is free, though it is built around UK curricula and is less useful for other school systems. Open Knowledge Maps, run by a non-profit, searches millions of open scholarly papers and groups the results into a clickable map of sub-topics, free and with no account, though maps can be rough for very niche topics.

For programmers, Learn X in Y Minutes gives you one annotated code file per language or tool, from Python and Rust to Bash, SQL and Git; it is a quick tour rather than a full beginner course. VisuAlgo, built at the National University of Singapore, animates sorting, trees, graphs, hash tables and more step by step with your own input. Python Tutor draws frames, objects and pointers as your code runs in Python, Java, C, C++ or JavaScript, and suits small programs. The Missing Semester is a short, free MIT course on the command line, editors, version control, debugging and scripting, and it assumes some programming background. Rosetta Code shows the same programming tasks solved in hundreds of languages side by side, with code quality that varies, and Regex Crossword teaches regular expressions through grid puzzles that start gently and get very hard.

BetterExplained explains maths ideas such as exponents, imaginary numbers and calculus through analogies; the core lessons are free, while an ebook and course cost extra. Ptable is an interactive periodic table with properties, orbitals, isotopes and compounds. web.dev is Google's free learning hub for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, performance and accessibility, and it leans towards Chrome tooling. Memrise teaches language vocabulary and phrases with clips of native speakers and spaced repetition; you can start for free, but full access needs a paid plan.

Design

Shapefest offers over 100,000 3D renders in clay, plastic, glass and metal styles. Some packs are free at 512 by 512 pixels for personal and commercial use, while high-resolution packs need a paid licence. Accessible Colors tests a text and background pair against WCAG 2.0 AA and AAA and suggests the nearest colours that pass, and Color.review previews a colour pair on real headings and body text with a contrast score; both are free, and each checks one pair at a time.

Method Draw is a lightweight, open-source SVG editor in the browser with no sign-up, much simpler than Illustrator or Inkscape. Ionicons has more than 1,300 MIT-licensed icons in outline, filled and sharp styles. SVGL collects clean SVG logos for popular brands and tools with light and dark variants; remember that the logos remain their owners' trademarks.

Building and getting things done

Docusaurus, maintained by Meta, turns Markdown and MDX files into documentation sites with versioning, search and translations. It is free and MIT-licensed, but it needs Node.js and you handle hosting yourself. GitBook is a hosted docs platform with a block editor and Git sync; the free plan covers one user, and Essential starts at $65 a site per month for custom domains and team collaboration.

Formspree sends website form submissions to your inbox or tools like Slack, with spam filtering. The free plan allows 50 submissions a month, and Personal starts at $10 a month billed yearly. Neocities gives you a free static website with 1 GB of storage, an in-browser editor and no adverts, while the $5-a-month Supporter plan adds custom domains. Linktree builds a link-in-bio page with unlimited links on the free plan, though Linktree branding stays unless you pay.

Two small utilities round this out. Invoice Generator lets you fill in an invoice template with your logo, line items and tax in any currency and download a PDF, free and unlimited, though it is not full accounting software. vClock puts an alarm clock, countdown timer, stopwatch and world clock in your browser; it shows ads and needs the tab left open.

Remote jobs and reading

NoDesk lists hand-picked remote job openings, a directory of remote-first companies and a weekly newsletter. It is free for job seekers, with fewer listings than big job boards and a lean towards tech and marketing roles. Hardcover is an independent book tracker for logging, rating and discovering books, with reading goals and Goodreads import, free on the web, iOS and Android, with an optional Supporter plan.

Making music

BandLab is a multitrack studio in the browser and on mobile, with instruments, loops, effects and real-time collaboration; the core studio is free, and the best tools sit behind an optional Membership. Flat is online music notation software for sheet music and guitar tabs, and its free plan stops at 15 scores, with MusicXML and MIDI export on the paid plan. BeepBox lets you sketch chiptune melodies on a simple grid and share them as a link or export WAV and MIDI, free and open source.

Open-source tools to run yourself

Wox is a keyboard-first launcher for Windows, macOS and Linux, with a smaller plugin library than Raycast. MarkEdit is a tiny native Markdown editor for Mac that feels like TextEdit. On file clean-up, Mole is a Mac command-line toolkit for cleaning caches, uninstalling apps and analysing disk use, and Czkawka and dupeGuru find duplicate files and similar photos on all three desktop systems. All three delete files, so review what they will remove first.

For developers, chezmoi keeps your dotfiles in sync across machines through a Git repository, and Gum adds inputs, pickers and spinners to shell scripts. Helix is a modal terminal code editor that works well out of the box, with a learning curve and no plugin system yet. Zed is a fast code editor with real-time collaboration and AI features, where hosted AI needs a paid plan. Yaak is a desktop API client for REST, GraphQL and gRPC that keeps secrets in your system keychain; it is free for personal use, but commercial use of the prebuilt app needs a paid licence.

All of these are waiting in the full Best Productivity Resources directory, along with every other tool and guide. Filter by category, pricing and platform to find your fit.