# Web Dev IDE?



## gmac (Mar 10, 2004)

Hi

I was just wondering what Web development IDE and/or tool suite people prefer using.  I have been developing on the other platform at work and we use the usual buggy software for application and Web development.

So I was wondering what's goning to be the best option for me to develop Web sites on Mac OS X.

I would like code colouring for HTML, JavaScript, PHP and CSS and plenty of other features that make development better.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

gmac
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A UK Mac Addict


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## uoba (Mar 10, 2004)

We've had a few occasional threads concerning this. My preference is for BBEdit (full version, not Lite... which is still good for free, but lacks the all important eyesight saving code-colouring). In fact, BBEdit is really all I use. For XHTML, CSS, PHP; pretty much most code that I need.

Occasionally I'll venture into Dreamweaver MX (dumped it about 6 months ago but still have a license for MX), for PHP (I'm not advanced, so DWMX's PHP handling can be helpful).

Other applications noted here recently are skedit (do a search on www.versiontracker.com/macosx for skedit). Which I think is about $20 (£10). Very good, but I still prefer BBEdit. Also, you might want to look at CSSEdit for a very comprehensive individual CSS application.


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## Pengu (Mar 10, 2004)

SubEthaEdit is pretty cool, and it's free.


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## pds (Mar 11, 2004)

Taco HTML Edit has colored tag levels and is free.


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## gmac (Mar 11, 2004)

Cheers for all the different ideas, I will give them all a try and see what I find most useful.  I have to say that no matter which way I go it can't ever be as bad as where I came from.

gmac


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## gmac (Mar 11, 2004)

Anybody have any thoughts about Adobe GoLive?


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## uoba (Mar 11, 2004)

GoLive is almost as good (read bad) as Dreamweaver   . Much the same really. Bloated, yet useful if you don't want to get your hands too dirty with the code. It's integration with other Adobe products is fantastic, as Dreamweaver is with other Macromedia products.

I've always liked GoLive, but as I've mentioned, I prefer to handcode now. You can download a demo from Adobe (as you can with DWMX2004 from Macromedia).


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## mdnky (Mar 11, 2004)

I've always been a fan of hand coding in Dreamweaver, used MX mostly until I bought the iBook and moved up to Panther.  After some issues with MX, went to using BBEdit full time.  

Had liked what I saw of the new version of GoLive (CS) back in November when I saw it at a show, but after downloading the trial I removed it rather quickly.  Used MX2004 on a Win machine and found it to be a much better enviroment than GoLive.   

Broke down 3 weeks ago and upgraded to Studio MX 2004, but still use BBEdit for personal sites.  Just depends on what I feel like coding in.  Both DW MX04 and BBEdit have their advantages and disadvantages.  BBEdit is fast (gui) and rather simple.  DW has some nice auto complete features.  

You'll have to figure out if something like DW or BBEdit are worth the cost to you or not.  There are some cheaper/free alt.s out there too.


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## uoba (Mar 14, 2004)

One thing I forgot to mention, which has now become absolutely indispensable to my work is, Mozilla Firefox couple with the Web Developer extension. The extension allows you to do everything you ever wanted that certain hand-coding apps won't do... Validate local files, validate to different standards (W3C, WAI, 508 etc.) Turn off styles, images. Mark-out HTML elements with borders. It's fantastic.

You can get Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org and the web developer extension from http://chrispederick.myacen.com/work/firefox/webdeveloper/


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