Aptana

Posted on Tue, 03 Jul 2007
 at 17:43:55

     Firstly - apologies for the lack of updates in recent weeks. I've been quite busy with exams and a job with rather unsociable shifts, but enough of that.

     I have just found another web site IDE which i thought I would tell you about. Firstly - it's open source, and so free, which is pretty great considering to buy Dreamweaver you need to fork out £360(ish) for a (legitimate) copy.

     Of course because it's free it does lack a bit. In this case the most notable thing it lacks when stacked side by side with Dreamweaver is that it has no WYSIWYG editor, but that's fine by me because I never used it any way.

     So all the pages are written by hand by you, which you should be doing any way, but the interface is excellent. It still has those handy tool tips to help you finish code when you can't remember it or can't be bothered to type it yourself. Code is also nicely formatted automatically which makes everything really easy to read.

     Aptana also has built in FTP functionality and project management (likes "Sites" in Dreamweaver) so development of a site is easy to keep track off.

     One of the greatest function of this software is the compatibility icons - when writing a CSS style sheet the tool tips tell you if the particular attribute you are using (e.g. border/ line-height/ padding) is compatible with a browser by showing handy icons displayed next to it.

     I can see myself using Aptana to code all of my sites in in the future - what it needs to do now is add ASP and PHP functionality and I'll be a happy geek. I would recommend you give it a try right now.

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Aptana

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