Good WebDev App?

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

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I mainly use notepad++ at the moment, but I'm after something with full ftp support, and ideally functions and syntax suggestions for PHP javascript etc. I'm not a big fan of dreamweaver.

Is there anything out there that I would find usefull?
 
Scrap that, looks like there are plugins available for notepad++ that do what I'm after. Any other suggestions welcomed though
 
Another vote for Eclipse (a general purpose IDE) + PDT (the PHP bit), it takes a little getting used to (you dont just open a file, it has to be part of a project) but it's superb.

There's also Aptana which is built on Eclipse (you can get it as a standalone app or as an Eclipse plugin) and has excellent css / js support, as well as fairly decent PHP support.

Personally I combine the two, and use PDT for PHP files and Aptana for CSS / JS, you just have to tell Eclipse which editor plugin to use for a certain filetype.

PS - I still have e text editor / notepad++ installed for quick file edits over FTP or for files which aren't really part of a project (apache conf / vhosts / etc).
 
I took a look at eclipse, but it seemed a little blaoted and confusing. I will however give it another try. Perhaps it was the whole projects aspect.

Thanks
 
n30_mkii said:
I took a look at eclipse, but it seemed a little blaoted and confusing. I will however give it another try. Perhaps it was the whole projects aspect.

Thanks
Click to expand...

It depends what you want to do - if you're just editing the odd file then you're right, it's overweight, (so keep notepad++ installed) but if you're working on web applications all day long then it's a godsend.

Just download the PDT all-in-one package, that should be enough to get you started.

The whole Perspective / View thing isn't as hard as it looks, basically Views are window panes that do a certain thing, like the editor, console, file browser, etc. You can position these however you see fit. A perspective is a pre-set collection of views that are useful for a particular task (debugging, source control repository exploring, different languages, etc). Just make sure you've got the PHP perspective selected to start with and don't worry about it.

If you have an existing app you want to play with, do this:
1. File->new PHP Project
2. Give it a name
3. untick Project Contents: Use default
4. Browse to your existing app root folder
5. Click finish

It should load in the left hand pane which is basically your file explorer view, double click any file to open in the editor window.

The best thing about eclipse is it's expandability, you can get plugins for pretty much everything you'd ever need as a developer. Just being able to search replace over an entire project with one simple dialogue box is worth using it alone.
 
I've been developing for years now, and for everything (from the odd 2 line script to massive multi-dev projects) I use the vim editor, I've used many IDEs over the years and every time I end up going back to vim very quickly because they just don't seem to hold a candle to it for power and speed, everything else seems to be an either / or compromise.
 
I use notepad++ but I would consider an IDE for a larger project. Eclipse can be a little confusing to start with because it is a multi-language environment, I have been using it for Java for a while. This means that it has a lot of common features that aren't necessarily used most of the time but once you get used to it it's very powerful.
 
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