Website Tools
Using Dreamweaver to create HTML pages can mess up valuable CSS and PHP code. Instead we rely on writing all of our websites by hand, a potentially time consuming job.
Luckily we are not alone, with an avid and creative community of website developers around the world with the same problem.
As of July 2008, the best tools in the website building trade for Macintosh are:
Coda by Panic.com
All in one HTML, PHP, CSS editor with built-in FTP (and manuals for PHP, Javascript etc).
Clever features mimic Macintosh OS X operating system, so its a breeze to use. Great colouring of code and font sizes can be enlarged to stop our eye's wearing out with pages and pages of code, day in, day out.
Most PHP & HTML coding is done with Coda.
http://www.panic.com/coda/
CSSEdit by MacRabbit.com
Wonderful, intuitive CSS editor.
Great design (Apple design award), great tools such as live preview, xray and auto-complete when writing code.
Integrates with Coda well, a CSS file can be opened in CSSEdit from the Coda ftp panel.
From Belgium, Jan Van Boghout makes great software. His website is a great read, especially the About page.
http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/
Firefox Add-ons
Yes, Firefox can do some great things... especially for live testing. Some favourites are:
Web Developer by Chris Pederick
Excellent web developer toolbar.
http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/
Firebug by Parakey.com
Another great web developer tool, especially for de-bugging Ajax built websites.
http://www.getfirebug.com
XRAY
Shows the box model for any element, great for using with CSS, and can now also be used in Internet Explorer.
http://westciv.com/xray/
GreaseMonkey
'Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and function'. There are hundreds of add-ons available.
http://www.greasespot.net
Favourite add-ons are 'Numbered Google Results', which lets you see a number next to each result in Google. E.g. we come in at no. 20 for 'websites' in google.com.au
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/3780
Next best things...
Above we've listed our favourite developer tools. Below are some of the runner's up, which still get used on a daily basis.
If you're a web developer on Mac, these are well worth looking into:
Taco HTML
The next-best way to edit HTML and PHP code on a Mac, its fast, well highlighted code and find / replace makes hand-coding work a pleasure. Edit straight off the server, hit 'save' and it uploads itself.
http://www.tacosw.com
Transmit FTP
'Shockingly Good Mac Software' and they are right. Cabel and his team have built the best FTP program, PC or Mac, ever.
http://www.panic.com/transmit/