sharepoint ide other than sharepoint designer

Question

Source control in Sharepoint Designer (SD) is arguably more a headache than a solution; especially when more than one person is editing the same code. In my case, I am mostly using SD to edit static files (css, js and html).

I suppose it depends on the sharepoint development environment (currently using development VMs), but I have experienced conflicts where SD does not allow you to check-in/out, can not allow you to save.... and a whole host of other issues that makes mastering the tool difficult.

what other ides do you use for sharepoint development other than SD? Preferably a non-Microsoft solution? Has any one successfully stopped using sharepoint developer totally?

Answer 1

For css/javascript/ html we use Aptana. it's a derivative of Eclipse and supports Eclipse plug-ins. Aptana allows you to define multiple debugging environments, so you can test for FF, IE 6 - 8, etc. Just to warn you, there have been times when we've tested in Aptana and once we've imported the resulting mark-up into SharePoint we have run into weird issues as SharePoint does not support standard HTML.

Answer 2

Do not use SharePoint Designer to push out customizations - you may lose these due to Windows Updates. If all your customizations are deployed as Features you can have full source control implemented using Visual Studio. Once you check something out with VS, you can then use SD2007 to make stylistic tweaks.When customizations are complete, just use VS to check back in.

Answer 3

Although it is not a comparable tool to SharePoint Designer, you may also save yourself some headaches with Mossquito.

Answer 4

Mossquito is the way to go. No kidding.