Eclipse Basic Web Development?

Question

I want to start doing web development with Eclipse. Not Java, tomcat, axis2, or anything else anymore complicated than basic XHTML / JS / CSS development, at this time.

Problem 1: I realize that it can edit those files, but its trying to manage my HTML docs as part of "my workspace", and all I want it to do is manage the files as part of my local www server HTdocs directory.

Problem 2: I would like to edit WYSIWYG-style, if possible. I tried installing a plug-in for that, but I wasn't able to get w4 toolkit to function properly. This would really help me to speed up development, I think.

Follow-up:

I've installed WTP and its dependencies (except for the tests portion, which had install problems due to dependencies that were seemingly irreconcilable).

Answer 1

Why not start with a web design software? Once you have the web pages laid out the way you want them, you can add them to your web application in eclipse. Eclipse is great for application development. Even though it can handle some page builder needs, it's probably not as good as a web design tool. In your case, you end up having to install plug-ins for page building.

Answer 2

1. You can link a folder in your workspace to somewhere on your filesystem. So in your case you could create a folder in your Eclipse project called "html" and link it to your Apache htdocs folder.

2. You should try Aptana Studio. It's available either as a stand-alone install (based on Eclipse) or as an Eclipse plugin. It has a good reputation for Web App dev.

Answer 3

Eclipse is software for coding, it's not designed for WYSIWYG editing. If you want WYSIWYG, you should use Dreamweaver or suchlike.

If you want to use Eclipse for what is good for, coding, the main alternatives are Web Tools Platform which is quite basic and could be already pre-installed depending on what version of Eclipse you got, and Aptana Studio. which is quite bloated.