What is the best IDE setup for web development?

Question

I am starting a little side project which consists of building a small-medium sized, django-based, website.

However, last time I was actually in the business of websites, was a few good years ago. So while still technologically capable, I'm still rusted on the tools/IDE part of websites.

I am looking for an IDE which can support the following:

• Basic HTML editing with syntax completion, highlighting, etc...
• Basic CSS editing with syntax completion, highlighting, etc...
• Python support for Django
• Support for the entire develop-debug-FTP upload cycle

If all of this could happen inside my existing eclipse installation, it would be nothing short of perfection.

So what's your recommendation on web development IDEs?

EDIT: forgot to add that I'm running Win XP on my dev machine.

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EDIT after answers: thanks all you guys for the helpful advice. I think I'm going to go with Aptana as it fits in to eclipse which I already use. Also I will look into version control instead of simple FTP upload. Apparently I didn't know how much it is used even in web projects.

Answer 1

I'm not sure what platform you are on but Textmate can do all of that, as can Emacs. I've heard e-Text-Editor is good on Windows (never used it though).

I would strongly suggest you replace your "develop-debug-FTP" cycle with a "write tests, develop, run tests, commit to version control" cycle. You can then check out of version control onto the production server rather than ftp uploading. I strongly recommend not using ftp with a web application (such as what you will create with Django).

You'll get more benefit from testing and version control than from using the best Ide in the world.

Answer 2

Coda is nice too for web development. For sure it handles Python, I don't know what could mean Python support for Django, but with coda you can work directly via FTP and do other nice stuff (also SVN versioning and has a good integrated CSS blender).

For Windows, when I developed web apps (in PHP) I found very useful PHPEd, but I don't think it can handle Python.

Answer 3

Being a .NET developer myself, I always use one of the best tools available in the market (as I used plenty and I just love this one), and it's free if you don't use plugins and fancy stuff, I'm talking about Microsoft Web Developer Express Edition,

I'm saying this because you mention Python, and Microsoft created (?) IronPython:

IronPython is a new implementation of the Python programming language running on .NET. It supports an interactive console with fully dynamic compilation. It is well integrated with the rest of the .NET Framework and makes all .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers, while maintaining full compatibility with the Python language.

Have no idea if this will work in your environment, but I think at least you could give a read in the documentation, because, having the .NET framework at your disposable, is something to give it a shoot.

If that does not fit you, I will point to Eclipse IDE :) and you will find plenty of tutorials to set up your Eclipse in order o build Python projects.

Added:

Rememeber to install WAMP so with one installation you have PHP, mySQL and Apache server on your windows machine to test and run your projects.

Answer 4

For django, I use Eclipse+PyDev. It's by no means a complete code-completion solution, but it's a nice interface and it'll get you a long way.

Now for HTML, I use another editor. Eclipse does have an Aptana plugin (which is pretty okay) but I find it a bit clunky. Give it a look and see what you see. There are certainly enough HTML editors out there for you to find something that fits your flow. Just remember there's no reason why you have to do your python and html in the same editor. None at all.

In terms of pushing your code out, I plead you to see the error of your ways and move to some sort of version control system. I use Bazaar but there are loads out there with various benefits. They take a while to get used to but they're well, well worth the initial time investment.

Answer 5

The Zeus IDE has HTML and CSS syntax highlighting and it can also be configured to do seamless FTP/SFTP editing.

Answer 6

You can do worse than Dreamweaver for the HTML / CSS / visual side. Also try Netbeans for the programming parts - seems to support most languages.

Answer 7

We're using Komodo Edit.

You can define a huge variety of sophisticated commands -- via scripting.

I haven't yet written an FTP transfer command, but I've done everything else by adding commands to my project in Komodo.

Answer 8

You can use Aptana Studio with the Eclipse PyDev plugin to do all that (and a lot more). The best thing is that it's cross-platform, so you can install it on any computer you do development work on, and not have to learn multiple IDEs.

Answer 9

Netbeans won't do what you need yet (it will do some of it - i.e. it has some knowledge of HTML and css), but it may be worth keeping an eye on. There is some early version of python support available and I believe django support is expected to be added.

I can't vouch for the quality (as I use neither python nor django), however the ruby / ruby+rails support for netbeans works well and it supports other languages such as java and groovy well also.

In the meantime, textmate / E is probably your best bet. Many people use this rather than an IDE anyway.

Answer 10

I use vim for python and django. It is free, solid as a rock, have many useful plugins and big community. For python/django coding you have auto-completion add syntax highlighting for django templates.

Answer 11

I have started a question very similar to this, hopefully the discussion benefits you:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/365676/which-ide-is-for-me

Cheers,

Answer 12

IntelliJ IDEA has the best support for HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It takes the web developer to the level of Java developers.

I am not affiliated to IntelliJ in anyway and unfortunately where I work right now we do not use it.

Answer 13

Recently a new IDE for Django was released by JetBrains: http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/

• integrated version control system (supporting GIT)
• the best diff tool I've ever seen
• debugger