Good Editors for Web Development on OS X?

Question

I'm getting started with web development on OS X need some good development tools, text editors...etc. I have XCode already but it doesn't seem geared towards editing the web technologies I will be using: xhtml, javascript, css, and php.

So I am looking for some ideas. I know about TextMate, but am trying to avoid spending any $$$.

Thanks!

UPDATE: I downloaded them all and so far I like TextMate the best, so I'll be using it for a month at least. Aquamacs and TextWrangler are also good. The web IDEs like Coda and Espresso are pretty interesting. I might give them a chance in the future, but for now I want to keep it lightweight. Thanks all.

Answer 1

I'd recommend learning Vim or Emacs, actually. They're both excellent editors, and they're transferable skills: because they're installed on virtually every Unix system on the face of the planet you can use them anywhere.

There are OS X native versions of both editors: Macvim, which I use, is excellent, and Emacs has Aquamacs.

Answer 2

Personally I use Eclipse for Actionsctipt, HTML, XML, CSS, JS, PHP... It's not as light as TextMate of course but contains a lot of goodies (syntax high-lighting, validation, auto-completition, SVN team integration, etc. ).

Answer 3

If you want a free editor, Emacs is the way to go. Can be a bit of a steep learning curve at first, but it has modes for almost any development task you could ask for, and is extremely extensible using elisp. I would recommend installing it through MacPorts.

Answer 4

Reconsider and get TextMate. If you can only save $1.80 a day during the trial period you can buy it at the end.

Answer 5

Coda!

Well, depends what your doing. But it's a nice wrapper for all the little things.

Answer 6

BBEdit has a fantastic reputation in the Mac community. It's a great program, you can't go wrong with it. There is a free trial too!

Answer 7

Coda is worth the $100.

Answer 8

coda by Panic is a great text editor - it has built in support for html, javascript, visual css editor & PHP. It also has reference books built in for HTML, CSS and PHP. It has a built in web preview page based on Webkit and it also has built in support for command line interaction with a remote server.

Click here to see coda

Answer 9

For a free, lightweight text editor, try Smultron.

Answer 10

TextWrangler - free, lightweight version of BBEdit.

Answer 11

Espresso is new and looks neat, but I haven't tried it.

Answer 12

I use Textmate on a daily basis. It is by far the best text editor I have ever used. Give it shot, you get a 1 month trial period for free anyways.

Answer 13

I'm using Komodo Edit. Works great.

Answer 14

My favourite web development tools are TextMate, CSSEdit, MAMP, and Transmit (as well as Finder on Mac OS X for organising my files).

I use TextMate to edit my HTML/JavaScript/PHP (in fact, most of my code), CSSEdit to edit my CSS (its "Live Preview" feature is invaluable), MAMP for my local server, and Transmit (an FTP client) to synchronise my local files with the server.

TextMate is well worth the money; but beware that after using it for a while, you may find it extremely frustrating to use other text editors! (One of my favourite features that I miss in other text editors is TextMate's automatic indentation and character pairing.)

Steve

Answer 15

Aquamacs and Emacs from Macports were already suggested, but I would recommend Carbon Emacs. It has a GUI (you get toolbar, menus, different fonts, copypaste works better than with terminal), but isn't modified as much as Aquamacs. Also, a lot of libraries are included.

Answer 16

As I mentioned in another question, I have used Eclipse PDT, PHPEclipse and Komodo, but I've come to like NetBeans the best. It seems to be the easiest to use and have the smartest code completion and variable type recognition.

During the time I've been developing my PHP framework, it hasn't let me down yet.

For quick hacks that don't beg for an IDE, I tend to use either Smultron, or more recently, TextWrangler.

Answer 17

i would recommend netbeans. It's not lightweight but very good IDE.

Answer 18

In my opinion TextMate is definitely the best. It's not like an IDE but it has a way more features as you would except from first sight. If you want something more like a ftp-editor-preview-bundle take a look at Coda or Espresso.

Answer 19

I use TextMate for all of my coding requirements and CyberDuck for FTP.

MAMP (Mac Apache MySQL and PHP) is fantastic for local development of projects.

Some of my Mac Dev friends love Code with built in Transmit, and I've been tempted on that front due to the seemless nature for updating repositories.

Answer 20

TextMate; If it's good enough for 37signals, it's good enough for you.

Answer 21

I'm partial to VS on Windows (via VMWare), but Aptana (based on Eclipse) is pretty nice.

Answer 22

I would recommend Textmate without any question. The most intuitive, configurable editor I've every used on any platform. It is so worth the small registration fee but try it for 30 days to see what everyone is raving about.

Answer 23

Textmate is great, but for good php debugging, svn synchronization, and syntax validation, Zend studio is fantastic. You might want to try out the eclipse version, but I stick to the non-eclipse version myself as it's a little more lightweight.

http://www.zend.com/en/products/studio/downloads

Answer 24

Eclipse is by far the best for most languages.

Answer 25

I recommend you NetBeans.. its free. it is available for all platforms, and mostly it is good for editing php, jsp, java, css, html, ...

believe me, i'm using it for php development and its the best suited ide i can