My Web Development Tools (Part Two)
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by GrandmasterB under Web DevelopmentI’m back for the conclusion of my post from yesterday (My Web Development Tools). Part two will focus mainly on my browser of choice…FIREFOX! I know that Firefox is probably not new to most of my readers, but I have installed a great set of add-ons that will make any web developers life easier. By the way don’t forget that Firefox Version 3 is now available in Beta4. If you’d like to check it out it can be found here.
Tool Number Four: Firefox 2
I LOVE FIREFOX! There, now that that’s out of the way I can concentrate on giving you details as to why I use Firefox to develop sites. I use Firefox for two main reasons. I code every site and test as I go with Firefox. The main reason is that the fine folks at Microsoft have discontinued Internet Explorer for Mac; which quite honestly is fine with me. I do have a standby Windows machine dedicated to testing once I am sure everything looks fine in Firefox. The other reason I prefer to do all of my work with Firefox is the great add-ons that you can download from the mozilla site. That’s the beauty of using an open source browser; the community of developers come up with some of the coolest add-ons to make your internet experience more enjoyable.My favorite add-on for Firefox is the Web Developer Toolbar by Chris Pederick.
This toolbar is un-freakin-believable! I found the toolbar perfect for creating my WordPress theme…or modifying the theme. 
I started using the Web Developer Toolbar when I designed my first Joomla! template. The ‘information’ menu allows you to display class and id details for an entire page. An invaluable tool for locating the classes that control the layout and look of the template. Another cool feature allows you to display the CSS used on the site…even if it’s a linked stylesheet.The other tools that I use are fairly straightforward and are installed more for convenience than ‘need’. ColorZilla is a great add-on that gives you a color picker when activated to get the RGB or HEX value of a color within the browser window. FireFTP is an add-on FTP client to upload and download files on your web server. I don’t use FireFTP as much as I used to, now that I use CODA. If you’re looking for a good FTP client, and don’t want to fork over money for it…FireFTP is a good option.
Tool Number Five: MAMP
MAMP (Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, PHP) is a program that creates a local server environment on your Mac. There is a windows equivelant called WAMP; which does basically the same thing as MAMP, but in a Windows environment. The reason I use MAMP is it allows me to setup a local version of a site (ie. my WordPress Theme) and do all of the testing locally. This saves a great deal of time, because I don’t have to make a change, upload the file, refresh the browser…and repeat if necessary. Since it installs PHP and MySQL within the application directory it’s a perfect fit for developers that desing Joomla! templates, WordPress themes and other CMS customization. Both MAMP and WAMP are free to download and we all know that free = good!
Well, there you have it. That’s my list of web development tools that I use and recommend to anyone that is either starting out in web design or is an established designer. If you have any comments or questions involving this list or anything else related to web design; please let me know. Also, if you have software that you would recommend please add a comment and let me know about it.
~ GrandmasterB
March 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Firefox is undoubtedly the best browser for the purpose of blogging. I am not saying it is superior to Opera in all respects — Opera has several better aspects in my opinion. But the extensions and the clean look and feel of Firefox really make it shine.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
[...] March 23: My Web Development Tools (Part Two) [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Top web dev tools:
– Apple Mac (it doesn’t matter which one – the graphics are just better and there’s less down time);
– Textmate for PHP, XHTML, Javascript and CSS
– Photoshop CS3
– Illustrator CS3
– Firefox 2
– Cyberduck
– Wordpress 2.5
– Google Gmail, Reader, Calendar and Analytics
May 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Thank you for the comment Mark. I’ve never used Cyberduck before, but it does look good. I normally use either the FTP feature from CODA or CaptainFTP. I guess they’re all relatively close in features. Does Cyberduck have any added features that you prefer over another FTP client?
May 19th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
To be honest my preference would have been for Coda but my experiences with find and replace, particularly using regex was a little disappointing. Apparently this is something they’re working on.
For me Cyberduck has some nice features including integration with Textmate. I’ve set the two apps up so that I can open a file and edit it directly on the server – no local copies involved. It’s great for minor updates.
As you say though, there’s no major differences between them. It’s more about what I ended up trialling and and felt largely comfortable with. I will say though that all of the above are far better options than Dreamweaver.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I agree with you 100% in regards to Dreamweaver. I use it at work only because I’m still on a lousy PC (anxiously awaiting a Mac) and that’s what they have installed. In my opinion Dreamweaver has fallen behind in features and now ranks just above FrontPage.