Essential web-dev tools, tips and sites for Mac

Suprised this wasn't on here: Kuler. Nice web-based color scheme generator/library. There's some great ideas on there, and it also lets you make and share your own.

jW

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/10/web-20-tutorials-round-up/ - web 2.0 tutoorials. awesome.
http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/the-biggest-mistakes-made-by-web-design-companies - biggest mistakes made by web-design companies. good read
EDIT: I forgot http://www.miniajax.com/ - great library of good looking ajax and web 2.0 scripts!

http://web.mac.com/will.englefield/iWeb/WillG4PB/Home.html - iweb tips and tricks.

Is it me or you guys missed CSSEdit 2? Its a big improvement from the first version and now allow live preview of your page which is very nice.

Also, I dont understand why people keep talking about text editor while Textmate is so far ahead of the others. If you havent tried it, please do so and make sure you learn a few snippets else you will miss the good stuff. Best 50$ I have ever spent of an application!

Best pluggin for FireFox: FireBug, allow AJAX debug, inspect DOM, etc.. very complete.

iwebsites is a must for those on iweb wanting to manage multiple web sites. http://mistergregg.com/cocoadrillosoftware/iWebSites/ . i nearly published my site, along with the other four sites when i found out about my site publishing was going all wrong. good thing, as i have it all settled now (my sites weren't far into development).

http://www.tizag.com
It's a beginners web tutorial place that helped me a lot more than w3schools did.

The Daily Slurp is one of the best inspirational sites I've seen. Plenty of great CSS design shown here.

Lynda.com is a tremendous learning resource. I've been a subscriber for years. I even used it to learn OS X and iLife before I ordered my first Mac.

I don't see anyone suggested this yet, but maybe I skip it. I use this on non-Intel machine to check the preview on IE/Win: IE NetRenderer

NoOrdinary said:

I don't see anyone suggested this yet, but maybe I skip it. I use this on non-Intel machine to check the preview on IE/Win: IE NetRenderer

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i use that all the time!

Am I wrong or is this thread missing mention of the Firefox FireBug add-on?

I consider it essential.

http://www.twinhelix.com/css/iepngfix/

Lets you use png images on IE 5~6 (IE7 supports png images).

Use ie 5, 5.5, 6 and 7 on OS X (intel):

http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

I will say that a lot of the info in this thread is slowly becoming out-dated so it might be good for people to begin posting to keep it alive with new and exciting tools. I for one love finding gems.

Just to let you know of two really good "free" programs to use that work hand-in-hand are:

FTP: http://cyberduck.ch/
and
Text Editor: http://smultron.sourceforge.net/

Does anyone have another suggestion of a great FTP program that comes with a built in text-editor (doesn't have to be free, just reasonable)

I think it's really important to have the latest in browser and web technology when you're developing a website. I highly recommend IE 5.1

http://www.pure-mac.com/webb.html#mie

jerett said:

Does anyone have another suggestion of a great FTP program that comes with a built in text-editor (doesn't have to be free, just reasonable)

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Coda. Most gorgeous program, ever. Uses Transmit's FTP engine and Webkit for previews. All you ever need.

browsershots.org. Test online how your site looks on umpteen browsers. It presents you with rows of (downloadable) screenshots from the browsers/platforms you selected. Whole page screenshots. Wait times vary from a minute to less than 30 (in my experience). Creating a free user account avoids number of screenshots limits.

would be cool if any of this software was mac specific

modesty said:

would be cool if any of this software was mac specific

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Is platform-specific wed development/design software 'cooler' than cross-platform? How so?

http://www.csstypeset.com - test out fonts line-height letter-spacing etc

Fix IE rendering

Code by Dean Edwards that fixes numerous HTML and CSS issues in IE to make it look more like the rendering of IE7/8.

http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/

Here's a good iWebFAQ site:

http://alyeska.altervista.org/en/iWeb_FAQ.html

With a lot of tips and tricks.

Hope it helps.

Regards,
Giovannino

editor: TextMate http://macromates.com/
Language: Ruby http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ (code is free and included on x-tools dev install)
Framework: Rails http://rubyonrails.com/ (also included in the web dev).
Browser: Firefox 2http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ (the greatest web browser ever wrought by mortal hands. I can't believe I'm the first to post this!)
HTML, JS, CSS debugging and validation: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
versioning: subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html (if you install it with apt-get, make sure to include the --with-ssl option).
ftp: cyberduck http://cyberduck.ch/ (this is a perfect example of an application that NAILED the Mac Way in its design philosophy) (edit: for

Does anyone have another suggestion of a great FTP program that comes with a built in text-editor (doesn't have to be free, just reasonable)

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. Cyberduck leaves you with no compromises in your editor. In cyberduck, edit your preferences to link to your favorite editor. Then, in the cyberduck file browser, cmd-k or rgtclick->edit with-> will seamlessly allow you to "edit in place" with your favored editor. It's fabulous)

This ware I've linked, combined with the optional developer's toolkit install on the OS CD, sets up a completely functional web development environment with versioning and a versioning server, a database (Mac OS ships with SQLite 3 working out of the box, and Rails is preconfigured to connect to an SQLite database - not a single line needs to be configured), a web server, a truly fine coding environment in TextMate, and a truly fine language and framework in Ruby and Rails, respectively.

(Rails includes a web server which is ok for single person development, but very slow. Mongrel is better and is ported for darwin - you can find out about that if you need it, and if you're looking here, you probably either don't need it, or already have it)

This is why I switched to Mac last year: Mac has all the goods and none of the hassle. There is no compromise here, this is the best of the best.

Two Really Good Editors.


1. This one has all the bells and whistles that you could possibly want, they have a free version unless that has changed http://www.aptana.com/


2. Komodo - They have an open source version now, more of a stripped down version of Aptana. Both are really good products, just depends on how much you are building with your website http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/komodo_edit.mhtml

3. I know some already mentioned Kuler but that application rocks http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/kuler/