Dynamic websites / work environment

[joliett89]

I want to get into making some website (LAMP, HTTP, CSS, JavaScript) and I am wondering what would be the best working enivronment, software that can be used. I was looking at Dreamweaver and some people actually recommend it, but I dont think it is that good. I am at something like this right now:

Xampp
Eclipse (with PHP and JavaScript); I know there are plugins etc, but I did not get to that yet...
Chrome and IE Developer Tools
(Notepad++)

I just discovered the tools and these are very powerful (like executing a JavaScript code in real time line by line, watching the variables etc). Working with these tools can make a whole lot of a difference, if you know what I mean. Chrome is good for CSS also.

I also heard Microsoft's Visual Studio Express few times, but I did not look at this one at all.


I am just wondering what are the other programs / tools software that can be useful like that etc (again, I am talking about building dynamic websites only: Unix / Linux, PHP, MySQL, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript). There are also good websites out there, like website optimization, keywords, traffic rankings etc, that can make a lot of a difference right from the start also...

Thank you in advance for any info.

[Matthew1980]

Hi there joliett89,

Well from what you have listed (with the exception of DW, eugh!) you seem to be on the right track. (w)(l)(x)amp, is the best way to get all of the necessary programs installed with little effort - you could have a stand alone mysql admin tool such as mysqladmin or heidisql to ensure that you're structuring your queries correctly.

Notepad++ is cool, but there are loads of plain text editors out there (smaller ram and cpu usage than eclipse etc), I use textpad - but a quick google will reveal LOADS! I will advise that you find one that has an incorporated ftp client in it for easy uploading.

Plugins for firefox will be essential; do testing in FF as it seems to be the most robust, steer clear of older versions of IE, but still check them for layout & execution of CSS designs, especially divs & spans.

For anything else, just google the question or ask on the forums (post in relevant section :)).

And get a decent reference book or two.

Above all have fun creating your website.

Cheers,
MRb

[Leosghost]

You missed a far greater eugh! Mathew1980 ,

Microsoft's Visual Studio Express

:)

[Status_203]

For PHP, XDebug is very useful. Both Eclipse and NetBeans can connect. (Can't remember why I left Eclipse for NetBeans now!)

Another way of debugging JavaScript (along with a lot of other useful functionality) is the FireBug add-on for FireFox.

(Apparently I became a full member sometime this week. Only took 4 years ;) )

[coopster]

The Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com] in WebmasterWorld Community has a link that explains "member levels"
[webmasterworld.com...]

I would also recommend using a good diff utility. diff allows you to compare two programs and highlights the differences. Most will also include a merge feature which allows you to move lines from one file into the other. Eclipse has a built in diff utility but there are others available.

[enigma1]

I also heard Microsoft's Visual Studio Express few times, but I did not look at this one at all.

You should try it, they have a free version from what I see. They didn't use to, years ago. I still use an ancient version of vs for general text editing. It isn't great but for some tasks I prefer it over the notepad++ as the later doesn't have mdi unfortunately.

As of the various browser assist plugins they're ok upto a point learning stuff. But when you start messing with timers for instance they're inefficient and in many cases crash the browser or give various exceptions. In the end I got rid of most debugging addons and replaced them with some custom code libraries.