Linux users, post your coding tools of choice!

[bobafett]

Hi guys,

I recently made the switch from windows to linux, and have been having a heck of a time finding code editors that I enjoy using.

I am quite able to code everything by hand, but I do like having a WYSIWYG aspect for things like tables, image maps, ftp etc... as most of you know some things are just FASTER that way.

At work I use DW8 but I am trying to ween myself off of Windows applications in general Honestly a linux version of Dreamweaver would be just fine, but I can't seem to get that working under wine either.

Suggestions? I will be trying Quanta Plus and Screem next...

Also, is there any need for anything but GIMP for graphics, or have I overlooked other cool tools?

Thanks in advance!
- Chris

[Knuth]

hi bobafett,

You could try using the NVU editor or emulate DW8 with Crossoffice. I also use KWrite for simple editing tasks.

GIMP is pretty good and you may not need Photoshop, depends on what kind of graphics you want.

[bobafett]

Interesting, I may have to break down and try crossover office.

Yeah GIMP is definitely a great tool, I just need to get the hang of it is all.

Thanks for the tip, I will checkout crossover and NVU...

[Fritz]

Isn't there a WYSIWYG editor called BlueFish or something like that?

I too am thinking of moving to linux, but there are just too many windows apps I depend on too much.

Im taking it slow. I already got linux installed so I just dual boot, but I keep ending up back in windows.

[joehoya]

I use GIMP for photo editing, kate for most text editing and writing code, NVU when I need a WYSIWYG editor, and GFTP as my FTP tool. However, I get the most benefit from Linux by writing Perl and Python scripts to automate certain tasks for me. The only thing I use Windows for is to see how my sites look on IE and to occasionally edit wmv files.

[Fritz]

[i]NVU when I need a WYSIWYG editor[/b]

So for the people that have used NVU, how does it compare to Dreamweaver8?

[bobafett]

For viewing sites in IE there is always the IE view plugin for firefox (I havent tested this though), and my personal favorite, using VMWare with a windows installation and use the real IE.

I have just installed bluefish as well, but haven't had a chance to give any of them a shot yet. and I still need to grab NVU.

[Fritz]

So I just checked out NVU on my linux and I have to say its pretty damn nice!

Gonna have to play around with it a tad more but it looks nice.

[Hyballs]

Hi bobafett, I am learning Quanta Plus.....actually trying to learn Quanta Plus but it it hard to want to learn it after I've become used to Edit Plus and Coffee Cup. I am not saying it's bad, just different. My version of Kompare stuffs up regularly which annoys me. Screem didn't work on my computer and Bluefish was more like Deadfish!

I guess it will all come together eventually. And it's good to have a none Windows program or 2 in your kit!

[bobafett]

Yeah I agree with you, all the programs that I have tried so far just haven't cooperated like good old DW8.

I bought crossover office, but unfortunately only DWMX is supported. Hopefully I can hack 8 into submission.

That being said, NVU looks like its worth a try, and maybe I can adapt to using it for a while. If not I guess I can just rock a solid text editor again, there is nothing wrong with that.

[scopemaster]

Text Editor: vim
Image Editing: GIMP
Testing / Debugging: FireFox with Web Developer Toolbar and FireBug extensions installed.

I have WINE w/ IE installed for testing browser compatibility.

What has saved me a lot of time is that I have a few bash scripts I have written that use ImageMagic along with a series of html templates for converting directories of full size images into thumbnail galleries, blog posts, site templates, etc. Bash scripting can really save a hell of a lot of time when doing tasks that I need to do with some regularity. Here the learning curve can be a little steep. But, there are some good how-to sites dedicated to bash scripting out there.

I have BlueFish, Screem and quite a few other GUI based editors for *nix. I cannot say I am overly impressed with them. No fault of their own, I just prefer vim and my hacked out .vimrc file. Also, pretty much any server I work on from remote has vim installed by default and runs just fine over SSH.

GIMP is great! But, the learning curve to use it effectively is much steeper than other image editors out there. A lot of the 'power tricks' I learned about with GIMP I discovered by experimenting or googling for answers. GIMP still does not have a very strong documentation project. There are a lot of sites out there dealing with GIMP use, but none of them are a complete reference IMHO, so I had to read through a lot of them at times.

[bobafett]

Yes +1 for the Web Developer Extension! Anybody who hasn't used that should give it a shot! Great to edit stylesheets in realtime to see the effects of little changes.

[ipoOnline]

Depends on what programming language you are using: I like eclipse (tons of plug-ins for just about anything), netbeans, jbuilder (java apps), glade.

Welcome to the world of linux: where the learning curve is steep and the choices are endless