Thoughts on Aptana

I have read up on it. If it's a serious alternative to Dreamweaver then watch out Adobe!

Those using WYSIWYG editors haven't had a hell of a lot of choice.

Well it's not really WYSIWYG, so I am not too sure where the Aptana vs Dreamweaver comparison really fits true. To me it is just a really great advanced text editor geared towards website design, which suits me to the ground. I have found anything that is WYSIWYG usually struggles when you start throwing in php and other goodies.

There was a version of dreamweaver that claimed to work with database driven content. I can't remember.

I find WYSIWYG editors too slow as well.

After a bit more testing of this application plugin I am giving it the big thumbs down. Its very clunky and I think that has a lot to do with Java. It also still has lots of nasty bugs. I can only tolerate losing work so many times before it really pisses me off. :)

Not really sure Eclipse is all the fantastic of a platform for an IDE. Perhaps my older system just can't cope with what Java needs?

Java running on windows is by default pretty slow. I heard it is something to do with the way it handles memory. You can, however, pass some options when you start Java to get it working nicely - check it out at http://swem.wm.edu/blogs/waynegraham/index.cfm/2006/9/7/Tweaking-Eclipse

This really helped me get it running acceptably.
I think Aptana comes as a standalone distro as well?
I dont use it because it doesnt support php, and i had a similar experience to you. I use the standard php plugin in eclipse instead.

Rimian, i think ultradev was the first version of dreamweaver to support database - and then it just got added to any standard version. But you get to the point where learning to use the application becomes more difficult than learning how to do it by hand. I tried it once when it first came out and couldnt help but feel that complex tasks like this dont take well to abstraction through a wysywig interface - it kinda sucked.

I guess that's the main flaw of WYSIWYG.

I get the impression that the proprietors of these software programs don't want you knowing about the code itself. It seems like their goal is to distance you from the real stuff and force you to rely on software.

Here's a screencast on getting Aptana to play nice with Drupal:

http://www.screencast.com/users/PhilUK/folders/Jing/media/772a8f78-ab0c-...

I've used Dreamweaver for a long time but never the WYSIWYG features - just in code view. I gave Aptana standalone a try with it's PHP plugin and it's fantastic. I mainly researched it as I needed a editor with built in Subversion/SVN support. The new Dreamweaver CS4 has this but I only recently got CS3 and the upgrade price in the UK is a joke so I switched to the free Aptana and I love it.

It has some quirks to get used to but once you get the hang of it it's fantastic. Great for coding and also has built-in Firefox, IE and iPhone preview windows.

Aptana is more Javascript/Ajax focused than eclipse which is more Java focused. So unless you need a specific Eclipse plugin or are doing Java developement I recommend the Aptana standalone instead. Many Eclipse plugins work with Aptana to as it's based on Eclipse 3.2

Check out http://www.aptana.tv for some video demos of some features.

Good for HTML, CSS, PHP developement
Fantastic for Javascript (especially if using javascript libraries like jquery or prototype) and great SVN intergration.

David