Like every trade needs its set of tools, so do we web developers. In this article I’ll present you – what in my experience are – the best web development applications available on Mac OS X.
Graphics Manipulation
The king of all graphic manipulation apps is Adobe Photoshop ($699 or $49/month). Its performance and features are simply way above anything else, but so is its price. If you can afford to buy it, definitely go for it, else there are some alternatives – much less powerful – but way easier on your wallet:
Also if you have Photoshop and you don’t do a lot of line art, you might probably do without Adobe Illustrator. I rarely use it by itself, but sometimes I use it for more complex vector art and conversion in conjunction with Photoshop.
File Transfer
Transmit ($34) – Probably the best commercial FTP application on the Mac.
Cyberduck (free) – A great alternative to Transmit, featuring a single-pane interface.
Text Editing
If Photoshop is the king of graphics manipulation, then Macromates’ TextMate is the king of text editing. Once you start using it, all other text editors look like toys. The features of this editor are simply to many to list here, so feel free to browse the product’s web site for more info.
Database Access And Manipulation
If you need to access (mysql) databases, you need a good tool to manage it. Navicat is just that. It is however, a bit expensive, and there are other free tools that do the job quite as well:
- Sequel Pro (free) – a fast and easy-to-use Mac database management application for working with MySQL databases.
- Querious ($29) – a native OS X application supporting viewing, searching, editing, importing, exporting, and structuring your MySQL databases.
Browsers & Plugins
My main development browser is Mozilla Firefox with the following plugins:
- Web developer toolbar – a toolbar that has it all
- Firebug – a great html/css debugging tool with live preview of changes
- ColorZilla – a color picker tool
- YSlow – a web page performance analyzer
For your IE debugging needs, you should probably go for a virtual machine that runs a version of windows with IE. I recommend spending your money on VMware Fusion ($79.99 – $99.99) or Parallels Desktop and install Windows XP, which comes preloaded with internet explorer version 6. You can then have separate installations with various other browser versions and run them as needed.
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