I think everyone that does some design work and/or programming inevitably gets asked by their peers and other friends starting out, what kind of tools they use. After doing this for awhile there are a few things that you figure out, and mostly it is that your tools change as you change. But there are some staples in the list that I’m sure many of you will recognize. Let’s take a look at the applications I use on a daily basis.
Text Editor
Notepad++
This is probably the single most changing section of this list over the years. Notable past editors were TextPad and UltraEdit. Notepad++ replaced them with its light footprint, speed and all of its plugins and functionality. Really great editor for editing just about anything very quickly when you dont need or want to fire up your entire IDE.
IDE
Eclipse
This entire section really didn’t even exist for me until a few years ago. It was about 2007 when I started looking into PHP IDE’s specifically. At the time I was using Zend’s IDE, which is great in its own right. I moved to Eclipse, for one, because it is free and well maintained. It is still very robust but more lightweight than Zend’s IDE. Eclipse also has a nice plugin system which even makes it integrate very well with the Subversion system I have setup.
Code Repository
Subversion
Most of you know what a Code Repository is or even know what CVS might be. Long and short of it is that a code repository is where you store you code when you are working on it. Then whomever is working on it can check files in/out and update files as needed without having to worry about who else is working on the files. It can get more complicated and involved than that but that is as deep as we will get in to it today. I never really had a need for one. But as I started working on larger projects, even by myself, and from different computers/locations, it has already proven itself invaluable. Combine this with the plugin to Eclipse and I can check files in/out of my repository and update them right there in my IDE.
FTP Client
Flash FXP
Some things are better not updated and stored in the Code Repository, for example images. Along with doing many other things you’ll still need a decent FTP client and let’s be honest, there are quite a few terrible ones out there. I have been using Flash FXP for years and recommend it to everyone. Tons of features, security options, everything you can think of as well as supporting server to server transfers (assuming your server support this behavior). This is trialware, but is worth every penny!
Design / Graphics
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
I could go into a lot of detail here but I think we all know what these are great for. I typically use Photoshop for all my site mockups. Illustrator gets used for logos as well as print media.
So what do you use?
