Everyone has their own take on the right tools for website development. I suppose that’s as it should be. So in case you were curious, here is a peek at the tools I rely on to help me do what I do.

Textmate

Aside from my early, early web days, I’ve pretty much always hand crafted my own markup, my own JavaScript, CSS, Perl or PHP code. I’ve used a fair gamut of text editors for the task. So, if you ever find a better code wielding gizmo, let me know. I switched from editing my code in BBEdit to Textmate and haven’t looked back. Yes indeed… My name is Jon Davis, and I’m a switcher. With language support bundles (and documentation to write your own), code snippets, code completion, syntax highlighting, project windows, favorite line markers, and too many more to list here, I can’t imagine using anything else. Alright, one caveat. I would love to see SubEthaEdit’s collaborative capabilities added to Textmate. Unfortunately, since the presentation is so simple, and the power features are not so easily discovered, I’ve only yet scratched the surface of what it can really do.
macromates.com

Transmit

I’ve been using this little gem, from the good gents at Panic, almost as soon as I began using Macs online. It works in conjunction with Textmate (and a number of other editors) to edit files and automagically upload them when you save in your editor. It’s also the most Mac-like FTP client you’ll find living up to the Apple-mantra, “it just works!” Enough said.
panic.com

OmniOutliner

How do I use thee? Let me count the ways: project time sheets, project planning & budgeting, SQL schemas and even my daily agenda! I never would have expected this single piece of software to be so useful. Customize your outlines to your heart’s content, sprinkle in some AppleScript and you’ve got a recipe for the Swiss Army Knife of information management. Thank you, thank you OmniGroup!
omnigroup.com

OmniGraffle

Also from the OmniGroup crew, this one handles all my website diagramming needs: site mapping, visitor workflows, wireframing and entity relationship diagrams for database design. Initially I went this route simply because using Adobe Illustrator was too time consuming to connect things together, especially when you needed to move things around. The Pro version offers even more goodies like layers, multiple canvases and my favorite, the outliner. You simply select the outline style and start outlining your information. It’s a blazing fast way to get the foundations of your diagram started through your normal thinking processes (if you think in outlines that is).
omnigroup.com

Photoshop

Yes, it had to be on the list. I don’t know what designer wouldn’t use Photoshop. I have heard whispers of designers using Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia (now Adobe) Fireworks. Maybe I’m just getting old and ingrained with the toolset of Photoshop, but I have no idea how you would use anything else. I’ve tried Illustrator and it just didn’t fit my workflow for web graphics. Wireframing in Illustrator I can understand, but not design. I’ve never even touched Fireworks, so I couldn’t say what strengths it may have for web design. For me, Photoshop is the tried-and-true tool for web graphic design.
adobe.com

Flash

When I just have to have platform independent motion graphics I tend to “cheap out” and use Flash. Sure, you can use the wiz-bang JavaScript libraries nowadays to do a lot of it natively in the browser, but the library overhead seems too great that it would be a barrier to usability. When I just have to use Flash, I’m always careful to consider what content it is representing so that I can always deploy it in a hybrid method. I wish others that used Flash would be as careful. Unfortunately, you can see the Web is polluted with all Flash sites that give no care that the content they deliver can’t be indexed by search engines. But I digress, that’s a topic for an entirely different diatribe. I have to say the learning curve for Flash is quite high. I came from using Macromedia Director, which is much more direct timeline editing with Lingo adding the functionality. Flash is much more hybrid between being code driven and timeline editing. It’s such a strange mash-up, the architecture of the whole platform really is something to marvel at when you finally understand it. Alas, I still have a long ways to go to get proficient, but I’m on my way.
adobe.com

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