Tools U use

Hi everyone,

I was doing research and thinking about tools (apps) I use on a day-to-day basis, also tools that I would like to add to my ’toolbox’.

I thought it would be interesting to know what others use.

Here is a list of what I use on any given day:

Graphic design and layout
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• InDesign
• Acrobat

Research and concept dev
• Pencil & paper!
• Library card
• Internet
• Brain

Web development & design
• firefox browser (primary non-testing)
• Stylemaster CSS
• SKedit
• Dreamweaver (when have to, so clunky!)
• Flash
• MODx - of course!

Platform & testing envirnoment
• 20inch imac OSX 10.3.2
• PHP 5.1.2
• mySQL 4.0.26
• phpMyAdmin 2.8.0
• Apache 1.3.28

Other tools
• Formation - organizer
• Toast
• Skype
• NVU
• eBay - to pay the rent!

So that’s my run-down.

What have you people got out there?

Thanks --- Mike

On the Mac, my workflow revolves around 3 applications
- Photoshop (slicing)
- Text Edit (I hand code)
- Firefox
+
- Transmit
- Mail

My PC lappy I use only for checking renderings in
- IE 6
- FF

I’ve also got
- Fireworks,
- Flash,
- Final Cut Pro,
- Cinema 4D
- Maya
... and a whole bunch of other stuff I’m too busy to play with, aside a few essentials

- Stuffit,
- Network Utility,
- Terminal,
- Netinfo

Basic huh

Yeah there are always more apps you want to play with....

And I forgot the other tool - Studiometry for invoicing etc.

Thanks for the response....

What else do you peps have?

I find it really interesting and enlightening.

TextMate
Quicksilver
SVNx
SSH Agent
Transmit

Eclipse (with phpEclipse, subclipse, and Web Tools plugins) for web development/coding.

I’ve also got various versions of XAMPP on Windows and Linux (dual booting on my laptop).

PSPad
PHPEdit
Firefox
Apache 1 & 2
PHP 4.2
MySQL 4
Gimp

I think you just wanted to show off your 20" iMac!

I’m a low-class type, so I use:

Broken (literally!) old PowerBook that was given to me three years ago,
SubEthaEdit
Cyberduck
GraphicConverter
SnapNDrag
DigitalColorMeter
Terminal window
Firefox
Safari
and occasionally play with/use
GimpShop
NeoOffice
svnX

I also have a home-built from odds and ends PC with
Windows98
Kerio personal firewall
AVG anitvirus
Firefox
IE 5.1, 5.5, 6.0
Crimson Editor

Here’s a quick review of what I use on a daily basis...on Win XP

DEVELOPMENT / TESTING

• Eclipse with PHPEclipse (PHP editing/debugging), Subclipse (SVN) and Web Tools Project (XHTML, XML, CSS, Javascript editors), and too many plugins to mention, all kept up to date with Eclipse auto-updates
• FTP Voyager with SFTP support
• DBDesigner 4
• XAMPP (about 5 different versions, covering many PHP and MySQL versions)
• TortoiseSVN
• UltraEdit 32
• PuTTY

GRAPHIC DESIGN

• Paint Shop Pro 9

MISC

• Gizmo
• Skype
• Trillian
• OpenOffice 2.x
• Mozilla Firefox 1.0.x and 1.5.x
• Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.x

WEB APPS

• Basecamp
• MyHours

I tend to keep things as simple as possible with only as few apps as needed. Right now, my primary computer is a self-built machine running on Windows XP. However, in the near future I’ll probably be switching to a Mac as soon as Apple puts out the new Intel desktops. However, my testing machine is a small self-built machine running on dual PIII 933mHz processors with SUSE Linux 10.1 installed. With the exception of MySQL, I tried at best to mimic the same environment as my production server.

On the Windows front, I use Eclipse with the PHPEclipse and Subclipse plugins. Although it can be fussy at time, I like Eclipse simply because I can be sure that the environment works the same across multiple operating systems (Linux, Mac, and Windows). Plus, with the Subclipse plugin, I don’t have to go into a separate app for submitting files to the SVN...it’s all integrated! For layouts and design, I primarily use Dreamweaver for all my HTML and CSS coding and use a combination of Fireworks and Photoshop for graphics production. I can also add Dreamweaver and other apps as helper apps within Eclipse for quick editing. Although I’ve used BulletproofFTP for years, I’m starting to like IglooFTP a bit better.

When I finally move on over to the Mac, I’ll probably keep using PHPEclipse as well as the Adobe/Macromedia stuff and will likely use Transmit for FTP’ing.

LAMP Environment:
Linux: SUSE Linux 10.1
MySQL: 5.0.18
Apache: 2.0.28
PHP: 5.0.4

Windows Software:
Eclipse 3.1.2 with PHPEclipse 1.1.8
Dreamweaver MX 2004
Fireworks MX 2004
Photoshop CS2
IglooFTP Pro

@ sottwell - Yeah it’s a pretty nice machine. And with all that screen real estate I can have 2 docs open side by side.

@ all - This is great to read.

As I thought, there are apps out there that I have not heard of and am going to give a go.

I think it can really help everyone to know what’s used.
Try some new tools, discard obsolete ones etc

It also seems to me that (even in my personal experience) that the more you learn and have an understanding for coding etc, the LESS tools you need. The process of creating becomes more refined. I know that may seem obvious, but I think it is quite a good barometer for how well you are traveling down the road of learning.