Thread

I’m getting ready to purchase my first mac in several years and am looking for some good ideas on what tools are considered best.

Do you prefer Coda or Expresso or other?

What about tools for git, ftp, graphics, db management, font management and any other areas that might touch on web development or design?

Thanks in advance!

I still use TextMate for pretty much all of my coding needs even though it hasn’t seen a real feature update in years. 

For FTP I use Transmit (which now has an awesome new feature that opens a server as a local directory.  I used to use ExpanDrive for that but since I already had Transmit making the switch was easy.  Transmit has also gotten a lot faster the caching it uses is a big improvement over most of the other FTP apps out there.

For CSS I’ve always used CSSEdit but that has been discontinued with the functionality rolled into Espresso.  I’m trying to get used to the changes but at the moment I’m finding them annoying.

I’ve tried Coda and alternately Espresso a few times but I’ve always found them frustrating to use.  Oddly limited in some ways and then too many built in features I’d rather have separate.

Then of course there’s the venerable BBEdit which does get constant feature updates but I’ve always found the interface to that one overdone.  It’s find/replace in multiple files though is just awesome and VERY fast compared to it’s competition.  So I actually keep a copy just for that purpose.

Jamie

Hey Todd-
I’ve flip-flopped for awhile now, and I’ve settled on Coda for EE development. Before that I used Espresso. Both are great apps and I usually just pick one when I need a change of scenery- and for EE development throw in http://hellomountee.com/ and Coda seriously sweet.

I also use Textmate but I don’t use it for hardcore projects, typically I use it for quick edits or updating/editing files from Transmit (also from Panic for FTP/SFTP)

For db connectivity Sequel Pro works really well.

Other than that its all Fireworks for graphics for web.

Font management I use Font Explorer Pro

I think the reason TextMate is still my go to solution is just that I have so many customizations invested in it.

The time I spent getting all of the custom snippets and other functions running just how I like them is just too much to throw away at this point.  And I still hold out some sort of silly hope that the next version of it will still come out at some point. 

Jamie

I’m a big fan of Coda (http://www.panic.com/coda/), Transmit for FTP (http://www.panic.com/transmit/) if not using Coda, Adobe Fireworks, and Sparrow for email (http://sparrowmailapp.com/. For fonts I use Typekit.com and Mac’s native font manager, Font Book.

Another must have is Colors (http://mattpatenaude.com/), an excellent tool for picking specific colors and getting rgb or hsl conversions.

Good ole’ BBEdit, as it’s scriptable as hell, for coding, and Transmit for FTP.

Thanks for the great feedback here. It definitely helps. I’m going to research all the suggestions. Again, thanks!