The Bottom Line
Pros
- IE-rendered preview of each page
- Color-coded tags
- Tabbed navigation
- Handles multiple file-types
- Project listing/creation
Cons
- Slow start-up
- Limited ability of automatic tag completion
- Limited usefulness for building a single page
- IE "View Source" funtionality
Description
- Price Paid: Free
- Type of Web Editor: Text
- Operating System: Windows
Guide Review - Aptana version 0.2.7.1342 - Web Editing Software Customer Review
Customer Review
Aptana was recommended to me by a friend and fellow web designer as an alternative to Notepad, which is what I normally use. For single pages or minor corrections/changes, I still prefer using Notepad, mainly because in the time spent waiting for Aptana to load, I can usually make the minor changes or even build an entire page. However, for large projects, such as my portfolio, Aptana is a life-saver: I can open my portfolio project and it will only display the directory in which my project is saved, and it will only save files in that directory.
One of the biggest advantages is the IE-renderer-based preview. With each HTML page that is opened, there are two tabs within it--"Source" and "Preview." Source is where the work happens, editing the source code of the page. Preview renders the page inside Aptana as though it is being viewed in Internet Explorer. I'm a Firefox user myself and I hate opening Internet Explorer because it takes forever to load and I just plain don't like looking at IE7's browser window. Please note that this Preview is not a WYSIWYG, it's only a preview, but I'm not a fan of WYSIWYG HTML editors, so this suits me fine.
Color-coding is available in all the file-types that Aptana handles (HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, and XML), and what's more, the colors can be customized. Unfortunately, this will NOT tell you if you've left out a closing tag somewhere, only if you've left out something more vital (such as a closing quotation mark or bracket).
All in all, I like Aptana.
