Web Biz

    If you havn’t tried Eclipse already, give it a try!  If you have already tried it and didn’t like it, try it again!  Why?  Well, a lot of additional plug-ins and improvements have been made that just might tip the scale in it’s favor over your current IDE.  Being a previous Dreamweaver user, I couldn’t bring myself to working with eclipse.  However, I have given it another shot, and this time I am pleased with the setup I am using: CFeclipse, Aptana, and Subeclipse.  Everything appears to be working together and seamlessly.  If you haven’t tried aptana, I highly suggest you check it out!  It does some really cool things for JS and CSS coding, plus Ajax support:

• Code Assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, including your own JavaScript functions
• Outliner that gives a snapshot view of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code structure
• NEW: FTP/SFTP uploading, downloading and synchronization
• NEW: JavaScript debugger to troubleshoot your code
• Error and warning notification for your code
• Support for Aptana UI customization and extensions

    So, here is my Eclipse installation that work best for developing ColdFusion Applications:

• Download and install Eclipse: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
• Install CFeclipse using the Install/Update features with the url: http://www.cfeclipse.org/update
• Install Aptana (for CSS and JavaScript support among others) using the url: http://update.aptana.com/install/
• Install Subeclipse (for use with SVN repositories): http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.0.x

    After posting this article, I have been using CFeclipse instead of Dreamweaver.  As I am discovering new pluses and minuses, I have decided to start a wish-list for CFeclpise (and will gradually build it up over time).  So here it goes:

My Wish list for CFeclipse:

• Remove Comment - ability to remove the selected comment(s), no matter what style
• ‘Insert Comment based on selected’ is great, but what if I want to specify the comment style?
• Locate file in workspace - similar to ‘Locate in Site’ in Dreamweaver
• Close a tag after typing "</" instead of after typing the opening tag’s ">"