Course Tools

Created Wednesday 11 May 2016


You will absolutely need:


Web Browser

I highly recommend Firefox over all other browsers.


Terminal Emulator/ Shell

At this stage, technically optional, if you do all your work on your home machine and then upload, but you'll still probably want one handy.

Linux and Mac users have these built in.

Windows users have a slightly confusing range of issues to deal with, since most of the web is a "Unix/Linux/*nix" type of environment, and Microsoft was ill-prepared for the internet generally.

PuTTY (and PSCP/PSFTP) is a good choice for basic command-line work,
Cygwin is another interesting option for users who want a more complete option.


Text Editor

By now you know the difference between a text editor and an IDE. We will use both; now please feel free to use an IDE and auto-complete your little hearts out.


GOOD

(Some of the following have plug-ins or add-ons that will enable auto-complete. GO FOR IT!!)

Probably built in to your machine, the following are fine - basically no "help" at all but can still be useful.
Leafpad for Linux
Notepad for Windows
Notepad for Macs


Cross-Platform:
jEdit
ScITE-Scintilla


Linux (Graphical User Interface)
Leafpad
Gedit
Geany

Linux (Command Line)
nano
vi/vim
emacs

Windows
notepad++

Mac (wow, it was hard finding free ones, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised)
TextWrangler (I think)


IDEs

I'm still stress-testing a few more of them, but it looks like we're going to go NetBeans. Also Firefox has extensive HTML/CSS/Javascript Hackery built in as well.


File Transfer (FTP/SFTP)


You will need a program or other method of copying the html files that you create to a webserver. One option is to use the command line; I imagine Linux users will already be somewhat familiar with this approach, so I won't include that here; but the following link about iSpace will give you information on Command Line clients for Windows and Macs: Go Here.

Many of you will likely prefer a Graphical User Interface approach. I'm going to assume you're all somewhat comfortable with standard GUI File Managers, such as the Explorer in Windows and the Finder in Macs. Most file transfer programs have similar approaches (copy/paste, drag and drop, etc.) Additionally, some more advanced file managers have file transfer capabilities built in. (Nautilus/Nemo in Linux is good for this)

Details on Filezilla, a cross-platform program, are available here.

NOTE - some IDE's (and even file managers) have this built in. NICE.


Code Hosting

Github is probably the most popular, but we will likely be using GitLab.


Web Hosting