Required Course Tools - 5362

You will absolutely need:

The following are recommended, but not mandatory, for now, and will will be required for LIS-5364.

Web Browser

I generally recommend Firefox over all other major browsers, but this is a shifting environment as always.

Text Editor


The key here is that it should handle (programming type) text well, but it should NOT be an advanced IDE (Integrated Development Environment) just yet. A good rule of thumb; if it writes anything FOR YOU (auto-complete), and you are genuinely trying to learn, it should not be used. But "syntax highlighting" is okay. Some examples:

Probably built in to your machine, the following are fine, but maybe a little TOO lean.
Gedit for Linux
Notepad for Windows
Notepad for Macs

Cross-Platform:
ScITE / Scintilla
jEdit - this is the one I will likely use the most; cross platform and runs on everything.

Linux (Graphical User Interface)
Leafpad
Gedit
Geany
Pluma

Linux (Command Line)
nano / pico
vi/vim
emacs

Windows
notepad++

Mac
TextWrangler
Text Edit
BBEdit

Heavyweights
Sublime Text
VS Code (Vscodium?)
Atom

BAD (honestly, not sure if these are still "a thing")


No full IDES, for now.
(these are great tools for advanced users, but they do too much of the early work for you, as a result you won't learn)
Netbeans
Eclipse

Your Atoms and VSCodes are also likely too heavy, but we can discuss.

NO WYSIWYG Editors:
(Ditto, except for the "great tools" part. They're easy, but they tend to lock you in to a particular work-flow)
Bluefish
Dreamweaver

No "In-browser" editors (e.g. Cloud9, jsfiddle) for now. This is very much putting the cart before the horse.


UGLY

These are OBJECTIVELY the wrong tool for this job. They will almost certainly break and screw up your code because they're not at all designed for this. Don't even think about using them for this class. Seriously. Do. Not.

Microsoft Word
Wordpad
LibreOffice


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.

Most 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.

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