Posted on July 16th, 2010The Mac platform has always been the first choice for a lot of web designers, developers, movie and music editors and other people who’s main line of work includes doing something creative and computationally intensive.
Mac OS X has everything a web developer needs: an integrated Apache web server (I need to mention that the Mac OS X server edition is one of the best choices for servers, too), all the required scripts for websites to work (Mac OS is based on FreeBSD, which is basically Linux, after all) and a lot of great applications for any kind of work, from brain storming new ideas to managing day to day work and strategic planning.
And if the developer needs to run various applications from other platforms like Windows – that is also easily done by using virtual machine environments (the first to come to mind and the best is Parallels Desktop for Mac). So, in the end you get a development workstation that can run literally any software and perform any kind of work – just what a web developer needs.
Anyway, let’s take a look at some of the best web development tools and apps for the Mac OS X operating system.
Coda. Coda is an excellent all-in-one web development application that bundles an FTP client, text editor, CSS and HTML editors, Terminal and other tools together in one window, which makes work more productive due to the lack of clutter on the desktop (no more dozens of separate windows for similar tasks). The environment is very flexible, having the ability to add various plug-ins that can significantly extend the apps possibilities. This is practically a must have for any professional web developer and designer.
xScope. This excellent application from Iconfactory gives you the ability to inspect, measure and align layouts, using the very nice looking integrated tools like the loupe and ruler. The best part of the app is the Dimensions tool, which overlays a bunch of different measurement tools on the screen, so you can easily measure and save anything, from images to boxes and text.
Transmit. This is a paid FTP client that is well worth the price. The interface has been thoroughly thought out (the app even won an Apple Design Award), and there are enough features to satisfy anyone’s needs. Transmit is very fast thanks to its parallel connections feature and supports a lot of additional protocols like WebDAV, SFTP and S3.
MAMP. MAMP is the best Apache, MySQL and PHP package for Mac OS X. You might wonder why would you need a separate one when Mac OS has one integrated, but most of the times it is much better to have a completely separate environment for running and testing websites, which would not cause any problems to your main OS environment.
VirtualHostX. This is a great tool if you want to make your life easier and work faster. Instead of manually editing config files, you can use VirtualHostX to configure your Mac’s web server or MAMP’s Apache server settings and host a lot of separate sites using custom domain names. Unless you’re a hardcore old school developer that likes text more than visual aids, you should definitely try this app.
VMWare Fusion. With over 75% of all people using Windows on their computers, there is no way you can avoid testing your websites and applications for compatibility with that OS (and Linux along the way). VMWare’s Fusion is the best tool for virtualizing a complete Windows machine inside your Mac OS X operating system. There, you can test everything using native Windows browsers and other applications, which will ensure that whatever you’re developing will work well in real life, too.
On the Job. If you’re a freelancing professional or you own a small web development company (working remotely as a team or even alone), you’ll definitely benefit from having a specialized tool that will help you analyze and process all of your financial and work-related information quickly and easily. With On the Job, you can define clients, set up rates, deadlines, tasks, projects, invoices and other things you may need. This app can save you tens of hours of accounting work every month.
There are other great tools for web developers on the market, of course. Even though there are not as many as for Windows, there are more than enough high quality ones (Mac is known for favoring quality over quantity when it comes to third party apps), so you will definitely not find yourself in a situation where you need a tool and it’s not available. Hundreds of thousands of professionals use Macs for a reason!