What easy to use (and free) text editor and ftp clients exist for the Mac?

June 14, 2007 4:32 AM

Can anyone recommend some easy HTML editing and uploading tools for a mac? (ftp, text editor)

I'm going to be teaching a friend basic HTML - he's in a different city though, so this will be remote. He's also a mac user (I'm linux). I'm therefore not sure what software to recommend - a graphical FTP client and a text editor which does syntax highlighting are the basics. Free is good - I know of BBedit, but that (I think) costs money. What should he get?

posted by handee to Computers & Internet (21 answers total)

Textwrangler is free and is made by the same people who sell BBedit. I use it. It's pretty good. For ftp, I know people who swear by fetch. It's simple, but not quite free. Very cheap though.
posted by milarepa at 4:35 AM on June 14, 2007

cyberduck is a free FTP client. I love it.
posted by chelseagirl at 4:46 AM on June 14, 2007

For FTP you might try Cyberduck, and Fugu if you need SFTP, SSH or SCP.

Despite it being pitched as a collaborative editor, SubEthaEdit gets used by a lot of people in a more conventional way, but milarepa's suggestion of Textwrangler is probably best.
posted by edd at 4:47 AM on June 14, 2007

Textmate. It costs money, but it is so worth it.
Cyberduck is my preferred SFTP client. Both are available through macupdate. This site will be his new friend.
posted by purephase at 5:14 AM on June 14, 2007

Firefox with html editing plugins like Firebug? It is platform independent.
posted by JJ86 at 6:06 AM on June 14, 2007

I'm very happy w/ Transmit and BBEdit.
posted by john m at 6:10 AM on June 14, 2007

Speaking of Firefox, Nvu uses the Gecko engine, and has integrated FTP. I gave it to my girlfriend so she could use Frontpage templates w/o Frontpage. Runs on just about anything. WYSIWYG, code-based, or some weird hybrid thing if you want it.
posted by Xoder at 6:19 AM on June 14, 2007

i use textmate and transmit but neither are free.

however they are definitely worth the price
posted by moochoo at 6:44 AM on June 14, 2007

Coda (review) is an HTML/CSS editor with integrated FTP. It's easier and quicker than a separate editor/FTP client combo. (I use BBEdit/Transmit, too.) It's by Panic, the same company that makes Transmit.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:07 AM on June 14, 2007

Seconding Coda, it's changed the way I develop. One window to rule them all, y'know?
posted by theiconoclast31 at 7:29 AM on June 14, 2007

BBedit is a great editor, and totally nerdtacular. It has a limited FTP client built in. It costs money.

Coda (as kirkaracha mentioned) is an integrated FTP/HTML editor, and incredibly slick. Also costs money.

Cyberduck is a fine, free FTP client. For a free HTML editor, try Smultron or Textwrangler.
posted by adamrice at 7:30 AM on June 14, 2007

Thirding Coda!
posted by seanyboy at 7:33 AM on June 14, 2007

(hopefully)last post: Coda.
(joking aside, I'm with theiconoclast31. It has totally changed the way I manage my sites).
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:13 AM on June 14, 2007

I don't know if it works across sites, but if you want to drop a few dollars, grab subethaedit. That way you can be editing the same file at the same time.
posted by cschneid at 8:22 AM on June 14, 2007

I currently use cyberduc (ftp) and smultron (editor) both of which are free and talk to one another but will now move to an integrated application (not free).
posted by johoney at 8:49 AM on June 14, 2007

NVU is an amazing open source program. It's like a free Dreamweaver.
posted by HotPatatta at 8:56 AM on June 14, 2007

Another cool thing about NVU is that you can get a portable version, which can be saved on a USB flash drive and used on any computer.
posted by HotPatatta at 8:56 AM on June 14, 2007

Jedit + 2 plug ins : FTP and XML do the trick for me. Save directly to your (s)FTP site from the editor with autocompletion &c.
posted by boo_radley at 9:30 AM on June 14, 2007

Just sticking to the "free" part of it.

Nvu is a bit like a Dreamweaver light, and depending on your point of view, provides more handholding or ways to get in your way. It also has a save-to-server option only via ftp.

TextWrangler is probably the best of the free OS X editors (not counting ports like the emacsen, vim, etc.). It doesn't have any html-specific features but it does come with ftp and sftp support. I find it to be a bit more snappy overall.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:31 AM on June 14, 2007

There is a native carbon port of Emacs. Emacs will do HTML syntax indenting & highlighting and should support file access directly via FTP/SCP.

I'm not suggesting this unless you are Emacs capable since it might make your friend's head explode.
posted by chairface at 10:38 AM on June 14, 2007

I wasn't going to mention Emacs as it's a bit on the hairy side for a beginner perhaps, but there's more than one Emacs port. I use Aquamacs and there are others too. I think the Carbon port chairface mentions is the one that's in the Emacs mainline though.
posted by edd at 4:50 AM on June 15, 2007