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

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

handee — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:32:21 -0800

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?

By: milarepa

milarepa — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:35:22 -0800

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.

By: chelseagirl

chelseagirl — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:46:51 -0800

cyberduck is a free FTP client. I love it.

By: edd

edd — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:47:21 -0800

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.

By: purephase

purephase — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:14:08 -0800

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.

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:06:01 -0800

Firefox with html editing plugins like Firebug? It is platform independent.

By: john m

john m — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:10:48 -0800

I'm very happy w/ Transmit and BBEdit.

By: Xoder

Xoder — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:19:46 -0800

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.

By: moochoo

moochoo — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:44:22 -0800

i use textmate and transmit but neither are free.

however they are definitely worth the price

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:07:41 -0800

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.

By: theiconoclast31

theiconoclast31 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:29:02 -0800

Seconding Coda, it's changed the way I develop. One window to rule them all, y'know?

By: adamrice

adamrice — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:30:16 -0800

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.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:33:23 -0800

Thirding Coda!

By: Cat Pie Hurts

Cat Pie Hurts — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:13:16 -0800

(hopefully)last post: Coda.
(joking aside, I'm with theiconoclast31. It has totally changed the way I manage my sites).

By: cschneid

cschneid — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:22:59 -0800

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.

By: johoney

johoney — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:49:04 -0800

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).

By: HotPatatta

HotPatatta — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:56:11 -0800

NVU is an amazing open source program. It's like a free Dreamweaver.

By: HotPatatta

HotPatatta — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:56:50 -0800

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.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:30:41 -0800

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.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:31:30 -0800

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.

By: chairface

chairface — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:38:51 -0800

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.

By: edd

edd — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:50:30 -0800

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.