Recommended tools for Web Development in Mac
Web development can be tedious and time-consuming. It can be a drag especially when clients are demanding. Not to worry though.
There are lots of handy tools created for web developers and designers using MAC OS that saves them time, money and effort. Let’s take a look on the top tools for web development:
1. Sublimetext
Sublimetext is a cross-platform text and source code editor with a Python application programming interface (Wikipedia). Its features include Goto Anything, Command Palette, split editing, instant project switch and project-specific preferences.
This handy tool lets you create shortcuts with a few keystrokes such as opening files, and can instantly jump to symbols, lines or words. These shortcuts can also be combined. With just a few keystrokes, you can search for what you want, change syntax or change indentation settings without navigating through menus. This tool also allows you to interactively change many lines at once, rename variables and manipulate files faster.
Sublimetext is available for OS X, Windows and Linux and only needs one license on every computer using these different operating systems.
2. ImageOptim
Images can oftentimes take space and loading them can be difficult and time-consuming. Optimizing images help you compress images effortlessly, saving you huge amounts of time and bandwith. ImageOptim solves those kinds of problems.
With this handy tool, you can easily shrink images without affecting the quality of the image using one or more command-line image optimization tools: PNGOUT, AdvPNG, Pngcrush, JpegOptim, jpegtran and Gifsicle.
3. iTerm2
A successor of Terminal app, iTerm2 focuses on better performance and supporting innovative features that make life better. It features split panes, hotkey window, configurability, expose tabs and is multi-lingual.
The best feature that comes with iTerm2 is Instant Replay that allows you to rewind your terminal session and see what you just did. Autocomplete is also one of the main features of this app as it figures out what command to use.
4. Git
There are many repositories available on the web but Git stands out among them. This free and open source control system is designed to handle everything with speed and efficiency, from the smallest to the biggest projects.
Git’s branching and merging model is one of its best features that stands out from the rest. It allows and encourages you to have multiple local branches that can be entirely independent of each other and the creation, merging, and deletion of those lines of development takes seconds. You can also choose which branches to share with other developers.
5. Sass/Compass
Sass is a scripting language that is interpreted into Cascading Style Sheets or CSS (Wikipedia). It is completely compatible with all CSS versions.
Compared to other CSS extension languages, Sass has more features and abilities. There are endless number of frameworks built with Sass such as Compass, Bourbon and Susy that will help front-end developers code much faster with their built-in mixins and functions. This tool automatically compress CSS files and helps front-end developers code CSS in DRY convention.
6. Alfred
Alfred is a fuzzy search tool that replaces the build in search capability of MAC (spotlight). It helps the developer become more productive without wasting too much time on searching and opening other tools.
This app features built-in web searches by prefixing searches with different keywords. You can also customize default searches according to your preference. Clipboards and snippets are also available for future reference.
7. CodeKit
It’s an app companion that helps developer automate some important workflows, from compiling CSS-Preprocessor, compress and minify javascript and css, optimize and compress image file. This app helps the developer focus more on coding.
It also helps developer to check your file for syntax errors and shows them to you. No more hours wasted looking for that one missing comma that breaks a script with its build in JSHint, JSLint and CoffeeLint. It also helps automate recurring tasks.
8. Tower
Tower is GIT made easier for Mac users. Tower has its own web interface that lets you control your GIT tasks fast and easily. You can keep track of your repositories as they are grouped and filtered in one place. It can add existing repos, clone from remote servers or even create a new one. Tower helps developers work faster and more efficiently.
9. Balsamiq
Balsamiq is a web designer’s blueprint in creating a website.
Balsamiq Mockups is a rapid wireframing tool that helps designers and developers work faster and smarter. It lets you sketch your own website, just like how an architect design a house.
Mockups are helpful in creating and generating broad ideas on how a website should look like. It gives you an advantage of building a prototype before creating the real thing. Any changes made will not affect the website whatsoever, giving developers and designers more time to focus on their work.