Recently I was at work and I needed to do some css stuff and I did most of it in notepad because the current machine I was on didnt have dreamweaver(and yes it isnt necessary) and so rather than wait for someone to find a copy of dreamweaver and its license I looked around on the web and found this. http://www.aptana.com/. It is an opensource web IDE that in my opinion is as good if not better than dreamweaver.

Lets start with the obvious one. ITS FREE!! also because it is an opensource anyone could configure it to meet their needs. Lets say you only work with php or something like that and you dont need all the css features if you knew java you could just open up the source code and tailor it to your coding needs. Dreamweaver on the other hand cost a lot of money for a text editor that colors different text elements.

Another cool feature is its browser support feature. Usually when coding a web page you would have to check to make sure all your different elements and attributes are supported in at least 2 web browsers. Well in Aptana it will display a drop down menu and tell you which browsers have support for what your typing. Currently it includes IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, and Safari.

The preview display is also a lot better. In an app like dreamweaver you can look in the design display to get a rough idea of what your page is gonna look like. Or you could save it and launch it in your web browser. Well for the most part that is not a worry in Aptana the preview display is very accurate (not sure but I think it is built off IE).

The last feature I would like to mention about Aptana is the Outline view. This is a view that lets you expand and collapse code elements, but not only that by double clicking an element it will bring you to that section of the page.

So I would recommend heavily that you try this out. This is perfect for someone who is a freelance coder/designer and doesnt have the budget to spend on software like dreamweaver or a small company that needs to save money and doesnt want to pay for multi license software. I also think it is a great improvement on some of the web IDE software available for linux (dreamweaver is not) like nvu or. screem