After two days of using Aptana for the HTML+CSS+JavaScript on my current project, I really can’t help but sing its praises. For anyone who knows their way around any of those initialed technologies above, Aptana is a 100% Dreamweaver replacement. No contest.

Just case you were wondering, I can think ten things of off hand that make Aptana the best front-end code editor around. in no particular order:

1. It does real-time Javascript syntax checking.
   Does any other editor on the planet do this?
2. Code hinting is insanely thorough.
   Whether in HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, Aptana was on it. In JavaScript, hitting the “.” property accessor popped open a code hint for whatever object type I was working with, incuding my own JS classes. In HTML and CSS, the space key revealed everything under the sun that could go into the declaration or element.
3. It has clear HTML DOM tree demarcation.
   Unlike a lot of HTML editors I’ve used, Aptana does an amazing job of letting me know where the opening and closing of the tag my cursor is currently inside. It’s such a simple thing, but when it doesn’t work well, it really blows.
4. Aptana does FTP.
   Eclipse, seriously, no integrated FTP? After installing Aptana, it took all of a few mouse clicks and one trip to the help documents to get an FTP site linked to my project folder. Uploading can be triggered from hot keys.
5. Aptana’s shortcuts make sense.
   For people who don’t use NuSphere, I’ll fill you in–NuSphere has some really strange default keyboard shortcuts. Most people would expect Ctrl+Shift+S to execute a “Save As…” type function. Not NuSphere though, that means upload the file you’re currently working on (by default anyway, this can be changed in the settings).
6. Aptana knows what is supported by what browsers.
   I’m not sure it’s natural for me to be so excited about this, but, seriously, how awesome is it to know from your editor whether or not the attribute you’re setting has any relevance in IE or Firefox. The little FF and IE icons in the code hinting are super quick to process and can save you tons of time hitting online documentation trying to figure out why you’re having some problem.
7. Aptana does JS document outlining.
   When you’re doing AJAX intensive stuff or dealing with any sort of lengthy JavaScript, this is an awesome timesaver both in terms of navigating your document and remembering all your method and property names.
8. Aptana auto-tabs when you wrap stuff in if-else blocks.
   So, you’re writing so logic and you realize you need to do an if-else. Normally, you go up above your code block, add the “if (…” part, then go underneath and add the “} else …” stuff, then select your lines of code in between and tab it over to make your code nice and easy to read. Well, with Aptana, adding the ending curly brace will automatically add a tab (if it’s needed) to the code block. Score!
9. It’s got a full-fledged snippets panel.
   How is it that so many editors still don’t have these?
10. It’s free.
    I should probably feel sad that I shelled out bucks for Adobe CS3 Web Premium’s included HTML Editor, Dreamweaver, when there was something like Aptana out there. But really, who wants to be bitter about it. Besides, Dreamweaver does have some stuff Aptana doesn’t. Overall, even it had cost me $100, Aptana would be worth it. Dreamweaver, be prepared to have a lot of free time.

While looking around for a way to better manage the way I’ve been jockeying files between development machines, I found this Allway Sync, http://allwaysync.com/. Attracted initially to its small file size (only 3.8 megabytes), I was also happy to see that it was free software as well. It has an option for a license, but I was also shocked to see that the price tag is only $20 bucks. Before I had downloaded Allway, I found it satisfying two out of three of my ideas of what good software should be: easy on your system in terms of processing and file size, reasonable about licensing fees, and does-what-it-claims functionality. So, all I had left to do was to download and run the application to see if Allway was 3 for 3.

To my surprise and delight, the app installed quickly, quietly, and in less than 10 seconds. Though I do have a fairly fast workstation, this was still much faster than a lot of the crap I have downloaded recently.

So now what? A long lengthy configuration? Lots of preference settings and setting up a synchronization repository or something equally invasive? Nope. In fact, within about a minute of running Allway Sync for the first time I was able to set up two Jobs–their term for folders and files you want to sync up–and synchronize all my project files to my jump drive (see here). I got a little tripped up in how to create/save jobs, but in doing so I found another cool feature of this application–multiple receiving folder synchronization.

Allway supports synchronizing your files across drives and even into multiple folders. So, for me, I can backup my files at the same time as synchronizing them since Allway also allows you to set up different preferences for each synchronizing folder. Allway indeed.

Needless to say, I’m very excited to have Allway in my arsenal of cool, free apps that help me do what I do. Visually, Allway is a little bit lacking. In fact, it could almost pass for a 16-bit app from years gone by. But who cares? The app has works so flawlessly it could be all ASCII and I would still use it. The other upside is that the light-weight interface means it’s really light on the processor.

I hate to shamelessly plug something without at least needling it’s flaws a little, but there’s really not much I can say about Allways except that its menus could be a little more intuitively laid out. The functionality is there and is good.