Aptana may not be the best tool for creating Web sites but in some areas it is. The problem (shared with many development tools) is learning how to use it at a basic level. There are tutorials and guides out there which cover more advanced topics but here is how to get started.
Installation
Download the installer for your operating system from here. Once installed Aptana uses Java which makes it slow to start unless the Java runtime environment is already loaded.
Alternatively there may be portable versions which will run from Flash drives but at the time of writing there is not a portable versions 2 or 3.
Plug-ins
Aptana can do a lot. It is also possible to extend what it can do with plug-ins. Version 2 of Aptana needs a plug-in to properly handle PHP for example. You can install plug-ins using the Help menu. Version 3 can handle PHP without a plug-in.
Projects
You can use Aptana to edit Web pages individually. That is missing the point though. Think of any Web site as a project. You will probably want to work on all HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc.. together in one container. Aptana is designed to deal with projects. Create a project for each site and you will find it easier to organise. Files can be copied easily between projects. Each project will live in a subfolder of the workspace folder. That also makes it easy to upload the finished site.
Aptana supports a range of different project types but it may be easiest at first to just use the basic, default project:
- Start Aptana
- If you are asked to select a workspace then just accept the default
- From the menu choose File-New-Project
- Under General choose Project and click on Finish
- Click on the Project Explorer tab on the left
- Right click on the name of your project and choose New - File
- Give the file a name (fred.html?) and you have a Web page to work on
Interface
The normal Aptana window should have the following:
- A fairly normal toolbar at the top
- A panel down the left hand side which will show the files you are working on
- A main panel which is currently showing some stuff you don't need
- Maybe a lower panel which will come in useful later
Views
The separate parts of the window in Aptana are known as "Views" and you can open more from the Window menu. At first these will not be useful but some become very useful once you know what you are doing.
Perspectives
Another important concept is "perspectives". Aptana can do many things - HTML, XML, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Java and more. It will change it's overall layout to suit what you are doing. For example the Web perspective includes the views most people will want for editing HTML. You can customise each perspective without affecting the others.
If you work on some PHP projects, some HTML projects and some Java projects you may want to swap between perspectives. Otherwise stick with the default one.
Workspaces
This is where Aptana will store all your projects plus configuration information. You can have multiple workspaces if you want to keep things separate but most of the time one is fine.
Settings
There are a ridiculous number of settings in Aptana but most you can leave for later. One very useful feature is that when you open the settings (Window - Preferences) you can type search words at the top so you can often find settings just by a good guess.
