Post by Hendy Irawan on June 2nd, 2007

Aptana IDE: Open Source Workbench for Ruby+Rails+JavaScript+HTML

Aptana IDE features

Aptana IDE has been since inception targeted to Ajax developers and power web designers, with advanced features such as JavaScript debugging and built-in searchable reference manuals for many web standards (in addition to JavaScript, DOM, CSS, and HTML, it also bundles documentation for several Ajax libraries including Scriptaculous.)

With the merge of RadRails into Aptana, the Aptana+RadRails bundled IDE now supports Ruby syntax highlighting, debugging, code completion, and support for Rails-specific tasks like defining WEBrick and Mongrel servers. Although the project is still in beta, it is already very usable for daily use.

Alternatives: EasyEclipse for Ruby on Rails, which is very easy to install (bundles the Java runtime) has RadRails built-in and you can enhance it using the Aptana plug-in. Sun's NetBeans 6 IDE bundles Ruby support (currently pre-release, but usable.) SciTE has built-in Ruby support and loads very quickly.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 2:04 am and is filed under Cool, Ruby Tricks, Ruby on Rails, Tools. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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6 Responses to “Aptana IDE: Open Source Workbench for Ruby+Rails+JavaScript+HTML”

  1. #1
    Carl Fyffe Says:
    June 2nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    Don't forget IntelliJ IDEA by JetBrains. Grab the latest pre-release and install the Ruby Plugin from IDEA's plugin manager. I have been having a blast with it.

  2. #2
    Stephen Touset Says:
    June 3rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Frankly, I'm not really interested in running Aptana until they can figure out how to package it. FFS, this is 2007.

  3. #3
    Mark Thomas Says:
    June 4th, 2007 at 7:54 pm

    Another one not to forget: Komodo IDE from ActiveState. It has excellent Rails debugging features. There's both a free product (Komodo Edit) and a supported product (Komodo IDE).

    I use the commercial version and love it.

  4. #4
    Hendy Irawan Says:
    June 5th, 2007 at 5:16 am

    Dear Carl Fyffe:

    I agree with you. Personally I think IntelliJ rocks. If JetBrains would release a free version of their quality software, I think it'd be really great for all of us. :-)

  5. #5
    Hendy Irawan Says:
    June 5th, 2007 at 5:35 am

    Dear Stephen Touset:

    I agree with you that in the past installing Aptana was quite a chore. Now it's much easier though.

    I have tried installing Aptana in Windows, Linux, and as Eclipse plugins without any problems. I'm using Sun's Java 6 JRE.

    The only problem I've come across is "connection timed out", but this is due to my inferior Internet connection.. not exactly Aptana's fault. :)

    The current Aptana+RadRails bundle is also very convenient. Along with Rails/Ruby support, you also get JavaScript and HTML support, plus documentation and references on relevant specifications.

  6. #6
    Hendy Irawan Says:
    June 5th, 2007 at 5:36 am

    Dear Mark Thomas:

    It looks cool, I haven't tried it yet... I really should :-) Thank you for your info, Mark! :)