Linux

 

I always think the best web page development environment is one that strikes a medium between being a basic text editor and a fully functional IDE. A text editor is too basic for me whereas a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver is just overpriced and irritating. What I want is a text editor with syntax highlighting, the ability to edit files via FTP and some good search functionailty.

Enter Bluefish.

Bluefish is a free text editor for Linux that does just that. You can download it from here: http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Software/56950/BlueFish.htm or you can get it through the package manager on Debian-based Linux distros:

sudo apt-get install bluefish

If you're running Kubuntu and decide you want to change to Ubuntu (i.e. use the Gnome desktop rather than KDE (which is better in my opinion)) all you need to do is to go to the shell and enter:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

You will now have to wait some time for all the Gnome apps to download and them some time for Kubuntu to get everything set up. Once that's done though all you need to do is log out and then log in and choose Gnome as the session type.

You'll now have Gnome and KDE installed which means you'll have two lots of applications for many areas (e.g. you'll have two text editors, Kate and gEdit). This is fine and won't cause you any problems. However, you may wish to remove some of these applications through the package manager if you don't want them.

If you want to get rid of KDE enter the following in the shell:

sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-desktop

If you do remove kubuntu-desktop and then find you have trouble using themes in Gnome go to the shell and enter:

switch2

Then choose your style from the dropdown; gneom-theme-manager should work fine from thereon.

Even if you tweak the font settings in Ubuntu some text still looks a little jaggy compared to OS X. You can make your fonts smoother though like this:

Go to your home directory and open up the file .fonts.conf (it's a hidden file; if you can't see it choose View < Show Hidden Files in Nautilus). Replace the current contents with:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>

Save the file; the fonts will change once you restart the X server, log out and back in again or restart.

Have you ever wanted to run Verdana, Trebuchet MS, etc on Linux - you can and it's very easy to do. Simple enter the following into a shell window:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Log out and back in again or restart and the fonts will be installed.

The following fonts are installed:

• Andale Mono
• Arial Black
• Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Comic Sans MS (Bold)
• Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Impact
• Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Webdings