Apple is well known for its simple design and excellent performance. Simplicity and high performance are the main reasons that all web designers prefer MACs as their working computer. They are many tools that are built to stay entertained and being highly productive. Mac acts as a great platform for making a great development because of its popular apps that are easily available to download. Here is a list of some popular applications that are beneficial for web designers and developers.
Streamline Your Workflow With Must-Have Mac OS X Applications
Website development is a time taking process, and creating even a single one requires dedication and time. And so, web developers offering iPhone Application Development Services usually have to make more deliberate efforts and spend a lot of time, in order to successfully complete the development process.
Fortunately, there are numerous applications available on the web that help web developers to better web development productivity for every platform. In this post, we will discuss some of the must-have OS X Applications that developers should consider adding to their web development toolbox.
Xcode
Xcode has everything that you’ll need to build great applications for Apple’s devices. You can download it for free from the Mac App Store. It’s a must-have application for developers who’re serious about app development. Xcode enables developers to design, code, test and debug their apps in a unified workflow. It boasts exemplary features Xcode IDE, Swift language, iOS Simulators and many more.
Espresso
Whether you’re working on a small or a large-scale project, Espresso can boost your workflow with the help of its rich set of features. It’s a web editor that provides developers with a better development environment. It boasts a Navigator that sketch out your documents hierarchical structure. No matter, how complex your code may be Espresso can help you manage it without any hassle. This application comes packed with several programmer-centric features that helps web professionals to have better control over complicated documents. It’s available for a 15 day trial period, and after the trial period is over you can choose to purchase it for $75.
Sequel Pro
MySQL is one of the most popular open-source database, which is used by a number of websites for storing their databases. In case you’re a MAC OS X developer and want to manage databases in MySQL (on your local or remote
server), then Sequel Pro is the right application for you. This is an easy-to-use, native Mac OS X application, built with Cocoa. Inlets you create, export, import, filter databases, and execute MySQL queries via your app.
ImageOptim
Sometimes the size of your app can become pretty heavy – when it comprises of plenty of images. ImageOptim is a great application that makes it easy for the developers to cut down the app’s size. Additionally, you can also use
ImageOptim to shrink down the size of your images. This will eventually help to lessen the time that images take to load.
Cloud
If you’re a developer and working on any project, then you might want to share your work with your team. Cloud application makes it extremely easy for web professionals to share their files online in the fastest way. Once you’ve uploaded this application, you can easily share anything like the screenshots, documents, code snippets and so much more for free. It even helps you keep a track of how many people have viewed your file.
Firebug
While working on your site’s web page design, Firebug renders the ability to make changes to your code and view what happens once the changes are made instantly. With the Firebug extension added into your browser, you can find the defined elements, style them and then tweak them to perfection.
Dropbox
Next on our list is Dropbox, an ideal application for storing or keeping a backup of your files. Often when working on Mac OS X web development project, there are chances that you might accidentally modify or delete a file. But, what if you need the file for reference again? A viable option is to sync your documents and files with Dropbox. And so, in case you got any of your file or document deleted, you can easily restore it (remember that the deleted files are kept for 30 days).
Keka
Most of the file packages that we want to download are often compressed either in zip, or rar formats. Though Mac system comes with a built-in feature that helps extract the different file formats, it is limited. Keka is an open-source Mac OS X app – that can be used for the compression and extraction of
any files. It primarily supports three main file formats such as zip, rar, and tar. Other than that, the Keka application also compresses several other file formats like Gzip, DMG, ISO, etc., and can extract EXE, PAX and ACE file formats as well.
IPhone Emulator
Nowadays, the need for developing a mobile-optimized website has become inevitable. More and more people today are using their mobile devices to access the web, and thus you certainly require some tool that tests your site optimization on mobile platforms. You can test your site by accessing it via a mobile phone and tablet or just use a simulator application such as the iPhone Simulator.
Alfred
If you’re a developer and want to save your time that you otherwise spend on finding files and information on your Mac, then Alfred is the perfect application for you. It’s a highly recognized Mac OS X productivity app that makes finding files and information become a breeze. That’s not it! It even helps to make you more productive, by bringing up hotkeys, and several essential file actions easily accessible.
Developer Color Picker
Every web project involves a lot of work, and thus remembering color values may make you rack your brains, especially when you’re using different color schemes in your project. This is where Panic’s developer color picker comes to your rescue. It lets you copy the declaration of color in formats such as “NSColor” and “UIColor”.
Coda
Coda is the major reason for web designers to switch over to Mac. This intuitive app of Mac makes the web development workflow to move like a breeze. The main purpose of this application is to partition the website building process for better team collaboration. This comes for an affordable cost only.
TextMate
This broad text editor application is purposely designed for Mac Computers. This clearly explains the working functionality of text editors. It is the must-have the application of all web designers.
Think
This remarkable application let to focus on the task that is in the current process. The “Illumination Panel” of this application replaces Mac OS dock by creating a numerous application, which is preferred by the user to focus on. This is a perfect application for those who get easily distracted by other applications like Facebook, Twitter, Emails, Instant messaging, Instagram.
Paparazzi
This basic tool of Mac OS X enables the user to capture screenshots of whole web pages without any external editing. Paparazzi rely on Webkit Framework and Cocoa API and written in C. This application acts as a great tool for web designers who frequently need to seize the web page for representing design mockup presentation or to fix simple web graphics on the web page they are crafting.
Aquamacs Emac
Aquamacs Emac is a robust text editor of Emac and also an extended version of Original Emac text editor. This comes with a new look of Aqua and renders a look-and-feel comfort in order to make the application blend right into Mac OS UI (User Interface). This Aquamac Emac editor is great to the web designers who repeatedly work with HTML, Java, Python, C, C++, PHP, Ruby, Perl, LaTeX and many more.
Nvu
This is a high-performance WYSIWYG editor, which offers better What You See Is What You Get effect. This application is built around rendering engine of Mozilla based browsers called Gecko. Also, this application runs over Mac X 10.2.8 and other higher versions which can make the web design even better for beginner level web designers.
Smultron
This gratuitous text editor is the best substitution for a default text editor that comes along with Mac OS in default. Smultron is easy to use and also this text editor is versatile. This application is meant to use in Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 and can also be used as a basic text editor to complete Script and HTML editors.
Scribus
This is the open source application for crafting high-quality page layouts for Linux and Mac users. Scribus is the most intensive aspect set of impressive and clean GUI. The publishing features of this colossal application includes Editing, Separations, CMYK color, ICC Color Management, and stretchy PDF Authoring characteristics.
Legacy Apps: Not Available Anymore
Xee
This straightforward Mac application let people browse images directly with ease. This is the best replacement for existing Image viewer applications that are pre-installed on Mac Operating system. It works in a smooth and fast manner by using very little system resource as well. The application offers a load of shortcuts and also a streamlined user interface to represent the list of available features.
Seashore
This is the most popular image editor that completely uses Mac OS X’s Cocoa Framework. This fully fledged image editor, which offers Photoshop a run to for gaining money, renders loads of features to all its end users. The characteristics include Gradient, Textures and other anti-aliasing options for tools like brush and text. Other than those options, it also supports the alpha channel and editing over multiple layers. This impressive image editor is on the budget for all Mac users.
Wrapping Up!
If you’re a developer and looking for Mac OS X applications that enables you to streamline your workflow and increase your productivity, then the aforementioned list of top Max OS X applications will definitely help you accomplish your objectives.
Do you have any Mac application that you can’t live without? Have you tried any of the above-listed applications? Please do share your experience with us! We would love to hear your comments!!
Addison Cohen is a blogger cum iPhone app developer. At present, he is employed with Appsted Ltd, a renowned company delivering top-notch mobile apps development services. He loves sharing the latest information on mobile app development processes.
Raji Chidu is a web content writer in ChennaiWebDevelopment and all time blogger who loves to expose her thoughts and information founded by her day to day life as well as surfing from the internet. She enjoys writing content for famous blogs.
Article Updates
- Updated on June 2019: Fixed broken links and updated to HTTPS links.