eg-146:practical:0
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+ | ====== A Portable Web Toolkit ====== | ||
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+ | Web development is a challenging topic and you need plenty of practice to become proficient. The trouble is that, like many " | ||
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+ | ===== The Portable " | ||
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+ | The toolbox that holds the tools in your web toolkit is a clever little application called // | ||
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+ | [[http:// | ||
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+ | The three flavours are: | ||
+ | * The PortableApps.com platform which contains only the basic " | ||
+ | * The PortableApps.com "Suite Light" that contains a good set of tools including the Firefox web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird (mail reader), Mozilla Sunbird (calendar tool), password safe, anti-virus tool and an instant messenger client and the AbiWord word processor, and | ||
+ | * The PortableApps.com suite which contains the light suite (minus AbiWord) plus OpenOffice. | ||
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+ | Which of these you choose depends on how much space you have on your USB datastick and what applications you are most likely to use. In this article, I have chosen to install only the PortableApps.com platform and install only the web development tools that I need. You can save a little time by installing the Suite (if you want OpenOffice) or the Suite Light options. | ||
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+ | To save some time, I have made screencasts of the installation steps. Let me know if you'd prefer a text version as well. | ||
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+ | ===== Install the PortableApps.com Platform ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | To install the PortableApps.com platform, simply choose the " | ||
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+ | After installation, | ||
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+ | ===== Installing Portable Applications ===== | ||
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+ | Once you have installed the PortableApps.com platform, you can easily add additional applications to the PortableApps start menu by finding the application on the [[http:// | ||
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+ | **Note** to have the PortableApps start menu updated,you may have to eject the USB drive and reinsert it. | ||
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+ | The actual application will be installed in its own folder in the '' | ||
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+ | ==== Install Firefox Portable Edition ==== | ||
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+ | The latest Portable Firefox web browser should always be accessible by following the link to [[http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Install a Web Editor ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Notepad++ is a general purpose text editor with syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, Java and JavaScript (as well as many other languages). It's a good basic programmer' | ||
+ | * Nvu and KompoZer are web development tools fashioned on FrontPage and DreamWeaver. KompoZer is a bug-fixed version of Nvu which is frozen at version 1.0. Both provide support for creating standards-compliant HTML and CSS and have a site management feature based around FTP. | ||
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+ | ==== Install Some Useful Utilities ==== | ||
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+ | As a web developer, you will need a number of additional utilities in your toolkit. Of those available in portable form, the following would be the most immediately useful additions to your toolkit: | ||
+ | * Putty Portable: Telnet/SSH client for logging into your hosting service. | ||
+ | * FileZilla Portable: an FTP client for uploading files to the web. | ||
+ | * WinSCP Portable: an scp client with explorer-like drag-and-drop file manipulation. | ||
+ | * Gimp Portable: a PhotoShop replacement. | ||
+ | * 7-Zip portable: a file compression utility that knows about Windows zip and Unix tar.gz archives. | ||
+ | * KeePass Portable: a useful password encryption utility. Keep all your internet passwords safe in an ecrypted database. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Install Some Useful Firefox Extensions ===== | ||
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+ | To make Firefox even more useful you should install the [[http:// | ||
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+ | There are other useful extensions, e.g. [[https:// | ||
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+ | ===== Backing Up Your Toolkit ===== | ||
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+ | PortableApps.com comes with a backup utility which will back up your portable '' | ||
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+ | ===== Moving and Uninstalling your Portable Apps ===== | ||
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+ | Since most of the PortableApps.com apps are stored in the '' | ||
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+ | Althernatively you can just copy the PortableApps folder from the original device to the new device either by | ||
+ | - zipping the '' | ||
+ | - by dragging and dropping these files and the folder across devices. | ||
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+ | To uninstall PortableApps, | ||
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+ | ===== Conclusions ===== | ||
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+ | In this article I have described a portable web toolkit and explained how you can create your own. I hope that you have found it useful and will enjoy using the tools in the website and web application development tasks and courseworks to come. | ||
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+ | Please continue to monitor the PortableApps.com website for updates and announcements of other useful tools as they are released. | ||
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+ | If you have any comments or questions, please use this artcle' | ||
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