Aptana

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Aptana studio

Aptana Studio Community Edition running on Ubuntu
Developed by Aptana Inc.
Latest release Version 1.2 (Stable) / 2008-10-21; 174 days ago
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Web Development / IDE
License Dual License
Aptana Public License, v1.0
GNU General Public License
Website http://www.aptana.com

Aptana, Inc. is based in San Mateo, CA. Founded by Paul Colton in 2005, the company is focused on creating tools and products for web developers who use scripting languages (JavaScript, Ruby, PHP and Python) for Web 2.0 and Ajax application development. Aptana's main products are Aptana Studio, Aptana Cloud and Aptana Jaxer. Current company leadership is Paul Colton, Founder and CEO, Uri Sarid, CTO/VP, Engineering and Kevin Hakman, Director of Evangelism; total staff passed 25 after Labor Day 2008. Aptana is an active participant in the OpenAjax Alliance, with Hakman serving as director of the IDE Working Group.

Aptana Studio is an open source integrated development environment (IDE) for building Ajax web applications. It includes support for JavaScript, HTML, DOM, and CSS with code-completion, outlining, JavaScript debugging, error and warning notification and integrated documentation. Additional plugins allow Aptana Studio to be extended to support Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, Perl[1], Adobe AIR, and Apple iPhone.

Aptana Cloud is Aptana's Cloud Computing infrastructure and features an application hosting platform (consisting of Apache, MySQL, PHP and Jaxer) in the form of an Aptana Studio plugin. This plugin enables developers to create applications locally and deploy to Aptana's subscription-based Cloud service. In addition to providing a scalable hosting platform this service provides team management, hosted source control (using Subversion), remote editing/preview and synchronization between local applications hosted within Aptana Studio and production versions deployed to the Cloud.

Aptana Jaxer is an open source Ajax web server for building rich web pages and applications using a unified Ajax model wherein both client-side and server-side code can be written in JavaScript. Jaxer's server-side engine is based on Mozilla Gecko, the same browser engine that's in the Firefox browser. The Mozilla engine allows Jaxer to provide a server-side DOM in which a page may be manipulated during server-side processing using the techniques familiar to client-side programmers. Jaxer's server-side JavaScript APIs enable database access, file system access, network communications, user sessions, and other functions typical of web application servers. Jaxer also provides for access to Java objects via the open source DWR project.

Contents

[edit] Aptana Studio

Aptana Studio is based on Eclipse and is available as standalone on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, or as a plugin for Eclipse.

[edit] System requirements

  • Windows - 512 MB RAM, Pentium 4-level processor
  • Mac OS - 512 MB RAM, G5 or Intel-based machine
  • Linux - 512 MB RAM, Pentium 4-level processor

[edit] Editions

Aptana Studio is available as an open source Community Edition and a paid-for Pro Edition. This article describes the Community Edition unless stated otherwise.

[edit] Ajax Library Support

Aptana Studio ships with the following Ajax libraries, but more can be added or updated.

[edit] RadRails

Aptana Studio supports Ruby on Rails development using RadRails, an open source plugin for the Ruby on Rails framework. This includes:

  • integrated Rails shell console,
  • default-install and config of Ruby interpreter, database and debugger,
  • code completion with type inferencing,
  • Code Assist for Ruby, CSS, JS, and HTML inside RHTML files,
  • type hierarchy view,
  • go to declaration,
  • call hierarchy,
  • full implementation of RDT (Eclipse's Ruby Development Tools project).

[edit] PHP

The Aptana IDE provides support for PHP via the optional PHP plugin. This includes Code Assist on PHP functions and parameters, syntax colorization, and a code outliner.

[edit] Python

Aptana Studio provides support for Python in the form of the PyDev plugin. This provides color syntax hilighting, Code Assist, code outlining, debugging and integrated support for Python and Jython interpreters.

[edit] Adobe AIR Support

Aptana IDE provides some support for Adobe AIR.[2]

[edit] Nokia WRT

The Nokia WRT (Web Runtime) plugin provides support for developing mobile apps for Nokia S60 series phones. Apps can be previewed and debugged from within Aptana Studio. The plugin includes build-in support for the Nokia APIs.

[edit] iPhone Support

The Apple iPhone Development Plugin (beta) enables the Aptana IDE to assist in the development of iPhone applets. You'll need the newest version of Aptana (build 15637) to use it.[3]

[edit] Code Assist

Code Assist is similar to completing code statements, by presenting a pop-up with either:

  • the supported arguments for the function call begin coded;
  • the supported properties and methods on the desired object.

This applies both to built-in functions / methods and to those already coded — but the latter use requires documenting such functions/methods with ScriptDoc[4], a documentation dialect similar to that used by Javadoc.[5]

[edit] Browser support

The Code Assist feature includes information on browser support for JavaScript methods/properties, HTML elements and CSS properties.[6]

[edit] FTP/SFTP

Support for uploading downloading and synchronization using FTP. SFTP is only supported by the Pro Edition.

[edit] Debugger

Both Pro and Community editions support integrated JavaScript debugging for the Firefox browser. Internet Explorer is supported in the Pro Edition only.

[edit] License

Aptana uses a "dual licensing" model. Under this model, users may choose to use the Aptana IDE under the free software/open source GNU General Public License (commonly known as the "GPL") or under the Aptana Public License (known as the "APL").

With the GPL license, the Aptana IDE is available free of charge, as long as the redistribution (if any) of the Aptana IDE adheres to the terms of the GPL license. Users may download the software for free, and modify, integrate and distribute it.

Aptana also offers the simplified APL license for organizations that don't need to redistribute Aptana Studio or its derivatives outside of the company.[7][8]

[edit] License history

  • When launched in 2006, Aptana was released under the Eclipse Public License 1.0. They were using the EPL until milestone 8. The first few builds of milestone 9 were licensed under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 until nightly build 16120.
  • One nightly build of milestone 9 was licensed under the GNU General Public License 3.0 (build 16204)
  • Builds after 16204 have been licensed as Freeware with redistribution restrictions licensed under the Aptana Public License, v1.0.
  • On September 21st 2007, Aptana announced they would be using a dual license: GPL V3 and the freeware APL.

[edit] Aptana Jaxer

Aptana Jaxer provides a page-processing environment based on the Mozilla engine. This provides a Gecko-based DOM and SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine to enable pages to be rendered and manipulated on the server before being sent to the browser. Jaxer also provides an Ajax model for performing asynchronous requests to the server. Its client and server APIs allow such requests to be made by simply calling server-side JavaScript functions from the client. Behind the scenes, Jaxer provides the logic required to manage the request and retrieve the response from the server.

Jaxer is not a standalone web server but works with another server such as Apache, Jetty or Tomcat. Jaxer provides server-side DOM and API processing for pages served by the web server before delivering the results to the browser.

Jaxer is included in Aptana Studio and available as a separate server bundle. It is open source (GPL) and available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux/Solaris.

[edit] See also

Free software portal

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Support for Perl syntax highlight via the EPIC plugin
  2. ^ "Adobe AIR Screencast". http://www.aptana.tv/movies/aptana_air/aptana_air.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-22. 
  3. ^ "iPhone Screencast". http://www.aptana.tv/movies/iphone_screencast2/iphone_screencast2.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-22. 
  4. ^ "About Code Assist". http://www.aptana.com/docs/index.php/About_Code_Assist. Retrieved on 2008-05-22. 
  5. ^ "Documenting your code using ScriptDoc". http://www.aptana.com/docs/index.php/Documenting_your_code_using_ScriptDoc. Retrieved on 2008-05-22. 
  6. ^ "Browser Support screencast". http://www.aptana.tv/movies/aptana_browser_support/Browser%20Support.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-22. 
  7. ^ "What is Aptana's software licensing model for Aptana Studio?". Aptana Studio Frequently Asked Legal Questions. http://www.aptana.com/node/20. Retrieved on 2008-05-22. 
  8. ^ Aptana Public License

[edit] External links

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