What Are Some of the Top Mac Apps for Web Designers?

There are so many valuable applications available for web designers working on a Mac that it's hard to know where to start in compiling a list of recommendations. Which applications will be most useful for a given designer will depend on the goal of the design, the media to be used, the available budget, and other factors. But just to get the ball rolling, here are ten applications about which Mac users have had plenty of positive things to say:

* BBEdit *

BBEdit is a professional HTML and text editor for the Mac, powerful yet with a simple interface. It includes many valuable features, such as grep pattern matching, auto-complete, code folding, project definition tools, FTP and SFTP open and save, search and replace across multiple files, and much more. It's not cheap however, running about twice as much as TextMate.

* Coda *

An all-in-one web development tool that many Mac users swear by, Coda includes such features as live previewing, a text editor, a css editor, one-click publishing, file transfer, and Smart Spelling to spell check words and not code.

* CSSEdit *

CSSEdit has a visual interface that will feel familiar and comfortable to Mac users. This css editor is style sheet based, with the capacity to extract style sheets and learn from other websites. It boasts advanced visual editors, live preview, and Selector Builder, where you design your selectors in ordinary English and it generates the necessary code.

* Cyberduck *

For those on a budget, Cyberduck is a fine open source WebDav, FTP, SFTP, Mosso Cloud Files, and Amazon S3 browser. Users like its interface more than its file transfer speed.

* GIMP *

It's not going to do for you what Photoshop would, but for a free application, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a reasonably powerful image editing software with many useful features. Mac users will need to have Apple's X11 installed to run GIMP.

* MAMP *

MAMP stands for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, PHP. MAMP quickly installs a local website testing server. It comes with PHP extensions, including Zend.

* Pixelmator *

Not free like GIMP, but costing only a fraction as much as Photoshop, Pixelmator is a layer-based image editor. It's fast, intuitive, and features a pleasing interface. Mac users are split over whether they find Pixelmator or GIMP more useful overall.

* RapidWeaver *

RapidWeaver is a template-based web design application exclusive to the Mac OS X, with an extensive community that's created hundreds of third-party themes to choose from.

* TextMate *

TextMate is a text editor designed exclusively for the Mac. Textmate's user-friendly features include file tabbing for working with multiple files in a project at the same time.

* Transmit *

Not free like Cyberduck, but at least as highly regarded an FTP client, Transmit includes advanced features such as the capacity to edit a remote file in any software.

Even if there isn't enough space for all of them on a list of ten, other applications that draw praise from web designers working on a Mac include:

Billings
Espresso
Fontcase
Forklift
LittleSnapper
Paparazzi!
Quicksilver
Seashore
Sequel Pro
SubEthaEdit
TextExpander
Versions
xScope

to name a few....

With the above applications, there aren't many web design problems you won't be able to solve on a Mac.

Sources:

David Appleyard, "The Ultimate Mac Setup for Web Designers (60 Apps)." App Storm
Pranav Shirodkar, "10 Apps for Web Designers Using a Mac." Six Revisions.
Glen, "Essential Tools For Web Development on a Mac." Web Jackalope.
"15+ Incredibly Useful Mac Apps for Freelance Web Designers." Noupe.
"Readers Pick: 30+ Incredibly Useful Mac Apps for Web Design." Noupe.